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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of English Literature, Considered as an
+Interpreter of English History, by Henry Coppee
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History
+       Designed as a Manual of Instruction
+
+Author: Henry Coppee
+
+Release Date: February 26, 2005 [EBook #15176]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH LITERATURE, ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History.
+
+Designed as a _Manual of Instruction_.
+
+By
+
+Henry Coppée, LL.D.,
+
+President of the Lehigh University.
+
+   The Roman Epic abounds in moral and poetical defects; nevertheless it
+   remains the most complete picture of the national mind at its highest
+   elevation, the most precious document of national history, if the
+   history of an age is revealed in its ideas, no less than in its events
+   and incidents.--Rev. C. Merivale.
+
+   _History of the Romans under the Empire_, c. xli.
+
+Second Edition.
+Philadelphia:
+Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger.
+1873.
+
+
+
+
+Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by Claxton,
+Remsen & Haffelfinger, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at
+Washington.
+
+
+
+Stereotyped by J. Fagan & Son, Philadelphia.
+
+
+
+
+To The Right Reverend William Bacon Stevens, D.D., LL.D., Bishop Of
+Pennsylvania.
+
+My Dear Bishop:
+
+I desire to connect your name with whatever may be useful and valuable in
+this work, to show my high appreciation of your fervent piety, varied
+learning, and elegant literary accomplishments; and, also, far more than
+this, to record the personal acknowledgment that no man ever had a more
+constant, judicious, generous and affectionate brother, than you have been
+to me, for forty years of intimate and unbroken association.
+
+Most affectionately and faithfully yours,
+
+Henry Coppée.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+
+It is not the purpose of the author to add another to the many volumes
+containing a chronological list of English authors, with brief comments
+upon each. Such a statement of works, arranged according to periods, or
+reigns of English monarchs, is valuable only as an abridged dictionary of
+names and dates. Nor is there any logical pertinence in clustering
+contemporary names about a principal author, however illustrious he may
+be. The object of this work is to present prominently the historic
+connections and teachings of English literature; to place great authors in
+immediate relations with great events in history; and thus to propose an
+important principle to students in all their reading. Thus it is that
+Literature and History are reciprocal: they combine to make eras.
+
+Merely to establish this historic principle, it would have been sufficient
+to consider the greatest authors, such as Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare,
+Milton, Dryden, and Pope; but it occurred to me, while keeping this
+principle before me, to give also a connected view of the course of
+English literature, which might, in an academic curriculum, show students
+how and what to read for themselves. Any attempt beyond this in so
+condensed a work must prove a failure, and so it may well happen that some
+readers will fail to find a full notice, or even a mention, of some
+favorite author.
+
+English literature can only be studied in the writings of the authors here
+only mentioned; but I hope that the work will be found to contain
+suggestions for making such extended reading profitable; and that teachers
+will find it valuable as a syllabus for fuller courses of lectures.
+
+To those who would like to find information as to the best editions of the
+authors mentioned, I can only say that I at first intended and began to
+note editions: I soon saw that I could not do this with any degree of
+uniformity, and therefore determined to refer all who desire this
+bibliographic assistance, to _The Dictionary of Authors_, by my friend S.
+Austin Allibone, LL.D., in which bibliography is a strong feature. I am
+not called upon to eulogize that noble work, but I cannot help saying that
+I have found it invaluable, and that whether mentioned or not, no writer
+can treat of English authors without constant recurrence to its accurate
+columns: it is a literary marvel of our age.
+
+It will be observed that the remoter periods of the literature are those
+in which the historic teachings are the most distinctly visible; we see
+them from a vantage ground, in their full scope, and in the interrelations
+of their parts. Although in the more modern periods the number of writers
+is greatly increased, we are too near to discern the entire period, and
+are in danger of becoming partisans, by reason of our limited view.
+Especially is this true of the age in which we live. Contemporary history
+is but party-chronicle: the true philosophic history can only be written
+when distance and elevation give due scope to our vision.
+
+The principle I have laid down is best illustrated by the great literary
+masters. Those of less degree have been treated at less length, and many
+of them will be found in the smaller print, to save space. Those who study
+the book should study the small print as carefully as the other.
+
+After a somewhat elaborate exposition of English literature, I could not
+induce myself to tack on an inadequate chapter on American literature;
+and, besides, I think that to treat the two subjects in one volume would
+be as incongruous as to write a joint biography of Marlborough and
+Washington. American literature is too great and noble, and has had too
+marvelous a development to be made an appendix to English literature.
+
+If time shall serve, I hope to prepare a separate volume, exhibiting the
+stages of our literature in the Colonial period, the Revolutionary epoch,
+the time of Constitutional establishment, and the present period. It will
+be found to illustrate these historical divisions in a remarkable manner.
+
+H. C.
+
+The Lehigh University, _October_, 1872.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE HISTORICAL SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT.
+
+   Literature and Science--English Literature--General Principle--Celts
+   and Cymry--Roman Conquest--Coming of the Saxons--Danish Invasions--The
+   Norman Conquest--Changes in Language
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+LITERATURE A TEACHER OF HISTORY. CELTIC REMAINS.
+
+   The Uses of Literature--Italy, France, England--Purpose of the
+   Work--Celtic Literary Remains--Druids and Druidism--Roman
+   Writers--Psalter of Cashel--Welsh Triads and Mabinogion--Gildas and St.
+   Colm
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE AND HISTORY.
+
+   The Lineage of the Anglo-Saxon--Earliest Saxon Poem--Metrical
+   Arrangement--Periphrasis and Alliteration--Beowulf--Caedmon--Other
+   Saxon Fragments--The Appearance of Bede
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE VENERABLE BEDE AND THE SAXON CHRONICLE.
+
+   Biography--Ecclesiastical History--The Recorded Miracles--Bede's
+   Latin--Other Writers--The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: its Value--Alfred the
+   Great--Effect of the Danish Invasions
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE NORMAN CONQUEST AND ITS EARLIEST LITERATURE.
+
+   Norman Rule--Its Oppression--Its Benefits--William of
+   Malmesbury--Geoffrey of Monmouth--Other Latin Chronicles--Anglo-Norman
+   Poets--Richard Wace--Other Poets
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE MORNING TWILIGHT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
+
+   Semi-Saxon Literature--Layamon--The Ormulum--Robert of
+   Gloucester--Langland. Piers Plowman--Piers Plowman's Creed--Sir Jean
+   Froissart--Sir John Mandevil
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAUCER, AND THE EARLY REFORMATION.
+
+   A New Era: Chaucer--Italian Influence--Chaucer as a Founder--Earlier
+   Poems--The Canterbury Tales--Characters--Satire--Presentations of
+   Woman--The Plan Proposed
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAUCER (CONTINUED).--REFORMS IN RELIGION AND SOCIETY.
+
+   Historical Facts--Reform in Religion--The Clergy, Regular and
+   Secular--The Friar and the Sompnour--The Pardonere--The Poure
+   Persone--John Wiclif--The Translation of the Bible--The Ashes of Wiclif
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAUCER (CONTINUED).--PROGRESS OF SOCIETY, AND OF LANGUAGE.
+
+   Social Life--Government--Chaucer's English--His Death--Historical
+   Facts--John Gower--Chaucer and Gower--Gower's Language--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE BARREN PERIOD BETWEEN CHAUCER AND SPENSER.
+
+   Greek Literature--Invention of Printing. Caxton--Contemporary
+   History--Skelton--Wyatt--Surrey--Sir Thomas Moore--Utopia, and other
+   Works--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+SPENSER AND THE ELIZABETHAN AGE.
+
+   The Great Change--Edward VI. and Mary--Sidney--The Arcadia--Defence of
+   Poesy--Astrophel and Stella--Gabriel Harvey--Edmund Spenser: Shepherd's
+   Calendar--His Great Work
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE HISTORY IN THE FAERIE QUEENE.
+
+   The Faerie Queene--The Plan Proposed--Illustrations of the History--The
+   Knight and the Lady--The Wood of Error and the Hermitage--The
+   Crusades--Britomartis and Sir Artegal--Elizabeth--Mary Queen of
+   Scots--Other Works--Spenser's Fate--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE ENGLISH DRAMA.
+
+   Origin of the Drama--Miracle Plays--Moralities--First Comedy--Early
+   Tragedies--Christopher Marlowe--Other Dramatists--Playwrights and
+   Morals
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
+
+   The Power of Shakspeare--Meagre Early History--Doubts of his
+   Identity--What is known--Marries and goes to London--"Venus" and
+   "Lucrece"--Retirement and Death--Literary Habitudes--Variety of the
+   Plays--Table of Dates and Sources
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE (CONTINUED).
+
+   The Grounds of his Fame--Creation of Character--Imagination and
+   Fancy--Power of Expression--His Faults--Influence of
+   Elizabeth--Sonnets--Ireland and Collier--Concordance--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+BACON, AND THE RISE OF THE NEW PHILOSOPHY.
+
+   Birth and Early Life--Treatment of Essex--His Appointments--His
+   Fall--Writes Philosophy--Magna Instauratio--His Defects--His Fame--His
+   Essays
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE ENGLISH BIBLE.
+
+   Early Versions--The Septuagint--The Vulgate--Wiclif;
+   Tyndale--Coverdale; Cranmer--Geneva; Bishop's Bible--King James's
+   Bible--Language of the Bible--Revision
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+JOHN MILTON, AND THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH.
+
+   Historical Facts--Charles I.--Religious Extremes--Cromwell--Birth and
+   Early Works--Views of Marriage--Other Prose Works--Effects of the
+   Restoration--Estimate of his Prose
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE POETRY OF MILTON.
+
+   The Blind Poet--Paradise Lost--Milton and Dante--His
+   Faults--Characteristics of the Age--Paradise Regained--His
+   Scholarship--His Sonnets--His Death and Fame
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+COWLEY, BUTLER, AND WALTON.
+
+   Cowley and Milton--Cowley's Life and Works--His Fame--Butler's
+   Career--Hudibras--His Poverty and Death--Izaak Walton--The Angler; and
+   Lives--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+DRYDEN, AND THE RESTORED STUARTS.
+
+   The Court of Charles II.--Dryden's Early Life--The Death of
+   Cromwell--The Restoration--Dryden's Tribute--Annus Mirabilis--Absalom
+   and Achitophel--The Death of Charles--Dryden's Conversion--Dryden's
+   Fall--His Odes 207
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF THE GREAT REBELLION AND OF THE RESTORATION.
+
+   The English Divines--Hall--Chillingsworth--Taylor--Fuller--Sir T.
+   Browne--Baxter--Fox--Bunyan--South--Other Writers 221
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE DRAMA OF THE RESTORATION.
+
+   The License of the Age--Dryden--Wycherley--Congreve--Vanbrugh--
+   Farquhar--Etherege--Tragedy--Otway--Rowe--Lee--Southern 233
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+POPE, AND THE ARTIFICIAL SCHOOL.
+
+   Contemporary History--Birth and Early Life--Essay, on Criticism--Rape
+   of the Lock--The Messiah--The Iliad--Value of the Translation--The
+   Odyssey--Essay on Man--The Artificial School--Estimate of Pope--Other
+   Writers 241
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+ADDISON, AND THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE.
+
+   The Character of the Age--Queen Anne--Whigs and Tories--George
+   I.--Addison: The Campaign--Sir Roger de Coverley--The Club--Addison's
+   Hymns--Person and Literary Character 254
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+STEELE AND SWIFT.
+
+   Sir Richard Steele--Periodicals--The Crisis--His Last Days--Jonathan
+   Swift: Poems--The Tale of a Tub--Battle of the Books--Pamphlets--M. B.
+   Drapier--Gulliver's Travels--Stella and Vanessa--His Character and
+   Death 264
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF MODERN FICTION.
+
+   The New Age--Daniel Defoe--Robinson Crusoe--Richardson--Pamela, and
+   Other Novels--Fielding--Joseph Andrews--Tom Jones--Its
+   Moral--Smollett--Roderick Random--Peregrine Pickle 280
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+STERNE, GOLDSMITH, AND MACKENZIE.
+
+   The Subjective School--Sterne: Sermons--Tristram Shandy--Sentimental
+   Journey--Oliver Goldsmith--Poems: The Vicar--Histories, and Other
+   Works--Mackenzie--The Man of Feeling 296
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE HISTORICAL TRIAD IN THE SCEPTICAL AGE.
+
+   The Sceptical Age--David Hume--History of England--Metaphysics--Essay
+   on Miracles--Robertson--Histories--Gibbon--The Decline and Fall 309
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+SAMUEL JOHNSON AND HIS TIMES.
+
+   Early Life and Career--London--Rambler and Idler--The Dictionary--Other
+   Works--Lives of the Poets--Person and Character--Style--Junius 324
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THE LITERARY FORGERS IN THE ANTIQUARIAN AGE.
+
+   The Eighteenth Century--James Macpherson--Ossian--Thomas
+   Chatterton--His Poems--The Verdict--Suicide--The Cause 334
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+POETRY OF THE TRANSITION SCHOOL.
+
+   The Transition Period--James Thomson--The Seasons--The Castle of
+   Indolence--Mark Akenside--Pleasures of the Imagination--Thomas
+   Gray--The Elegy. The Bard--William Cowper--The Task--Translation of
+   Homer--Other Writers 347
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THE LATER DRAMA.
+
+   The Progress of the Drama--Garrick--Foote--Cumberland--Sheridan--George
+   Colman--George Colman, the Younger--Other Dramatists and
+   Humorists--Other Writers on Various Subjects 360
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY: SCOTT.
+
+   Walter Scott--Translations and Minstrelsy--The Lay of the Last
+   Minstrel--Other Poems--The Waverley Novels--Particular
+   Mention--Pecuniary Troubles--His Manly Purpose--Powers
+   Overtasked--Fruitless Journey--Return and Death--His Fame 371
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY: BYRON AND MOORE.
+
+   Early Life of Byron--Childe Harold and Eastern Tales--Unhappy
+   Marriage--Philhellenism and Death--Estimate of his Poetry--Thomas
+   Moore--Anacreon--Later Fortunes--Lalla Rookh--His Diary--His Rank as
+   Poet 384
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY (CONTINUED).
+
+   Robert Burns--His Poems--His Career--George Crabbe--Thomas
+   Campbell--Samuel Rogers--P. B. Shelley--John Keats--Other Writers 397
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+WORDSWORTH, AND THE LAKE SCHOOL.
+
+   The New School--William Wordsworth--Poetical Canons--The Excursion and
+   Sonnets--An Estimate--Robert Southey--His Writings--Historical
+   Value--S. T. Coleridge--Early Life--His Helplessness--Hartley and H. N.
+   Coleridge 414
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+THE REACTION IN POETRY.
+
+   Alfred Tennyson--Early Works--The Princess--Idyls of the
+   King--Elizabeth B. Browning--Aurora Leigh--Her Faults--Robert
+   Browning--Other Poets 428
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+THE LATER HISTORIANS.
+
+   New Materials--George Grote--History of Greece--Lord Macaulay--History
+   of England--Its Faults--Thomas Carlyle--Life of Frederick II.--Other
+   Historians 439
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE LATER NOVELISTS AS SOCIAL REFORMERS.
+
+   Bulwer--Changes in Writers--Dickens's Novels--American Notes--His
+   Varied Powers--Second Visit to America--Thackeray--Vanity Fair--Henry
+   Esmond--The Newcomes--The Georges--Estimate of his Powers 450
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+THE LATER WRITERS.
+
+   Charles Lamb--Thomas Hood--Thomas de Quincey--Other Novelists--Writers
+   on Science and Philosophy 466
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+ENGLISH JOURNALISM.
+
+   Roman News Letters--The Gazette--The Civil War--Later Divisions--The
+   Reviews--The Monthlies--The Dailies--The London Times--Other Newspapers
+   475
+
+
+Alphabetical Index of Authors
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE HISTORICAL SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT.
+
+
+   Literature and Science. English Literature. General Principle. Celts
+   and Cymry. Roman Conquest. Coming of the Saxons. Danish Invasions. The
+   Norman Conquest. Changes in Language.
+
+
+
+LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.
+
+
+There are two words in the English language which are now used to express
+the two great divisions of mental production--_Science_ and _Literature_;
+and yet, from their etymology, they have so much in common, that it has
+been necessary to attach to each a technical meaning, in order that we may
+employ them without confusion.
+
+_Science_, from the participle _sciens_, of _scio, scire_, to know, would
+seem to comprise all that can be known--what the Latins called the _omne
+scibile_, or all-knowable.
+
+_Literature_ is from _litera_, a letter, and probably at one remove from
+_lino, litum_, to anoint or besmear, because in the earlier times a tablet
+was smeared with wax, and letters were traced upon it with a graver.
+Literature, in its first meaning, would, therefore, comprise all that can
+be conveyed by the use of letters.
+
+But language is impatient of retaining two words which convey the same
+meaning; and although science had at first to do with the fact of knowing
+and the conditions of knowledge in the abstract, while literature meant
+the written record of such knowledge, a far more distinct sphere has been
+given to each in later times, and special functions assigned them.
+
+In general terms, Science now means any branch of knowledge in which men
+search for principles reaching back to the ultimate, or for facts which
+establish these principles, or are classified by them in a logical order.
+Thus we speak of the mathematical, physical, metaphysical, and moral
+sciences.
+
+Literature, which is of later development as at present used, comprises
+those subjects which have a relation to human life and human nature
+through the power of the imagination and the fancy. Technically,
+literature includes _history, poetry, oratory, the drama_, and _works of
+fiction_, and critical productions upon any of these as themes.
+
+Such, at least, will be a sufficiently exact division for our purpose,
+although the student will find them overlapping each other's domain
+occasionally, interchanging functions, and reciprocally serving for each
+other's advantage. Thus it is no confusion of terms to speak of the poetry
+of science and of the science of poetry; and thus the great functions of
+the human mind, although scientifically distinct, co-operate in harmonious
+and reciprocal relations in their diverse and manifold productions.
+
+
+ENGLISH LITERATURE.--English Literature may then be considered as
+comprising the progressive productions of the English mind in the paths of
+imagination and taste, and is to be studied in the works of the poets,
+historians, dramatists, essayists, and romancers--a long line of brilliant
+names from the origin of the language to the present day.
+
+To the general reader all that is profitable in this study dates from the
+appearance of Chaucer, who has been justly styled the Father of English
+Poetry; and Chaucer even requires a glossary, as a considerable portion
+of his vocabulary has become obsolete and much of it has been modified;
+but for the student of English literature, who wishes to understand its
+philosophy and its historic relations, it becomes necessary to ascend to a
+more remote period, in order to find the origin of the language in which
+Chaucer wrote, and the effect produced upon him by any antecedent literary
+works, in the root-languages from which the English has sprung.
+
+
+GENERAL PRINCIPLE.--It may be stated, as a general principle, that to
+understand a nation's literature, we must study the history of the people
+and of their language; the geography of the countries from which they
+came, as well as that in which they live; the concurrent historic causes
+which have conspired to form and influence the literature. We shall find,
+as we advance in this study, that the life and literature of a people are
+reciprocally reflective.
+
+
+I. CELTS AND CYMRY.--Thus, in undertaking the study of English literature,
+we must begin with the history of the Celts and Cymry, the first
+inhabitants of the British Islands of whom we have any record, who had
+come from Asia in the first great wave of western migration; a rude,
+aboriginal people, whose languages, at the beginning of the Christian era,
+were included in one family, the _Celtic_, comprising the _British_ or
+_Cambrian_, and the _Gadhelic_ classes. In process of time these were
+subdivided thus:
+
+    The British into
+      _Welsh_, at present spoken in Wales.
+      _Cornish_, extinct only within a century.
+      _Armorican_, Bas Breton, spoken in French Brittany.
+    The Gadhelic into
+      _Gaelic_, still spoken in the Scottish Highlands.
+      _Irish_, or _Erse_, spoken in Ireland.
+      _Manx_, spoken in the Isle of Man.
+
+Such are the first people and dialects to be considered as the antecedent
+occupants of the country in which English literature was to have its
+birth.
+
+
+II. ROMAN CONQUEST.--But these Celtic peoples were conquered by the Romans
+under Cæsar and his successors, and kept in a state of servile thraldom
+for four hundred and fifty years. There was but little amalgamation
+between them and their military masters. Britain was a most valuable
+northern outpost of the Roman Empire, and was occupied by large garrisons,
+which employed the people in hard labors, and used them for Roman
+aggrandizement, but despised them too much to attempt to elevate their
+condition. Elsewhere the Romans depopulated, where they met with barbarian
+resistance; they made a solitude and called it peace--for which they gave
+a triumph and a cognomen to the conqueror; but in Britain, although
+harassed and endangered by the insurrections of the natives, they bore
+with them; they built fine cities like London and York, originally
+military outposts, and transformed much of the country between the Channel
+and the Tweed from pathless forest into a civilized residence.
+
+
+III. COMING OF THE SAXONS.--Compelled by the increasing dangers and
+troubles immediately around the city of Rome to abandon their distant
+dependencies, the Roman legions evacuated Britain, and left the people,
+who had become enervated, spiritless, and unaccustomed to the use of arms,
+a prey to their fierce neighbors, both from Scotland and from the
+continent.
+
+The Saxons had already made frequent incursions into Britain, while rival
+Roman chieftains were contesting for pre-eminence, and, as early as the
+third century, had become so troublesome that the Roman emperors were
+obliged to appoint a general to defend the eastern coast, known as _comes
+litoris Saxonici_, or count of the Saxon shore.[1]
+
+These Saxons, who had already tested the goodliness of the land, came when
+the Romans departed, under the specious guise of protectors of the Britons
+against the inroads of the Picts and Scots; but in reality to possess
+themselves of the country. This was a true conquest of race--Teutons
+overrunning Celts. They came first in reconnoitring bands; then in large
+numbers, not simply to garrison, as the Romans had done, but to occupy
+permanently. From the less attractive seats of Friesland and the basin of
+the Weser, they came to establish themselves in a charming country,
+already reclaimed from barbarism, to enslave or destroy the inhabitants,
+and to introduce their language, religion, and social institutions. They
+came as a confederated people of German race--Saxons, Angles, Jutes, and
+Frisians;[2] but, as far as the results of their conquest are concerned,
+there was entire unity among them.
+
+The Celts, for a brief period protected by them from their fierce northern
+neighbors, were soon enslaved and oppressed: those who resisted were
+driven slowly to the Welsh mountains, or into Cornwall, or across the
+Channel into French Brittany. Great numbers were destroyed. They left few
+traces of their institutions and their language. Thus the Saxon was
+established in its strength, and has since remained the strongest element
+of English ethnography.
+
+
+IV. DANISH INVASIONS.--But Saxon Britain was also to suffer from
+continental incursions. The Scandinavians--inhabitants of Norway, Sweden,
+and Denmark--impelled by the same spirit of piratical adventure which had
+actuated the Saxons, began to leave their homes for foreign conquest.
+"Impatient of a bleak climate and narrow limits, they started from the
+banquet, grasped their arms, sounded their horn, ascended their ships, and
+explored every coast that promised either spoil or settlement."[3] To
+England they came as Danes; to France, as Northmen or Normans. They took
+advantage of the Saxon wars with the British, of Saxon national feuds, and
+of that enervation which luxurious living had induced in the Saxon kings
+of the octarchy, and succeeded in occupying a large portion of the north
+and east of England; and they have exerted in language, in physical type,
+and in manners a far greater influence than has been usually conceded.
+Indeed, the Danish chapter in English history has not yet been fairly
+written. They were men of a singularly bold and adventurous spirit, as is
+evinced by their voyages to Iceland, Greenland, and thence to the Atlantic
+coast of North America, as early as the tenth and eleventh centuries. It
+is more directly to our purpose to observe their character as it is
+displayed in their conquest of the Frankish kingdom of Neustria, in their
+facile reception and ready assimilation of the Roman language and arts
+which they found in Gaul, and in their forcible occupancy, under William
+the Conqueror, of Saxon England, in 1066.
+
+
+V. THE NORMAN CONQUEST.--The vigor of the Normans had been trained, but
+not weakened by their culture in Normandy. They maintained their supremacy
+in arms against the efforts of the kings of France. They had long
+cultivated intimate relations with England, and their dukes had long
+hankered for its possession. William, the natural son of Duke
+Robert--known to history and musical romance as Robert le Diable--was a
+man of strong mind, tenacious purpose, and powerful hand. He had obtained,
+by promise of Edward the Confessor, the reversion of the crown upon the
+death of that monarch; and when the issue came, he availed himself of
+that reversion and the Pope's sanction, and also of the disputed
+succession between Harold, the son of Godwin, and the true Saxon heir,
+Edgar Atheling, to make good his claim by force of arms.
+
+Under him the Normans were united, while divisions existed in the Saxon
+ranks. Tostig, the brother of Harold, and Harald Hardrada, the King of
+Norway, combined against Harold, and, just before the landing of Duke
+William at Pevensey, on the coast of Sussex, Harold was obliged to march
+rapidly northward to Stanford bridge, to defeat Tostig and the Norwegians,
+and then to return with a tired army of uncertain _morale_, to encounter
+the invading Normans. Thus it appears that William conquered the land,
+which would have been invincible had the leaders and the people been
+united in its defence.
+
+As the Saxons, Danes, and Normans were of the same great Teutonic family,
+however modified by the different circumstances of movement and residence,
+there was no new ethnic element introduced; and, paradoxical as it may
+seem, the fusion of these peoples was of great benefit, in the end, to
+England. Though the Saxons at first suffered from Norman oppression, the
+kingdom was brought into large inter-European relations, and a far better
+literary culture was introduced, more varied in subject, more developed in
+point of language, and more artistic.
+
+Thus much, in a brief historical summary, is necessary as an introduction
+to our subject. From all these contests and conquests there were wrought
+in the language of the country important changes, which are to be studied
+in the standard works of its literature.
+
+
+CHANGES IN LANGUAGE.--The changes and transformations of language may be
+thus briefly stated:--In the Celtic period, before the arrival of the
+Romans, the people spoke different dialects of the Celtic and Gadhelic
+languages, all cognate and radically similar.
+
+These were not much affected by the occupancy of the Romans for about four
+hundred and fifty years, although, doubtless, Latin words, expressive of
+things and notions of which the British had no previous knowledge, were
+adopted by them, and many of the Celtic inhabitants who submitted to these
+conquerors learned and used the Latin language.
+
+When the Romans departed, and the Saxons came in numbers, in the fifth and
+sixth centuries, the Saxon language, which is the foundation of English,
+became the current speech of the realm; adopting few Celtic words, but
+retaining a considerable number of the Celtic names of places, as it also
+did of Latin terminations in names.
+
+Before the coming of the Normans, their language, called the _Langue
+d'oil_, or Norman French, had been very much favored by educated
+Englishmen; and when William conquered England, he tried to supplant the
+Saxon entirely. In this he was not successful; but the two languages were
+interfused and amalgamated, so that in the middle of the twelfth century,
+there had been thus created the _English language_, formed but still
+formative. The Anglo-Saxon was the foundation, or basis; while the Norman
+French is observed to be the principal modifying element.
+
+Since the Norman conquest, numerous other elements have entered, most of
+them quietly, without the concomitant of political revolution or foreign
+invasion.
+
+Thus the Latin, being used by the Church, and being the language of
+literary and scientific comity throughout the world, was constantly adding
+words and modes of expression to the English. The introduction of Greek
+into Western Europe, at the fall of Constantinople, supplied Greek words,
+and induced a habit of coining English words from the Greek. The
+establishment of the Hanoverian succession, after the fall of the Stuarts,
+brought in the practice and study of German, and somewhat of its
+phraseology; and English conquests in the East have not failed to
+introduce Indian words, and, what is far better, to open the way for a
+fuller study of comparative philology and linguistics.
+
+In a later chapter we shall reconsider the periods referred to, in an
+examination of the literary works which they contain, works produced by
+historical causes, and illustrative of historical events.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+LITERATURE A TEACHER OF HISTORY. CELTIC REMAINS.
+
+
+   The Uses of Literature. Italy, France, England. Purpose of the Work.
+   Celtic Literary Remains. Druids and Druidism. Roman Writers. Psalter of
+   Cashel. Welsh Triads and Mabinogion. Gildas and St. Colm.
+
+
+
+THE USES OF LITERATURE.
+
+
+Before examining these periods in order to find the literature produced in
+them, it will be well to consider briefly what are the practical uses of
+literature, and to set forth, as a theme, that particular utility which it
+is the object of these pages to inculcate and apply.
+
+The uses of literature are manifold. Its study gives wholesome food to the
+mind, making it strong and systematic. It cultivates and delights the
+imagination and the taste of men. It refines society by elevating the
+thoughts and aspirations above what is sensual and sordid, and by checking
+the grosser passions; it makes up, in part, that "multiplication of
+agreeable consciousness" which Dr. Johnson calls happiness. Its
+adaptations in religion, in statesmanship, in legislative and judicial
+inquiry, are productive of noble and beneficent results. History shows us,
+that while it has given to the individual man, in all ages, contemplative
+habits, and high moral tone, it has thus also been a powerful instrument
+in producing the brilliant civilization of mighty empires.
+
+
+A TEACHER OF HISTORY.--But apart from these its subjective benefits, it
+has its highest and most practical utility as a TEACHER OF HISTORY.
+Ballads, more powerful than laws, shouted forth from a nation's heart,
+have been in part the achievers, and afterward the victorious hymns, of
+its new-born freedom, and have been also used in after ages to reinspire
+the people with the spirit of their ancestors. Immortal epics not only
+present magnificent displays of heroism for imitation, but, like the Iliad
+and Odyssey, still teach the theogony, national policy, and social history
+of a people, after the Bema has long been silent, the temples in ruin, and
+the groves prostrate under the axe of repeated conquests.
+
+Satires have at once exhibited and scourged social faults and national
+follies, and remained to after times as most essential materials for
+history.
+
+Indeed, it was a quaint but just assertion of Hare, in his "Guesses at
+Truth," that in Greek history there is nothing truer than Herodotus except
+Homer.
+
+
+ITALY AND FRANCE.--Passing by the classic periods, which afford abundant
+illustration of the position, it would be easy to exhibit the clear and
+direct historic teachings in purely literary works, by a reference to the
+literature of Italy and France. The history of the age of the Guelphs and
+Ghibellines is clearly revealed in the vision of Dante: the times of Louis
+XIV. are amply illustrated by the pulpit of Massillon, Bourdaloue, and
+Bridaine, and by the drama of Corneille, Racine, and Molière.
+
+
+ENGLISH LITERATURE THE BEST ILLUSTRATION.--But in seeking for an
+illustration of the position that literature is eminently a teacher and
+interpreter of history, we are fortunate in finding none more striking
+than that presented by English literature itself. All the great events of
+English history find complete correspondent delineation in English
+literature, so that, were the purely historical record lost, we should
+have in the works of poetry, fiction, and the drama, correct portraitures
+of the character, habits, manners and customs, political sentiments, and
+modes and forms of religious belief among the English people; in a word,
+the philosophy of English history.
+
+In the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Dryden, and Addison, are to
+be found the men and women, kings, nobles, and commons, descriptions of
+English nature, hints of the progress of science and advancement in art;
+the conduct of government, the force of prevailing fashions--in a word,
+the moving life of the time, and not its dry historic record.
+
+"Authors," says the elder D'Israeli, "are the creators or creatures of
+opinion: the great form the epoch; the many reflect the age."
+Chameleon-like, most of them take the political, social, and religious
+hues of the period in which they live, while a few illustrate it perhaps
+quite as forcibly by violent opposition and invective.
+
+We shall see that in Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_ and in Gower's _Vox
+Clamantis_ are portrayed the political ferments and theological
+controversies of the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. Spenser decks
+the history of his age in gilded mantle and flowing plumes, in his tribute
+to Gloriana, The Faery Queen, who is none other than Elizabeth herself.
+Literature partakes of the fierce polemic and religious enthusiasm which
+mark the troublous times of the Civil War; it becomes tawdry, tinselled,
+and licentious at the Restoration, and develops into numerous classes and
+more serious instruction, under the constitutional reigns of the house of
+Hanover, in which the kings were bad, but the nation prosperous because
+the rights of the people were guaranteed.
+
+Many of the finest works of English literature are _purely and directly
+historical_; what has been said is intended to refer more particularly to
+those that are not--the unconscious, undesigned teachers of history, such
+as fiction, poetry, and the drama.
+
+
+PURPOSE OF THE WORK.--Such, then, is the purpose of this volume--to
+indicate the teachings of history in the principal productions of English
+literature. Only the standard authors will be considered, and the student
+will not be overburdened with statistics, which it must be a part of his
+task to collect for himself. And now let us return to the early literature
+embodied in those languages which have preceded the English on British
+soil; or which, by their combination, have formed the English language.
+For, the English language may be properly compared to a stream, which,
+rising in a feeble source, receives in its seaward flow many tributaries,
+large and small, until it becomes a lordly river. The works of English
+literature may be considered as the ships and boats which it bears upon
+its bosom: near its source the craft are small and frail; as it becomes
+more navigable, statelier vessels are launched upon it, until, in its
+majestic and lakelike extensions, rich navies ride, freighted with wealth
+and power--the heavy ordnance of defence and attack, the products of
+Eastern looms, the precious metals and jewels from distant mines--the best
+exponents of the strength and prosperity of the nation through which flows
+the river of speech, bearing the treasures of mind.
+
+
+CELTIC LITERARY REMAINS. THE DRUIDS.--Let us take up the consideration of
+literature in Britain in the order of the conquests mentioned in the first
+chapter.
+
+We recur to Britain while inhabited by the Celts, both before and after
+the Roman occupation. The extent of influence exercised by the Latin
+language upon the Celtic dialects cannot be determined; it seems to have
+been slight, and, on the other hand, it may be safely assumed that the
+Celtic did not contribute much to the world-absorbing Latin.
+
+The chief feature, and a very powerful one, of the Celtic polity, was
+_Druidism_. At its head was a priesthood, not in the present meaning of
+the word, but in the more extended acceptation which it received in the
+middle ages, when it embraced the whole class of men of letters. Although
+we have very few literary remains, the system, wisdom, and works of the
+Druids form one of the strong foundation-stones of English literature and
+of English national customs, and should be studied on that account. The
+_Druid_ proper was governor, judge, philosopher, expounder, and
+executioner. The _ovaidd_, or _ovates_, were the priests, chiefly
+concerned in the study of theology and the practice of religion. The
+_bards_ were heroic poets of rare lyric power; they kept the national
+traditions in trust, and claimed the second sight and the power of
+prophecy. Much has been said of their human sacrifices in colossal images
+of wicker-work--the "_immani magnitudine simulacra_" of Cæsar--which were
+filled with human victims, and which crackled and disappeared in towering
+flame and columns of smoke, amid the loud chantings of the bards. The most
+that can be said in palliation of this custom is, that almost always such
+a scene presented the judicial execution of criminals, invested with the
+solemnities of religion.
+
+In their theology, _Esus_, the God Force--the Eternal Father--has for his
+agents the personification of spiritual light, of immortality, of nature,
+and of heroism; _Camul_ was the war-god; _Tarann_ the thunder-god; _Heol_,
+the king of the sun, who inflames the soldier's heart, and gives vitality
+to the corn and the grape.[4]
+
+But Druidism, which left its monuments like Stonehenge, and its strong
+traces in English life, now especially found in Wales and other
+mountainous parts of the kingdom, has not left any written record.
+
+
+ROMAN WRITERS.--Of the Roman occupancy we have Roman and Greek accounts,
+many of them by those who took part in the doings of the time. Among the
+principal writers are _Julius Cæsar_, _Tacitus_, _Diodorus Siculus_,
+_Strabo_, and _Suetonius_.
+
+
+PSALTER OF CASHEL.--Of the later Celtic efforts, almost all are in Latin:
+the oldest Irish work extant is called the _Psalter of Cashel_, which is a
+compilation of the songs of the early bards, and of metrical legends, made
+in the ninth century by _Cormac Mac Culinan_, who claimed to be King of
+Munster and Bishop of Cashel.
+
+
+THE WELSH TRIADS.--The next of the important Celtic remains is called _The
+Welsh Triads_, an early but progressive work of the Cymbric Celts. Some of
+the triads are of very early date, and others of a much later period. The
+work is said to have been compiled in its present form by _Caradoc of
+Nantgarvan_ and _Jevan Brecha_, in the thirteenth century. It contains a
+record of "remarkable men and things which have been in the island of
+Britain, and of the events which befell the race of the Cymri from the age
+of ages," i.e. from the beginning. It has also numerous moral proverbs. It
+is arranged in _triads_, or sets of three.
+
+As an example, we have one triad giving "The three of the race of the
+island of Britain: _Hu Gadarn_, (who first brought the race into Britain;)
+_Prydain_, (who first established regal government,) and _Dynwal Moelmud_,
+(who made a system of laws.)" Another triad presents "The three benevolent
+tribes of Britain: the _Cymri_, (who came with Hu Gadarn from
+Constantinople;) the _Lolegrwys_, (who came from the Loire,) and the
+_Britons_"
+
+Then are mentioned the tribes that came with consent and under protection,
+viz., the _Caledonians_, the _Gwyddelian race_, and the men of _Galedin_,
+who came from the continent "when their country was drowned;" the last
+inhabited the Isle of Wight. Another mentions the three usurping tribes;
+the _Coranied_, the _Gwydel-Fichti_, (from Denmark,) and the _Saxons_.
+Although the _compilation_ is so modern, most of the triads date from the
+sixth century.
+
+
+THE MABINOGION.--Next in order of importance of the Celtic remains must be
+mentioned the Mabinogion, or _Tales for Youth_, a series of romantic
+tales, illustrative of early British life, some of which have been
+translated from the Celtic into English. Among these the most elaborate is
+the _Tale of Peredur_, a regular Romance of Arthur, entirely Welsh in
+costume and character.
+
+
+BRITISH BARDS.--A controversy has been fiercely carried on respecting the
+authenticity of poems ascribed to _Aneurin_, _Taliesin_, _Llywarch Hen_,
+and _Merdhin_, or _Merlin_, four famous British bards of the fifth and
+sixth centuries, who give us the original stories respecting Arthur,
+representing him not as a "miraculous character," as the later histories
+do, but as a courageous warrior worthy of respect but not of wonder. The
+burden of the evidence, carefully collected and sifted by Sharon
+Turner,[5] seems to be in favor of the authenticity of these poems.
+
+These works are fragmentary and legendary: they have given few elements to
+the English language, but they show us the condition and culture of the
+British mind in that period, and the nature of the people upon whom the
+Saxons imposed their yoke. "The general spirit [of the early British
+poetry] is much more Druidical than Christian,"[6] and in its mysterious
+and legendary nature, while it has been not without value as a historical
+representation of that early period, it has offered rare material for
+romantic poetry from that day to the present time. It is on this account
+especially that these works should be studied.
+
+
+GILDAS.--Among the writers who must be considered as belonging to the
+Celtic race, although they wrote in Latin, the most prominent is _Gildas_.
+He was the son of Caw, (Alcluyd, a British king,) who was also the father
+of the famous bard Aneurin. Many have supposed Gildas and Aneurin to be
+the same person, so vague are the accounts of both. If not, they were
+brothers. Gildas was a British bard, who, when converted to Christianity,
+became a Christian priest, and a missionary among his own people. He was
+born at Dumbarton in the middle of the sixth century, and was surnamed
+_the Wise_. His great work, the History of the Britons, is directly
+historical: his account extends from the first invasion of Britain down to
+his own time.
+
+A true Celt, he is a violent enemy of the Roman conquerors first, and then
+of the Saxon invaders. He speaks of the latter as "the nefarious Saxons,
+of detestable name, hated alike by God and man; ... a band of devils
+breaking forth from the den of the barbarian lioness."
+
+The history of Gildas, although not of much statistical value, sounds a
+clear Celtic note against all invaders, and displays in many parts
+characteristic outlines of the British people.
+
+
+ST. COLUMBANUS.--St. Colm, or Columbanus, who was born in 521, was the
+founder and abbot of a monastery in Iona, one of the Hebrides, which is
+also called Icolmkill--the Isle of Colm's Cell. The Socrates of that
+retreat, he found his Plato in the person of a successor, St. Adamnan,
+whose "Vita Sancti Columbae" is an early work of curious historical
+importance. St. Adamnan became abbot in 679.
+
+A backward glance at the sparse and fragmentary annals of the Celtic
+people, will satisfy us that they have but slight claims to an original
+share in English literature. Some were in the Celtic dialects, others in
+Latin. They have given themes, indeed, to later scholars, but have left
+little trace in form and language. The common Celtic words retained in
+English are exceedingly few, although their number has not been decided.
+They form, in some sense, a portion of the foundation on which the
+structure of our literature has been erected, without being in any manner
+a part of the building itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE AND HISTORY.
+
+
+   The Lineage of the Anglo-Saxon. Earliest Saxon Poem. Metrical
+   Arrangement. Periphrasis and Alliteration. Beowulf. Caedmon. Other
+   Saxon Fragments. The Appearance of Bede.
+
+
+
+THE LINEAGE OF THE ANGLO-SAXON.
+
+
+The true origin of English literature is Saxon. Anglo-Saxon is the mother
+tongue of the English language, or, to state its genealogy more
+distinctly, and to show its family relations at a glance, take the
+following divisions and subdivisions of the
+
+                          TEUTONIC CLASS.
+                                |
+           .--------------------+-------------------.
+           |                    |                   |
+   High German branch.  Low German branch.  Scandinavian branch.
+                                |
+                        Dead    |  Languages.
+      .----------+--------------+-------------+------------.
+      |          |              |             |            |
+   Gothic.   Old Dutch.    Anglo-Saxon.  Old Frisian.  Old Saxon.
+                                |
+                             English.
+
+Without attempting an analysis of English to find the exact proportion of
+Saxon words, it must be observed that Saxon is the root-language of
+English; it might with propriety be called the oldest English; it has been
+manipulated, modified, and developed in its contact with other
+languages--remaining, however, _radically_ the same--to become our present
+spoken language.
+
+At this period of our inquiry, we have to do with the Saxon itself,
+premising, however, that it has many elements from the Dutch, and that its
+Scandinavian relations are found in many Danish words. The progress and
+modifications of the language in that formative process which made it the
+English, will be mentioned as we proceed in our inquiries.
+
+In speaking of the Anglo-Saxon literature, we include a consideration also
+of those works written in Latin which are products of the times, and bear
+a part in the progress of the people and their literature. They are
+exponents of the Saxon mind, frequently of more value than the vernacular
+writings.
+
+
+EARLIEST SAXON POEM.--The earliest literary monument in the Saxon language
+is the poem called Beowulf, the author and antiquity of which are alike
+unknown. It is at once a romantic legend and an instructive portraiture of
+the earliest Saxon period--"an Anglo-Saxon poetical romance," says Sharon
+Turner, "true in costume and manners, but with an invented story." Before
+proceeding to a consideration of this poem, let us look for a moment at
+some of the characteristics of Saxon poetry. As to its subject-matter, it
+is not much of a love-song, that sentiment not being one of its chief
+inspirations. The Saxon imagination was inflamed chiefly by the religious
+and the heroic in war. As to its handling, it abounded in metaphor and
+periphrasis, suggestive images, and parables instead of direct narrative.
+
+
+METRICAL ARRANGEMENT.--As to metrical arrangement, Saxon poetry differed
+from our modern English as well as from the classical models, in that
+their poets followed no laws of metre, but arranged their vernacular
+verses without any distinct rules, but simply to please the ear. "To such
+a selection and arrangement of words as produced this effect, they added
+the habit of frequently omitting the usual particles, and of conveying
+their meaning in short and contracted phrases. The only artifices they
+used were those of inversion and transition."[7] It is difficult to give
+examples to those unacquainted with the language, but the following
+extract may serve to indicate our meaning: it is taken from Beowulf:
+
+    Crist waer a cennijd
+    Cýninga wuldor
+    On midne winter:
+    Mære theoden!
+    Ece almihtig!
+    On thij eahteothan daeg
+    Hael end gehaten
+    Heofon ricet theard.
+
+    Christ was born
+    King of glory
+    In mid-winter:
+    Illustrious King!
+    Eternal, Almighty!
+    On the eighth day
+    Saviour was called,
+    Of Heaven's kingdom ruler.
+
+
+PERIPHRASIS.--Their periphrasis, or finding figurative names for persons
+and things, is common to the Norse poetry. Thus Caedmon, in speaking of
+the ark, calls it the _sea-house, the palace of the ocean, the wooden
+fortress_, and by many other periphrastic names.
+
+
+ALLITERATION.--The Saxons were fond of alliteration, both in prose and
+verse. They used it without special rules, but simply to satisfy their
+taste for harmony in having many words beginning with the same letter; and
+thus sometimes making an arbitrary connection between the sentences or
+clauses in a discourse, e.g.:
+
+    Firum foldan;
+    Frea almihtig;
+
+    The ground for men
+    Almighty ruler.
+
+The nearest approach to a rule was that three words in close connection
+should begin with the same letter. The habit of ellipsis and transposition
+is illustrated by the following sentence in Alfred's prose: "So doth the
+moon with his pale light, that the bright stars he obscures in the
+heavens;" which he thus renders in poetry:
+
+    With pale light
+    Bright stars
+    Moon lesseneth.
+
+With this brief explanation, which is only intended to be suggestive to
+the student, we return to Beowulf.
+
+
+THE PLOT OF BEOWULF.--The poem contains six thousand lines, in which are
+told the wonderful adventures of the valiant viking Beowulf, who is
+supposed to have fallen in Jutland in the year 340. The Danish king
+Hrothgar, in whose great hall banquet, song, and dance are ever going on,
+is subjected to the stated visits of a giant, Grendel, a descendant of
+Cain, who destroys the Danish knights and people, and against whom no
+protection can be found.
+
+Beowulf, the hero of the epic, appears. He is a great chieftain, the
+_heorth-geneat_ (hearth-companion, or vassal) of a king named Higelac. He
+assembles his companions, goes over the road of the swans (the sea) to
+Denmark, or Norway, states his purpose to Hrothgar, and advances to meet
+Grendel. After an indecisive battle with the giant, and a fierce struggle
+with the giant's mother, who attacks him in the guise of a sea-wolf, he
+kills her, and then destroys Grendel. Upon the death of Hrothgar he
+receives his reward in being made King of the Danes.
+
+With this occurrence the original poem ends: it is the oldest epic poem in
+any modern language. At a later day, new cantos were added, which,
+following the fortunes of the hero, record at length that he was killed by
+a dragon. A digest and running commentary of the poem may be found in
+Turner's Anglo-Saxons; and no one can read it without discerning the
+history shining clearly out of the mists of fable. The primitive manners,
+modes of life, forms of expression, are all historically delineated. In it
+the intimate relations between the _king_ and his people are portrayed.
+The Saxon _cyning_ is compounded of _cyn_, people, and _ing_, a son or
+descendant; and this etymology gives the true conditions of their rule:
+they were popular leaders--_elected_ in the witenagemot on the death of
+their predecessors.[8] We observe, too, the spirit of adventure--a rude
+knight-errantry--which characterized these northern sea-kings
+
+    that with such profit and for deceitful glory
+    labor on the wide sea explore its bays
+    amid the contests of the ocean in the deep waters
+    there they for riches till they sleep with their elders.
+
+We may also notice the childish wonder of a rude, primitive, but brave
+people, who magnified a neighboring monarch of great skill and strength,
+or perhaps a malarious fen, into a giant, and who were pleased with a poem
+which caters to that heroic mythus which no civilization can root out of
+the human breast, and which gives at once charm and popularity to every
+epic.
+
+
+CAEDMON.--Next in order, we find the paraphrase of Scripture by _Caedmon_,
+a monk of Whitby, who died about the year 680. The period in which he
+lived is especially marked by the spread of Christianity in Britain, and
+by a religious zeal mingled with the popular superstitions. The belief was
+universal that holy men had the power to work miracles. The Bible in its
+entire canon was known to few even among the ecclesiastics: treasure-house
+as it was to the more studious clerics, it was almost a sealed book to the
+common people. It would naturally be expected, then, that among the
+earliest literary efforts would be found translations and paraphrases of
+the most interesting portions of the Scripture narrative. It was in
+accordance with the spirit of the age that these productions should be
+attended with something of the marvellous, to give greater effect to the
+doctrine, and be couched in poetic language, the especial delight of
+people in the earlier ages of their history. Thus the writings of Caedmon
+are explained: he was a poor serving-brother in the monastery of Whitby,
+who was, or feigned to be, unable to improvise Scripture stories and
+legends of the saints as his brethren did, and had recourse to a vision
+before he exhibited his fluency.
+
+In a dream, in a stall of oxen of which he was the appointed night-guard,
+an angelic stranger asked him to sing. "I cannot sing," said Caedmon.
+"Sing the creation," said the mysterious visitant. Feeling himself thus
+miraculously aided, Caedmon paraphrased in his dream the Bible story of
+the creation, and not only remembered the verses when he awoke, but found
+himself possessed of the gift of song for all his days.
+
+Sharon Turner has observed that the paraphrase of Caedmon "exhibits much
+of a Miltonic spirit; and if it were clear that Milton had been familiar
+with Saxon, we should be induced to think that he owed something to
+Caedmon." And the elder D'Israeli has collated and compared similar
+passages in the two authors, in his "Amenities of Literature."
+
+Another remarkable Anglo-Saxon fragment is called _Judith_, and gives the
+story of Judith and Holofernes, rendered from the Apocrypha, but with
+circumstances, descriptions, and speeches invented by the unknown author.
+It should be observed, as of historical importance, that the manners and
+characters of that Anglo-Saxon period are applied to the time of Judith,
+and so we have really an Anglo-Saxon romance, marking the progress and
+improvement in their poetic art.
+
+Among the other remains of this time are the death of _Byrhtnoth_, _The
+Fight of Finsborough_, and the _Chronicle of King Lear and his Daughters_,
+the last of which is the foundation of an old play, upon which
+Shakspeare's tragedy of Lear is based.
+
+It should here be noticed that Saxon literature was greatly influenced by
+the conversion of the realm at the close of the sixth century from the
+pagan religion of Woden to Christianity. It displayed no longer the fierce
+genius of the Scalds, inculcating revenge and promising the rewards of
+Walhalla; in spirit it was changed by the doctrine of love, and in form it
+was softened and in some degree--but only for a time--injured by the
+influence of the Latin, the language of the Church. At this time, also,
+there was a large adoption of Latin words into the Saxon, especially in
+theology and ecclesiastical matters.
+
+
+THE ADVENT OF BEDE.--The greatest literary character of the Anglo-Saxon
+period, and the one who is of most value in teaching us the history of the
+times, both directly and indirectly, is the man who has been honored by
+his age as the _venerable Bede_ or _Beda_. He was born at Yarrow, in the
+year 673; and died, after a retired but active, pious, and useful life, in
+735. He wrote an Ecclesiastical history of the English, and dedicated it
+to the most glorious King Ceowulph of Northumberland, one of the monarchs
+of the Saxon Heptarchy. It is in matter and spirit a Saxon work in a Latin
+dress; and, although his work was written in Latin, he is placed among the
+Anglo-Saxon authors because it is as an Englishman that he appears to us
+in his subject, in the honest pride of race and country which he
+constantly manifests, and in the historical information which he has
+conveyed to us concerning the Saxons in England: of a part of the history
+which he relates he was an _eye-witness_; and besides, his work soon
+called forth several translations into Anglo-Saxon, among which that of
+Alfred the Great is the most noted, and would be taken for an original
+Saxon production.
+
+It is worthy of remark, that after the decline of the Saxon literature,
+Bede remained for centuries, both in the original Latin and in the Saxon
+translations, a sealed and buried book; but in the later days, students of
+English literature and history began to look back with eager pleasure to
+that formative period prior to the Norman conquest, when English polity
+and institutions were simple and few, and when their Saxon progenitors
+were masters in the land.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE VENERABLE BEDE AND THE SAXON CHRONICLE.
+
+
+   Biography. Ecclesiastical History. The Recorded Miracles. Bede's Latin.
+   Other Writers. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: its Value. Alfred the Great.
+   Effect of the Danish Invasions.
+
+
+
+BIOGRAPHY.
+
+
+Bede was a precocious youth, whose excellent parts commended him to Bishop
+Benedict. He made rapid progress in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; was a deacon
+at the unusual age of nineteen, and a priest at thirty. It seems probable
+that he always remained in his monastery, engaged in literary labor and
+offices of devotion until his death, which happened while he was dictating
+to his boy amanuensis, "Dear master," said the boy, "there is yet one
+sentence not written." He answered, "Write quickly." Soon after, the boy
+said, "The sentence is now written." He replied. "It is well; you have
+said the truth. Receive my head into your hands, for it is a great
+satisfaction to me to sit facing my holy place where I was wont to pray,
+that I may also sitting, call upon my Father." "And thus, on the pavement
+of his little cell, singing 'Glory be unto the Father, and unto the Son,
+and unto the Holy Ghost,' when he had named the Holy Ghost he breathed his
+last, and so departed to the heavenly kingdom."
+
+
+HIS ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.--His ecclesiastical history opens with a
+description of Britain, including what was known of Scotland and Ireland.
+With a short preface concerning the Church in the earliest times, he
+dwells particularly upon the period, from the arrival of St. Augustine, in
+597, to the year 731, a space of one hundred and thirty-four years, during
+nearly one-half of which the author lived. The principal written works
+from which he drew were the natural history of Pliny, the Hormesta of the
+Spanish priest _Paulus Orosius_, and the history of Gildas. His account of
+the coming of the Anglo-Saxons, "being the traditions of the Kentish
+people concerning Hengist and Horsa," has since proved to be fabulous, as
+the Saxons are now known to have been for a long period, during the Roman
+occupancy, making predatory incursions into Britain before the time of
+their reputed settlement.[9]
+
+For the materials of the principal portions of his history, Bede was
+indebted to correspondence with those parts of England which he did not
+visit, and to the lives of saints and contemporary documents, which
+recorded the numerous miracles and wonders with which his pages are
+filled.
+
+
+BEDE'S RECORDED MIRACLES.--The subject of these miracles has been
+considered at some length by Dr. Arnold,[10] in a very liberal spirit; but
+few readers will agree with him in concluding that with regard to some
+miracles, "there is no strong _a priori_ improbability in their
+occurrence, but rather the contrary." One of the most striking of the
+historical lessons contained in this work, is the credulity and
+superstition which mark the age; and we reason justly and conclusively
+from the denial of the most palpable and absurd, to the repudiation of
+the lesser demands on our credulity. It is sufficient for us that both
+were eagerly believed in his day, and thus complete a picture of the age
+which such a view would only serve to impair, if not destroy. The theology
+of the age is set forth with wonderful clearness, in the numerous
+questions propounded by Augustine to Gregory I., the Bishop of Rome, and
+in the judicious answers of that prelate; in which may also be found the
+true relation which the Church of Rome bore to her English mission.
+
+We have also the statement of the establishment of the archbishoprics of
+Canterbury and York, the bishopric of London, and others.
+
+The last chapter but one, the twenty-third, gives an important account "of
+the present state of the English nation, or of all Britain;" and the
+twenty-fourth contains a chronological recapitulation, from the beginning
+of the year 731, and a list of the author's works. Bede produced, besides
+his history, translations of many books in the Bible, several histories of
+abbots and saints, books of hymns and epigrams, a treatise on orthography,
+and one on poetry.
+
+To point the student to Bede's works, and to indicate their historic
+teachings, is all that can be here accomplished. A careful study of his
+Latin History, as the great literary monument of the Anglo-Saxon period,
+will disclose many important truths which lie beneath the surface, and
+thus escape the cursory reader. Wars and politics, of which the
+Anglo-Saxon chronicle is full, find comparatively little place in his
+pages. The Church was then peaceful, and not polemic; the monasteries were
+sanctuaries in which quiet, devotion, and order reigned. Another phase of
+the literature shows us how the Gentiles raged and the people were
+imagining a vain thing; but Bede, from his undisturbed cell, scarcely
+heard the howlings of the storm, as he wrote of that kingdom which
+promised peace and good-will.
+
+
+BEDE'S LATIN.--To the classical student, the language of Bede offers an
+interesting study. The Latin had already been corrupted, and a nice
+discrimination will show the causes of this corruption--the effects of the
+other living languages, the ignorance of the clergy, and the new subjects
+and ideas to which it was applied.
+
+Bede was in the main more correct than his age, and his vocabulary has few
+words of barbarian origin. He arose like a luminary, and when the light of
+his learning disappeared, but one other star appeared to irradiate the
+gloom which followed his setting; and that was in the person and the reign
+of Alfred.
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THIS AGE.--Among names which must pass with the mere
+mention, the following are, after Bede, the most illustrious in this time.
+_Aldhelm_, Abbot of Malmesbury, who died in the year 709, is noted for his
+scientific computations, and for his poetry: he is said to have translated
+the Psalms into Anglo-Saxon poetry.
+
+_Alcuin_, the pride of two countries, England and France, was born in the
+year of Bede's death: renowned as an Englishman for his great learning, he
+was invited by Charlemagne to his court, and aided that distinguished
+sovereign in the scholastic and literary efforts which render his reign so
+illustrious. Alcuin died in 804.
+
+The works of Alcuin are chiefly theological treatises, but he wrote a life
+of Charlemagne, which has unfortunately been lost, and which would have
+been invaluable to history in the dearth of memorials of that emperor and
+his age.
+
+_Alfric_, surnamed Grammaticus, (died 1006,) was an Archbishop of
+Canterbury, in the tenth century, who wrote eighty homilies, and was, in
+his opposition to Romish doctrine, one of the earliest English reformers.
+
+_John Scotus Erigena_, who flourished at the beginning of the ninth
+century, in the brightest age of Irish learning, settled in France, and is
+known as a subtle and learned scholastic philosopher. His principal work
+is a treatise "On the Division of Nature," Both names, _Scotus_ and
+_Erigena_, indicate his Irish origin; the original _Scoti_ being
+inhabitants of the North of Ireland.
+
+_Dunstan_, (925-988,) commonly called Saint Dunstan, was a powerful and
+dictatorial Archbishop of Canterbury, who used the superstitions of
+monarch and people to enable him to exercise a marvellous supremacy in the
+realm. He wrote commentaries on the Benedictine rule.
+
+These writers had but a remote and indirect bearing upon the progress of
+literature in England, and are mentioned rather as contemporary, than as
+distinct subjects of our study.
+
+
+THE ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE.--We now reach the valuable and purely
+historical compilation known as the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, which is a
+chronological arrangement of events in English history, from the birth of
+Christ to the year 1154, in the reign of Henry the Second. It is the most
+valuable epitome of English history during that long period.
+
+It is written in Anglo-Saxon, and was begun soon after the time of Alfred,
+at least as a distinct work. In it we may trace the changes in the
+language from year to year, and from century to century, as it passed from
+unmixed Saxon until, as the last records are by contemporary hands, it
+almost melted into modern English, which would hardly trouble an
+Englishman of the present day to read.
+
+The first part of the Chronicle is a table of events, many of them
+fabulous, which had been originally jotted down by Saxon monks, abbots,
+and bishops. To these partial records, King Alfred furnished additional
+information, as did also, in all probability, Alfric and Dunstan. These
+were collected into permanent form by Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury,
+who brought the annals up to the year 891; from that date they were
+continued in the monasteries. Of the Saxon Chronicle there are no less
+than seven accredited ancient copies, of which the shortest extends to the
+year 977, and the longest to 1154; the others extend to intermediate
+dates.
+
+
+ITS VALUE.--The value of the Chronicle as a statistic record of English
+history cannot be over-estimated; it moves before the student of English
+literature like a diorama, picturing the events in succession, not without
+glimpses of their attendant philosophy. We learn much of the nation's
+thoughts, troubles, mental, moral, and physical conditions, social laws,
+and manners. As illustrations we may refer to the romantic adventures of
+King Alfred; and to the conquest of Saxon England by William of
+Normandy--"all as God granted them," says the pious chronicler, "for the
+people's sins." And he afterward adds, "Bishop Odo and William the Earl
+built castles wide throughout the nation, and poor people distressed; and
+ever after it greatly grew in evil: may the end be good when God will."
+Although for the most part written in prose, the annals of several years
+are given in the alliterative Saxon verse.
+
+A good English translation of Bede's history, and one of the Chronicle,
+edited by Dr. Giles, have been issued together by Bohn in one volume of
+his Antiquarian library. To the student of English history and of English
+literature, the careful perusal of both, in conjunction, is an imperative
+necessity.
+
+
+ALFRED THE GREAT.--Among the best specimens of Saxon prose are the
+translations and paraphrases of King _Alfred_, justly called the Great and
+the Truth-teller, the noblest monarch of the Saxon period. The kingdoms of
+the heptarchy, or octarchy, had been united under the dominion of Egbert,
+the King of Wessex, in the year 827, and thus formed the kingdom of
+England. But this union of the kingdoms was in many respects nominal
+rather than really complete; as Alfred frequently subscribes himself _King
+of the West Saxons_. It was a confederation to gain strength against their
+enemies. On the one hand, the inhabitants of North, South, and West Wales
+were constantly rising against Wessex and Mercia; and on the other, until
+the accession of Alfred upon the death of his brother Ethelred, in 871,
+every year of the Chronicle is marked by fierce battles with the troops
+and fleets of the Danes on the eastern and southern coasts.
+
+It redounds greatly to the fame of Alfred that he could find time and
+inclination in his troubled and busy reign, so harassed with wars by land
+and sea, for the establishment of wise laws, the building or rebuilding of
+large cities, the pursuit of letters, and the interest of education. To
+give his subjects, grown-up nobles as well as children, the benefits of
+historical examples, he translated the work of Orosius, a compendious
+history of the world, a work of great repute; and to enlighten the
+ecclesiastics, he made versions of parts of Bede; of the Pastorale of
+Gregory the First; of the Soliloquies of St. Augustine, and of the work of
+Boethius, _De Consolatione Philosophiæ_. Beside these principal works are
+other minor efforts. In all his writings, he says he "sometimes interprets
+word for word, and sometimes meaning for meaning." With Alfred went down
+the last gleams of Saxon literature. Troubles were to accumulate steadily
+and irresistibly upon the soil of England, and the sword took the place of
+the pen.
+
+
+THE DANES.--The Danes thronged into the realm in new incursions, until
+850,000 of them were settled in the North and East of England. The
+Danegelt or tribute, displaying at once the power of the invaders and the
+cowardice and effeminacy of the Saxon monarchs, rose to a large sum, and
+two millions[11] of Saxons were powerless to drive the invaders away. In
+the year 1016, after the weak and wicked reign of the besotted _Ethelred_,
+justly surnamed the _Unready_, who to his cowardice in paying tribute
+added the cruelty of a wholesale massacre on St. Brice's Eve--since called
+the Danish St. Bartholomew--the heroic Edmund Ironsides could not stay the
+storm, but was content to divide the kingdom with _Knud_ (Canute) the
+Great. Literary efforts were at an end. For twenty-two years the Danish
+kings sat upon the throne of all England; and when the Saxon line was
+restored in the person of Edward the Confessor, a monarch not calculated
+to restore order and impart strength, in addition to the internal sources
+of disaster, a new element of evil had sprung up in the power and cupidity
+of the Normans.
+
+Upon the death of Edward the Confessor, the claimants to the throne were
+_Harold_, the son of Godwin, and _William of Normandy_, both ignoring the
+claims of the Saxon heir apparent, Edgar Atheling. Harold, as has been
+already said, fell a victim to the dissensions in his own ranks, as well
+as to the courage and strength of William, and thus Saxon England fell
+under Norman rule.
+
+
+THE LITERARY PHILOSOPHY.--The literary philosophy of this period does not
+lie far beneath the surface of the historic record. Saxon literature was
+expiring by limitation. During the twelfth century, the Saxon language was
+completely transformed into English. The intercourse of many previous
+years had introduced a host of Norman French words; inflections had been
+lost; new ideas, facts, and objects had sprung up, requiring new names.
+The dying Saxon literature was overshadowed by the strength and growth of
+the Norman, and it had no royal patron and protector since Alfred. The
+superior art-culture and literary attainments of the South, had long been
+silently making their impression in England; and it had been the custom to
+send many of the English youth of noble families to France to be educated.
+
+Saxon chivalry[12] was rude and unattractive in comparison with the
+splendid armor, the gay tournaments, and the witching minstrelsy which
+signalized French chivalry; and thus the peaceful elements of conquest
+were as seductive as the force of arms was potent. A dynasty which had
+ruled for more than six hundred years was overthrown; a great chapter in
+English history was closed. A new order was established, and a new chapter
+in England's annals was begun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE NORMAN CONQUEST AND ITS EARLIEST LITERATURE.
+
+
+   Norman Rule. Its Oppression. Its Benefits. William of Malmesbury.
+   Geoffrey of Monmouth. Other Latin Chronicles. Anglo-Norman Poets.
+   Richard Wace. Other Poets.
+
+
+
+NORMAN RULE.
+
+
+With the conquest of England, and as one of the strongest elements of its
+permanency, the feudal system was brought into England; the territory was
+surveyed and apportioned to be held by military tenure; to guard against
+popular insurrections, the curfew rigorously housed the Saxons at night; a
+new legislature, called a parliament, or talking-ground, took the place of
+the witenagemot, or assembly of the wise: it was a conquest not only in
+name but in truth; everything was changed by the conqueror's right, and
+the Saxons were entirely subjected.
+
+
+ITS OPPRESSION.--In short, the Norman conquest, from the day of the battle
+of Hastings, brought the Saxon people under a galling yoke. The Norman was
+everywhere an oppressor. Besides his right as a conqueror, he felt a
+contempt for the rudeness of the Saxon. He was far more able to govern and
+to teach. He founded rich abbeys; schools like those of Oxford and
+Cambridge he expanded into universities like that of Paris. He filled all
+offices of profit and trust, and created many which the Saxons had not. In
+place of the Saxon English, which, however vigorous, was greatly wanting
+in what may be called the vocabulary of progress, the Norman French,
+drawing constantly upon the Latin, enriched by the enactments of
+Charlemagne and the tributes of Italy, even in its infancy a language of
+social comity in Western Europe, was spoken at court, introduced into the
+courts of law, taught in the schools, and threatened to submerge and drown
+out the vernacular.[13] All inducements to composition in English were
+wanting; delicious songs of Norman Trouvères chanted in the _Langue
+d'oil_, and stirring tales of Troubadours in the _Langue d'oc_, carried
+the taste captive away from the Saxon, as a regal banquet lures from the
+plain fare of the cottage board, more wholesome but less attractive.
+
+
+ITS BENEFITS.--Had this progress continued, had this grasp of power
+remained without hinderance or relaxation, the result would have been the
+destruction or amalgamation of the vigorous English, so as to form a
+romance language similar to the French, and only different in the amount
+of Northern and local words. But the Norman power, without losing its
+title, was to find a limit to its encroachments. This limit was fixed,
+_first_, by the innate hardihood and firmness of the Saxon character,
+which, though cast down and oppressed, retained its elasticity; which
+cherished its language in spite of Norman threats and sneers, and which
+never lost heart while waiting for better times; _secondly_, by the
+insular position of Great Britain, fortified by the winds and waves, which
+enabled her to assimilate and mould anew whatever came into her borders,
+to the discomfiture of further continental encroachments; constituting
+her, in the words of Shakspeare,
+
+    "... that pale, that white-faced shore,
+    Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides,
+    And coops from other lands her islanders;"
+
+and, _thirdly_, to the Crusades, which, attracting the nobles to
+adventures in Palestine, lifted the heel of Norman oppression off the
+Saxon neck, and gave that opportunity, which alone was needed, to make
+England in reality, if not in name--in thews, sinews, and mental strength,
+if not in regal state and aristocratic privilege--Saxon-England in all its
+future history. Other elements are still found, but the Saxon greatly
+predominates.
+
+The historian of that day might well bemoan the fate of the realm, as in
+the Saxon Chronicle already quoted. To the philosopher of to-day, this
+Norman conquest and its results were of incalculable value to England, by
+bringing her into relations with the continent, by enduing her with a
+weight and influence in the affairs of Europe which she could never
+otherwise have attained, and by giving a new birth to a noble literature
+which has had no superior in any period of the world's history.
+
+As our subject does not require, and our space will not warrant the
+consideration of the rise and progress of French literature, before its
+introduction with the Normans into England, we shall begin with the first
+fruits after its transplantation into British soil. But before doing so,
+it becomes necessary to mention certain Latin chronicles which furnished
+food for these Anglo-Norman poets and legendists.
+
+
+WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY.--_William of Malmesbury_, the first Latin historian
+of distinction, who is contemporary with the Norman conquest, wrote a work
+called the "Heroic Deeds of the English Kings," (_Gesta Regum Anglorum_,)
+which extends from the arrival of the Saxons to the year 1120; another,
+"The New History," (_Historia Novella_,) brings the history down to 1142.
+Notwithstanding the credulity of the age, and his own earnest recital of
+numerous miracles, these works are in the main truthful, and of real value
+to the historical student. In the contest between Matilda and Stephen for
+the succession of the English crown, William of Malmesbury is a strong
+partisan of the former, and his work thus stands side by side, for those
+who would have all the arguments, with the _Gesta Stephani_, by an unknown
+contemporary, which is written in the interest of Stephen.
+
+
+GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH.--More famous than the monk of Malmesbury, but by no
+means so truthful, stands _Geoffrey of Monmouth_, Archdeacon of Monmouth
+and Bishop of St. Asaph's, a writer to whom the rhyming chronicles and
+Anglo-Norman poets have owed so much. Walter, a Deacon of Oxford, it is
+said, had procured from Brittany a Welsh chronicle containing a history of
+the Britons from the time of one Brutus, a great-grandson of Æneas, down
+to the seventh century of our era. From this, partly in translation and
+partly in original creation, Geoffrey wrote his "History of the Britons."
+Catering to the popular prejudice, he revived, and in part created, the
+deeds of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table--fabulous heroes who
+have figured in the best English poetry from that day to the present,
+their best presentation having been made in the Idyls of the King,
+(Arthur,) by Tennyson.
+
+The popular philosophy of Geoffrey's work is found in the fact, that while
+in Bede and in the Saxon Chronicle the Britons had not been portrayed in
+such a manner as to flatter the national vanity, which seeks for remote
+antecedents of greatness; under the guise of the Chronicle of Brittany,
+Geoffrey undertook to do this. Polydore Virgil distinctly condemns him for
+relating "many fictitious things of King Arthur and the ancient Britons,
+invented by himself, and pretended to be translated by him into Latin,
+which he palms on the world with the sacred name of true history;" and
+this view is substantiated by the fact that the earlier writers speak of
+Arthur as a prince and a warrior, of no colossal fame--"well known, but
+not idolized.... That he was a courageous warrior is unquestionable; but
+that he was the miraculous Mars of the British history, from whom kings
+and nations shrunk in panic, is completely disproved by the temperate
+encomiums of his contemporary bards."[14]
+
+It is of great historical importance to observe the firm hold taken by
+this fabulous character upon the English people, as evinced by the fact
+that he has been a popular hero of the English epic ever since. Spenser
+adopted him as the presiding genius of his "Fairy Queen," and Milton
+projected a great epic on his times, before he decided to write the
+Paradise Lost.
+
+
+
+OTHER PRINCIPAL LATIN CHRONICLERS OF THE EARLY NORMAN PERIOD.
+
+
+Ingulphus, Abbot of Croyland, 1075-1109: History of Croyland. Authenticity
+disputed.
+
+William of Poictiers, 1070: Deeds of William the Conqueror, (Gesta
+Gullielmi Ducis Normannorum et Regis Anglorum.)
+
+Ordericus Vitalis, born about 1075: general ecclesiastical history.
+
+William of Jumièges: History of the Dukes of Normandy.
+
+Florence of Worcester, died 1118: (Chronicon ex Chronicis,) Chronicle from
+the Chronicles, from the Creation to 1118, (with two valuable additions to
+1141, and to 1295.)
+
+Matthew of Westminster, end of thirteenth century (probably a fictitious
+name): Flowers of the Histories, (Flores Historiarum.)
+
+Eadmer, died about 1124: history of his own time, (Historia Novorum, sive
+sui seculi.)
+
+Giraldus Cambrensis, born 1146, known as Girald Barry: numerous histories,
+including Topographia Hiberniæ, and the Norman conquest of Ireland; also
+several theological works.
+
+Henry of Huntingdon, first half of the twelfth century: History of
+England.
+
+Alured of Rievaux, 1109-66: The Battle of the Standard.
+
+Roger de Hoveden, end of twelfth century: Annales, from the end of Bede's
+history to 1202.
+
+Matthew Paris, monk of St. Alban's, died 1259: Historia Major, from the
+Norman conquest to 1259, continued by William Rishanger to 1322.
+
+Ralph Higden, fourteenth century: Polychronicon, or Chronicle of Many
+Things; translated in the fifteenth century, by John de Trevisa; printed
+by Caxton in 1482, and by Wynken de Worde in 1485.
+
+
+THE ANGLO-NORMAN POETS AND CHRONICLERS.--Norman literature had already
+made itself a name before William conquered England. Short jingling tales
+in verse, in ballad style, were popular under the name of _fabliaux_, and
+fuller epics, tender, fanciful, and spirited, called Romans, or Romaunts,
+were sung to the lute, in courts and camps. Of these latter, Alexander the
+Great, Charlemagne, and Roland were the principal heroes.
+
+Strange as it may seem, this _langue d'oil_, in which they were composed,
+made more rapid progress in its poetical literature, in the period
+immediately after the conquest, in England than at home: it flourished by
+the transplantation. Its advent was with an act of heroism. Taillefer, the
+standard-bearer of William at Seulac, marched in advance of the army,
+struck the first blow, and met his death while chanting the song of
+Roland:
+
+    Of Charlemagne and Roland,
+    Of Oliver and his vassals,
+    Who died at Roncesvalles.
+
+    De Karlemaine e de Reliant,
+    Et d'Olivier et des vassals,
+    Ki moururent en Renchevals.
+
+Each stanza ended with the war-shout _Aoi_! and was responded to by the
+cry of the Normans, _Diex aide, God to aid_. And this battle-song was the
+bold manifesto of Norman poetry invading England. It found an echo
+wherever William triumphed on English soil, and played an important part
+in the formation of the English language and English literature. New
+scenes and new victories created new inspiration in the poets; monarchs
+like Henry I., called from his scholarship _Beauclerc_, practised and
+cherished the poetic art, and thus it happened that the Norman poets in
+England produced works of sweeter minstrelsy and greater historical value
+than the _fabliaux_, _Romans_, and _Chansons de gestes_ of their brethren
+on the continent. The conquest itself became a grand theme for their
+muse.
+
+
+RICHARD WACE.--First among the Anglo-Norman poets stands Richard Wace,
+called Maistre Wace, reading clerk, (clerc lisant,) born in the island of
+Jersey, about 1112, died in 1184. His works are especially to be noted for
+the direct and indirect history they contain. His first work, which
+appeared about 1138, is entitled _Le Brut d'Angleterre_--The English
+Brutus--and is in part a paraphrase of the Latin history of Geoffrey of
+Monmouth, who had presented Brutus of Troy as the first in the line of
+British kings. Wace has preserved the fiction of Geoffrey, and has catered
+to that characteristic of the English people which, not content with
+homespun myths, sought for genealogies from the remote classic times.
+Wace's _Brut_ is chiefly in octo-syllabic verse, and extends to fifteen
+thousand lines.
+
+But Wace was a courtier, as well as a poet. Not content with pleasing the
+fancy of the English people with a fabulous royal lineage, he proceeded to
+gratify the pride of their Norman masters by writing, in 1171, his "Roman
+de Rou, et des Ducs de Normandie," an epic poem on Rollo, the first Duke
+of Normandy--Rollo, called the Marcher, because he was so mighty of
+stature that no horse could bear his weight. This Rollo compromised with
+Charles the Simple of France by marrying his daughter, and accepting that
+tract of Neustria to which he gave the name of Normandy. He was the
+ancestor, at six removes, of William the Conqueror, and his mighty deeds
+were a pleasant and popular subject for the poet of that day, when a
+great-grandson of William, Henry II., was upon the throne of England. The
+Roman de Rou contains also the history of Rollo's successors: it is in two
+parts; the first extending to the beginning of the reign of the third
+duke, Richard the Fearless, and the second, containing the story of the
+conquest, comes down to the time of Henry II. himself. The second part he
+wrote rapidly, for fear that he would be forestalled by the king's poet
+_Benoit_. The first part was written in Alexandrines, but for the second
+he adopted the easier measure of the octo-syllabic verse, of which this
+part contains seventeen thousand lines. In this poem are discerned the
+craving of the popular mind, the power of the subject chosen, and the
+reflection of language and manners, which are displayed on every page.
+
+So popular, indeed, was the subject of the Brut, indigenous as it was
+considered to British soil, that Wace's poem, already taken from Geoffrey
+of Monmouth, as Geoffrey had taken it, or pretended to take it from the
+older chronicle, was soon again, as we shall see, to be versionized into
+English.
+
+
+
+OTHER NORMAN WRITERS OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY.
+
+
+
+_Philip de Than_, about 1130, one of the Trouvères: _Li livre de
+créatures_ is a poetical study of chronology, and his _Bestiarie_ is a
+sort of natural history of animals and minerals.
+
+_Benoit_: Chroniques des Ducs de Normandie, 1160, written in thirty
+thousand octo-syllabic verses, only worthy of a passing notice, because of
+the appointment of the poet by the king, (Henry II.,) in order to
+forestall the second part of Wace's Roman de Rou.
+
+Geoffrey, died 1146: A miracle play of St. Catherine.
+
+Geoffrey Gaimar, about 1150: Estorie des Engles, (History of the English.)
+
+Luc de la Barre, blinded for his bold satires by the king (Henry I.).
+
+Mestre Thomas, latter part of twelfth century: Roman du Roi Horn. Probably
+the original of the "Geste of Kyng Horn."
+
+Richard I., (CÅ“ur de Lion,) died 1199, King of England: _Sirventes_ and
+songs. His antiphonal song with the minstrel Blondel is said to have given
+information of the place of his imprisonment, and procured his release;
+but this is probably only a romantic fiction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE MORNING TWILIGHT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
+
+
+   Semi-Saxon Literature. Layamon. The Ormulum. Robert of Gloucester.
+   Langland. Piers Plowman. Piers Plowman's Creed. Sir Jean Froissart. Sir
+   John Mandevil.
+
+
+
+SEMI-SAXON LITERATURE.
+
+
+Moore, in his beautiful poem, "The Light of the Harem," speaks of that
+luminous pulsation which precedes the real, progressive morning:
+
+             ... that earlier dawn
+    Whose glimpses are again withdrawn,
+    As if the morn had waked, and then
+    Shut close her lids of light again.
+
+The simile is not inapt, as applied to the first efforts of the early
+English, or Semi-Saxon literature, during the latter part of the twelfth
+and the whole of the thirteenth century. That deceptive dawn, or first
+glimpse of the coming day, is to be found in the work of _Layamon_. The
+old Saxon had revived, but had been modified and altered by contact with
+the Latin chronicles and the Anglo-Norman poetry, so as to become a
+distinct language--that of the people; and in this language men of genius
+and poetic taste were now to speak to the English nation.
+
+
+LAYAMON.--Layamon[15] was an English priest of Worcestershire, who made a
+version of Wace's _Brut_, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, so
+peculiar, however, in its language, as to puzzle the philologist to fix
+its exact date with even tolerable accuracy. But, notwithstanding the
+resemblance, according to Mr. Ellis, to the "simple and unmixed, though
+very barbarous Saxon," the character of the alphabet and the nature of the
+rhythm place it at the close of the twelfth century, and present it as
+perhaps the best type of the Semi-Saxon. The poem consists partly of the
+Saxon alliterative lines, and partly of verses which seem to have thrown
+off this trammel; so that a different decision as to its date would be
+reached according as we consider these diverse parts of its structure. It
+is not improbable that, like English poets of a later time, Layamon
+affected a certain archaism in language, as giving greater beauty and
+interest to his style. The subject of the _Brut_ was presented to him as
+already treated by three authors: first, the original Celtic poem, which
+has been lost; second, the Latin chronicle of Geoffrey; and, third, the
+French poem of Wace. Although Layamon's work is, in the main, a
+translation of that of Wace, he has modified it, and added much of his
+own. His poem contains more than thirty thousand lines.
+
+
+THE ORMULUM.--Next in value to the Brut of Layamon, is the Ormulum, a
+series of metrical homilies, in part paraphrases of the gospels for the
+day, with verbal additions and annotations. This was the work of a monk
+named _Orm_ or _Ormin_, who lived in the beginning of the thirteenth
+century, during the reign of King John and Henry III., and it resembles
+our present English much more nearly than the poem of Layamon. In his
+dedication of the work to his brother Walter, Orm says--and we give his
+words as an illustration of the language in which he wrote:
+
+    Ice hafe don swa summ thu bad
+    Annd forthedd te thin wille
+    Ice hafe wennd uintill Ennglissh
+    Goddspelless hallghe lare
+    Affterr thatt little witt tatt me
+    Min Drihhten hafethth lenedd
+
+    I have done so as thou bade,
+    And performed thee thine will;
+    I have turned into English
+    Gospel's holy lore,
+    After that little wit that me
+    My lord hath lent.
+
+The poem is written in Alexandrine verses, which may be divided into
+octosyllabic lines, alternating with those of six syllables, as in the
+extract given above. He is critical with regard to his orthography, as is
+evinced in the following instructions which he gives to his future readers
+and transcriber:
+
+    And whase willen shall this booke
+    Eft other sithe writen,
+    Him bidde ice that he't write right
+    Swa sum this booke him teacheth
+
+    And whoso shall wish this book
+    After other time to write,
+    Him bid I that he it write right,
+    So as this book him teacheth.
+
+The critics have observed that, whereas the language of Layamon shows that
+it was written in the southwest of England, that of Orm manifests an
+eastern or northeastern origin. To the historical student, Orm discloses
+the religious condition and needs of the people, and the teachings of the
+Church. His poem is also manifestly a landmark in the history of the
+English language.
+
+
+ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER.--Among the rhyming chroniclers of this period,
+Robert, a monk of Gloucester Abbey, is noted for his reproduction of the
+history of Geoffrey of Monmouth, already presented by Wace in French, and
+by Layamon in Saxon-English. But he is chiefly valuable in that he carries
+the chronicle forward to the end of the reign of Henry III. Written in
+West-country English, it not only contains a strong infusion of French,
+but distinctly states the prevailing influence of that language in his own
+day:
+
+    Vor bote a man couthe French, me tolth of him well lute
+    Ac lowe men holdeth to Englyss, and to her kunde speche zute.
+
+    For unless a man know French, one talketh of him little;
+    But _low_ men hold to English, and to their natural speech yet.
+
+The chronicle of Robert is written in Alexandrines, and, except for the
+French words incongruously interspersed, is almost as "barbarous" Saxon as
+the Brut of Layamon.
+
+
+LANGLAND--PIERS PLOWMAN.--The greatest of the immediate heralds of
+Chaucer, whether we regard it as a work of literary art, or as an historic
+reflector of the age, is "The Vision of Piers Plowman," by Robert
+Langland, which appeared between 1360 and 1370. It stands between the
+Semi-Saxon and the old English, in point of language, retaining the
+alliterative feature of the former; and, as a teacher of history, it
+displays very clearly the newly awakened spirit of religious inquiry, and
+the desire for religious reform among the English people: it certainly was
+among the means which aided in establishing a freedom of religious thought
+in England, while as yet the continent was bound in the fetters of a
+rigorous and oppressive authority.
+
+Peter, the ploughboy, intended as a representative of the common people,
+drops asleep on Malvern Hills, between Wales and England, and sees in his
+dream an array of virtues and vices pass before him--such as Mercy, Truth,
+Religion, Covetousness, Avarice, etc. The allegory is not unlike that of
+Bunyan. By using these as the personages, in the manner of the early
+dramas called the Moralities, he is enabled to attack and severely scourge
+the evil lives and practices of the clergy, and the abuses which had
+sprung up in the Church, and to foretell the punishment, which afterward
+fell upon the monasteries in the time of Henry VIII., one hundred and
+fifty years later:
+
+    And then shall the Abbot of Abingdon, and all his issue forever,
+    _Have a knock of a king, and incurable the wound_.
+
+His attack is not against the Church itself, but against the clergy. It
+is to be remarked, in studying history through the medium of literature,
+that the works of a certain period, themselves the result of history,
+often illustrate the coming age, by being prophetic, or rather, as
+antecedents by suggesting consequents. Thus, this Vision of Piers Plowman
+indicates the existence of a popular spirit which had been slowly but
+steadily increasing--which sympathized with Henry II. and the
+priest-trammelling "Constitutions of Clarendon," even while it was ready
+to go on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas à Becket, the illustrious
+victim of the quarrel between Henry and his clergy. And it points with no
+uncertain finger to a future of greater light and popular development, for
+this bold spirit of reform was strongly allied to political rights. The
+clergy claimed both spiritualities and temporalities from the Pope, and,
+being governed by ecclesiastical laws, were not like other English
+subjects amenable to the civil code. The king's power was thus endangered;
+a proud and encroaching spirit was fostered, and the clergy became
+dissolute in their lives. In the words of Piers Plowman:
+
+    I found these freres, | For profit of hem selve;
+    All the four orders,  | Closed the gospel,
+    Preaching the people  | As hem good liked.
+
+
+And again:
+
+    Ac now is Religion       | And a loud buyer,
+    A rider, a roamer about, | A pricker on a palfrey,
+    A leader of love days    | From manor to manor.
+
+
+PIERS PLOWMAN'S CREED.--The name of Piers Plowman and the conceit of his
+Vision became at once very popular. He stood as a representative of the
+peasant class rising in importance and in assertion of religious rights.
+
+An unknown follower of Wiclif wrote a poem called "Piers Plowman's Creed,"
+which conveys religious truth in a formula of belief. The language and the
+alliterative feature are similar to those of the Vision; and the
+invective is against the clergy, and especially against the monks and
+friars.
+
+
+FROISSART.--Sire Jean Froissart was born about 1337. He is placed here for
+the observance of chronological order: he was not an English writer, but
+must receive special mention because his "Chronicles," although written in
+French, treat of the English wars in France, and present splendid pictures
+of English chivalry and heroism. He lived, too, for some time in England,
+where he figured at court as the secretary of Philippa, queen of Edward
+III. Although not always to be relied on as an historian, his work is
+unique and charming, and is very truthful in its delineation of the men
+and manners of that age: it was written for courtly characters, and not
+for the common people. The title of his work may be translated "Chronicles
+of France, England, Scotland, Spain, Brittany, Gascony, Flanders, and
+surrounding places."
+
+
+SIR JOHN MANDEVIL, (1300-1371.)--We also place in this general catalogue a
+work which has, ever since its appearance, been considered one of the
+curiosities of English literature. It is a narrative of the travels of
+Mandevil in the East. He was born in 1300; became a doctor of medicine,
+and journeyed in those regions of the earth for thirty-four years. A
+portion of the time he was in service with a Mohammedan army; at other
+times he lived in Egypt, and in China, and, returning to England an old
+man, he brought such a budget of wonders--true and false--stories of
+immense birds like the roc, which figure in Arabian mythology and romance,
+and which could carry elephants through the air--of men with tails, which
+were probably orang-outangs or gorillas.
+
+Some of his tales, which were then entirely discredited, have been
+ascertained by modern travellers to be true. His work was written by him
+first in Latin, and then in French--Latin for the savans, and French for
+the court--and afterward, such was the power and demand of the new
+English tongue, that he presented his marvels to the world in an English
+version. This was first printed by Wynken de Worde, in 1499.
+
+
+
+Other Writers of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, Who Preceded
+Chaucer.
+
+
+Robert Manning, a canon of Bourne--called also Robert de Brunne:
+Translated a portion of Wace's _Brut_, and also a chronicle of Piers de
+Langtoft bringing the history down to the death of Edward I. (1307.) He is
+also supposed to be the author of a translation of the "Manuel des Pêchés,"
+(Handling of Sins,) the original of which is ascribed to Bishop Grostête
+of Lincoln.
+
+_The Ancren Riwle_, or _Anchoresses' Rule_, about 1200, by an unknown
+writer, sets forth the duties of a monastic life for three ladies
+(anchoresses) and their household in Dorsetshire.
+
+Roger Bacon, (1214-1292,) a friar of Ilchester: He extended the area of
+knowledge by his scientific experiments, but wrote his Opus Magus, or
+_greater work_, in comparison with the Opus Minus, and numerous other
+treatises in Latin. If he was not a writer in English, his name should be
+mentioned as a great genius, whose scientific knowledge was far in advance
+of his age, and who had prophetic glimpses of the future conquests of
+science.
+
+Robert Grostête, Bishop of Lincoln, died 1253, was probably the author of
+the _Manuel des Pêchés_, and also wrote a treatise on the sphere.
+
+Sir Michael Scott: He lived in the latter half of the thirteenth century;
+was a student of the "occult sciences," and also skilled in theology and
+medicine. He is referred to by Walter Scott as the "wondrous wizard,
+Michael Scott."
+
+Thomas of Ercildoun--called the Rhymer--supposed by Sir Walter Scott, but
+erroneously, as is now believed, to be the author of "Sir Tristram."
+
+_The King of Tars_ is the work of an unknown author of this period.
+
+
+In thus disposing of the authors before Chaucer, no attempt has been made
+at a nice subdivision and classification of the character of the works, or
+the nature of the periods, further than to trace the onward movement of
+the language, in its embryo state, in its birth, and in its rude but
+healthy infancy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAUCER, AND THE EARLY REFORMATION.
+
+
+   A New Era--Chaucer. Italian Influence. Chaucer as a Founder. Earlier
+   Poems. The Canterbury Tales. Characters. Satire. Presentations of
+   Woman. The Plan Proposed.
+
+
+
+THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA.
+
+
+And now it is evident, from what has been said, that we stand upon the eve
+of a great movement in history and literature. Up to this time everything
+had been more or less tentative, experimental, and disconnected, all
+tending indeed, but with little unity of action, toward an established
+order. It began to be acknowledged that though the clergy might write in
+Latin, and Frenchmen in French, the English should "show their fantasyes
+in such words as we learneden of our dame's tonge," and it was equally
+evident that that English must be cultivated and formed into a fitting
+vehicle for vigorous English thought. To do this, a master mind was
+required, and such a master mind appeared in the person of Chaucer. It is
+particularly fortunate for our historic theory that his works,
+constituting the origin of our homogeneous English literature, furnish
+forth its best and most striking demonstration.
+
+
+CHAUCER'S BIRTH.--Geoffrey Chaucer was born at London about the year 1328:
+as to the exact date, we waive all the discussion in which his biographers
+have engaged, and consider this fixed as the most probable time. His
+parentage is unknown, although Leland, the English antiquarian, declares
+him to have come of a noble family, and Pitts says he was the son of a
+knight. He died in the year 1400, and thus was an active and observant
+contemporary of events in the most remarkable century which had thus far
+rolled over Europe--the age of Edward III. and the Black Prince, of Crecy
+and Poitiers, of English bills and bows, stronger than French lances; the
+age of Wiclif, of reformation in religion, government, language, and
+social order. Whatever his family antecedents, he was a courtier, and a
+successful one; his wife was Philippa, a sister of Lady Katherine
+Swinford, first the mistress and then the wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of
+Lancaster.
+
+
+ITALIAN INFLUENCE.--From a literary point of view, the period of his birth
+was remarkable for the strong influence of Italian letters, which first
+having made its entrance into France, now, in natural course of progress,
+found its way into England. Dante had produced,
+
+      ... in the darkness prest,
+    From his own soul by worldly weights, ...
+
+the greatest poem then known to modern Europe, and the most imaginative
+ever written. Thus the Italian sky was blazing with splendor, while the
+West was still in the morning twilight. The Divina Commedia was written
+half a century before the Canterbury Tales.
+
+Boccaccio was then writing his _Filostrato_, which was to be Chaucer's
+model in the Troilus and Creseide, and his _Decameron_, which suggested
+the plan of the Canterbury Tales. His _Teseide_ is also said to be the
+original of the Knight's Tale. Petrarch, "the worthy clerke" from whom
+Chaucer is said to have learned a story or two in Italy for his great
+work, was born in 1304, and was also a star of the first magnitude in that
+Italian galaxy.
+
+Indeed, it is here worthy of a passing remark, that from that early time
+to a later period, many of the great products of English poetry have been
+watered by silver rills of imaginative genius from a remote Italian
+source. Chaucer's indebtedness has just been noticed. Spenser borrowed his
+versification and not a little of his poetic handling in the Faery Queen
+from Ariosto. Milton owes to Dante some of his conceptions of heaven and
+hell in his Paradise Lost, while his Lycidas, Arcades, Allegro and
+Penseroso, may be called Italian poems done into English.
+
+In the time of Chaucer, this Italian influence marks the extended
+relations of English letters; and, serving to remove the trammels of the
+French, it gave to the now vigorous and growing English that opportunity
+of development for which it had so long waited. Out of the serfdom and
+obscurity to which it had been condemned by the Normans, it had sprung
+forth in reality, as in name, the English language. Books, few at the
+best, long used in Latin or French, were now demanded by English mind, and
+being produced in answer to the demand.
+
+
+THE FOUNDER OF THE LITERATURE.--But there was still wanted a man who could
+use the elements and influences of the time--a great poet--a maker--a
+creator of literature. The language needed a forming, controlling, fixing
+hand. The English mind needed a leader and master, English imagination a
+guide, English literature a father.
+
+The person who answered to this call, and who was equal to all these
+demands, was Chaucer. But he was something more. He claimed only to be a
+poet, while he was to figure in after times as historian, philosopher, and
+artist.
+
+The scope of this work does not permit an examination of Chaucer's
+writings in detail, but the position we have taken will be best
+illustrated by his greatest work, the Canterbury Tales. Of the others, a
+few preliminary words only need be said. Like most writers in an early
+literary period, Chaucer began with translations, which were extended into
+paraphrases or versions, and thus his "'prentice hand" gained the
+practice and skill with which to attempt original poems.
+
+
+MINOR POEMS.--His earliest attempt, doubtless, was the _Romaunt of the
+Rose_, an allegorical poem in French, by William de Lorris, continued,
+after his death in 1260, by Jean de Meun, who figured as a poet in the
+court of Charles le Bel, of France. This poem, esteemed by the French as
+the finest of their old romances, was rendered by Chaucer, with
+considerable alterations and improvements, into octosyllabic verse. The
+Romaunt portrays the trials which a lover meets and the obstacles he
+overcomes in pursuit of his mistress, under the allegory of a rose in an
+inaccessible garden. It has been variously construed--by theologians as
+the yearning of man for the celestial city; by chemists as the search for
+the philosopher's stone; by jurists as that for equity, and by medical men
+as the attempt to produce a panacea for all human ailments.
+
+Next in order was his _Troilus and Creseide_, a mediæval tale, already
+attempted by Boccaccio in his Filostrate, but borrowed by Chaucer,
+according to his own account, from _Lollius_, a mysterious name without an
+owner. The story is similar to that dramatized by Shakspeare in his
+tragedy of the same title. This is in decasyllabic verse, arranged in
+stanzas of seven lines each.
+
+The _House of Fame_, another of his principal poems, is a curious
+description--probably his first original effort--of the Temple of Fame, an
+immense cage, sixty miles long, and its inhabitants the great writers of
+classic times, and is chiefly valuable as showing the estimation in which
+the classic writers were held in that day. This is also in octosyllabic
+verses, and is further remarkable for the opulence of its imagery and its
+variety of description. The poet is carried in the claws of a great eagle
+into this house, and sees its distinguished occupants standing upon
+columns of different kinds of metal, according to their merits. The poem
+ends with the third book, very abruptly, as Chaucer awakes from his
+vision.
+
+"The Legend of Good Women" is a record of the loves and misfortunes of
+celebrated women, and is supposed to have been written to make amends for
+the author's other unjust portraitures of female character.
+
+
+THE CANTERBURY TALES.--In order to give system to our historic inquiries,
+we shall now present an outline of the Canterbury Tales, in order that we
+may show--
+
+   I. The indications of a general desire in that period for a reformation
+   in religion.
+
+   II. The social condition of the English people.
+
+   III. The important changes in government.
+
+   IV. The condition and progress of the English language.
+
+The Canterbury Tales were begun in 1386, when Chaucer was fifty-eight
+years old, and in a period of comparative quiet, after the minority of
+Richard II. was over, and before his troubles had begun. They form a
+beautiful gallery of cabinet pictures of English society in all its
+grades, except the very highest and the lowest; and, in this respect, they
+supplement in exact lineaments and the freshest coloring those compendiums
+of English history which only present to us, on the one hand, the persons
+and deeds of kings and their nobles, and, on the other, the general laws
+which so long oppressed the lower orders of the people, and the action of
+which is illustrated by disorders among them. But in Chaucer we find the
+true philosophy of English society, the principle of the guilds, or
+fraternities, to which his pilgrims belong--the character and avocation of
+the knight, squire, yeoman, franklin, bailiff, sompnour, reeve, etc.,
+names, many of them, now obsolete. Who can find these in our compendiums?
+they must be dug--and dry work it is--out of profounder histories, or
+found, with greater pleasure, in poems like that of Chaucer.
+
+
+CHARACTERS.--Let us consider, then, a few of his principal characters
+which most truly represent the age and nation.
+
+The Tabard inn at Southwark, then a suburb of "London borough without the
+walls," was a great rendezvous for pilgrims who were journeying to the
+shrine of St. Thomas à Becket, at Canterbury--that Saxon archbishop who
+had been murdered by the minions of Henry II. Southwark was on the high
+street, the old Roman highway from London to the southeast. A gathering of
+pilgrims here is no uncommon occurrence; and thus numbers and variety make
+a combination of penitence and pleasure. The host of the Tabard--doubtless
+a true portraiture of the landlord of that day--counts noses, that he may
+distribute the pewter plates. A substantial supper smokes upon the
+old-fashioned Saxon-English board--so substantial that the pilgrims are
+evidently about to lay in a good stock, in anticipation of poor fare, the
+fatigue of travel, and perhaps a fast or two not set down in the calendar.
+As soon as they attack the viands, ale and strong wines, hippocras,
+pigment, and claret, are served in bright pewter and wood. There were
+Saxon drinks for the commoner pilgrims; the claret was for the knight.
+Every one drinks at his will, and the miller, as we shall see, takes a
+little more than his head can decently carry.
+
+First in the place of honor is the knight, accompanied by his son, the
+young squire, and his trusty yeoman. Then, in order of social rank, a
+prioress, a nun and three priests, a friar, a merchant, a poor scholar or
+clerk of Oxford, a sergeant of the law, a frankelein, a haberdasher, a
+weaver, a tapster, a dyer, a cook, a shipman, a doctor of physic, a wife
+of Bath, a poor parson, a ploughman, a miller, a manciple or college
+steward, a reeve or bailiff, a sompnour or summoner to the ecclesiastical
+courts, a pardoner or seller of papal indulgences (one hundred and fifty
+years before Luther)--an essentially English company of many social
+grades, bound to the most popular shrine, that of a Saxon archbishop,
+himself the son of a London citizen, murdered two hundred years before
+with the connivance of an English king. No one can read this list without
+thinking that if Chaucer be true and accurate in his descriptions of these
+persons, and make them talk as they did talk, his delineations are of
+inestimable value historically. He has been faithfully true. Like all
+great masters of the epic art, he doubtless drew them from the life; each,
+given in the outlines of the prologue, is a speaking portrait: even the
+horses they ride are as true to nature as those in the pictures of Rosa
+Bonheur.
+
+And besides these historic delineations which mark the age and country,
+notwithstanding the loss of local and personal satire with which, to the
+reader of his day, the poem must have sparkled, and which time has
+destroyed for us, the features of our common humanity are so well
+portrayed, that to the latest generations will be there displayed the
+"forth-showing instances" of the _Idola Tribus_ of Bacon, the besetting
+sins, frailties, and oddities of the human race.
+
+
+SATIRE.--His touches of satire and irony are as light as the hits of an
+accomplished master of the small-sword; mere hits, but significant of deep
+thrusts, at the scandals, abuses, and oppressions of the age. Like
+Dickens, he employed his fiction in the way of reform, and helped to
+effect it.
+
+Let us illustrate. While sitting at the table, Chaucer makes his sketches
+for the Prologue. A few of these will serve here as specimens of his
+powers. Take the _Doctour of Physike_ who
+
+    Knew the cause of every maladie,
+    Were it of cold or hote or wet or drie;
+
+who also knew
+
+      ... the old Esculapius,
+    And Dioscorides and eke Rufus,
+    Old Hippocras, Rasis, and Avicen,
+
+and many other classic authorities in medicine.
+
+    Of his diete mesurable was he,
+    And it was of no superfluite;
+
+nor was it a gross slander to say of the many,
+
+    His studie was but litel on the Bible.
+
+It was a suggestive satire which led him to hint that he was
+
+          ... but esy of dispense;
+    He kepte that he wan in pestilence;
+    For gold in physike is a cordial;
+    Therefore he loved gold in special.
+
+Chaucer deals tenderly with the lawyers; yet, granting his sergeant of the
+law discretion and wisdom, a knowledge of cases even "from the time of
+King Will," and fees and perquisites quite proportional, he adds,
+
+    Nowher so besy a man as he ther n' as,
+    And yet he seemed besier than he was.
+
+
+HIS PRESENTATIONS OF WOMAN.--Woman seems to find hard judgment in this
+work. Madame Eglantine, the prioress, with her nasal chanting, her
+English-French, "of Stratford-atte-Bow," her legion of smalle houndes, and
+her affected manner, is not a flattering type of woman's character, and
+yet no doubt she is a faithful portrait of many a prioress of that day.
+
+And the wife of Bath is still more repulsive. She tells us, in the
+prologue to her story, that she has buried five husbands, and, buxom
+still, is looking for the sixth. She is a jolly _compagnon de voyage_, had
+been thrice to Jerusalem, and is now seeking assoil for some little sins
+at Canterbury. And the host's wife, as he describes her, is not by any
+means a pleasant helpmeet for an honest man. The host is out of her
+hearing, or he would not be so ready to tell her character:
+
+    I have a wif, tho' that she poore be;
+    But of her tongue a blabbing shrew is she,
+    And yet she hath a heap of vices mo.
+
+She is always getting into trouble with the neighbors; and when he will
+not fight in her quarrel, she cries,
+
+            ... False coward, wreak thy wif;
+    By corpus domini, I will have thy knife,
+    And thou shalt have my distaff and go spin.
+
+The best names she has for him are milksop, coward, and ape; and so we
+say, with him,
+
+    Come, let us pass away from this mattère.
+
+
+THE PLAN PROPOSED.--With these suggestions of the nature of the company
+assembled "for to don their pilgrimage," we come to the framework of the
+story. While sitting at the table, the host proposes
+
+    That each of you, to shorten with your way,
+    In this viage shall tellen tales twey.
+
+Each pilgrim should tell two stories; one on the way to Canterbury, and
+one returning. As, including Chaucer and the host, there are thirty-one in
+the company, this would make sixty-two stories. The one who told the best
+story should have, on the return of the company to the Tabard inn, a
+supper at the expense of the rest.
+
+The host's idea was unanimously accepted; and in the morning, as they ride
+forth, they begin to put it into execution. Although lots are drawn for
+the order in which the stories shall be told, it is easily arranged by the
+courteous host, who recognizes the difference in station among the
+pilgrims, that the knight shall inaugurate the scheme, which he does by
+telling that beautiful story of _Palamon and Arcite_, the plot of which is
+taken from _Le Teseide_ of Boccacio. It is received with cheers by the
+company, and with great delight by the host, who cries out,
+
+    So mote I gon--this goth aright,
+    Unbockled is the mail.
+
+The next in order is called for, but the miller, who has replenished his
+midnight potations in the morning, and is now rolling upon his horse,
+swears that "he can a noble tale," and, not heeding the rebuke of the
+host,
+
+    Thou art a fool, thy wit is overcome,
+
+he shouts out a vulgar story, in all respects in direct contrast to that
+of the knight. As a literary device, this rude introduction of the miller
+breaks the stiffness and monotony of a succession in the order of rank;
+and, as a feature of the history, it seems to tell us something of
+democratic progress. The miller's story ridicules a carpenter, and the
+reeve, who is a carpenter, immediately repays him by telling a tale in
+which he puts a miller in a ludicrous position.
+
+With such a start, the pilgrims proceed to tell their tales; but not all.
+There is neither record of their reaching Canterbury, nor returning. Nor
+is the completion of the number at all essential: for all practical
+purposes, we have all that can be asked; and had the work been completed,
+it would have added little to the historical stores which it now
+indirectly, and perhaps unconsciously, offers. The number of the tales
+(including two in prose) is twenty-four, and great additional value is
+given to them by the short prologue introducing each of them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAUCER, (CONTINUED.)--REFORMS IN RELIGION AND SOCIETY.
+
+
+   Historical Facts. Reform in Religion. The Clergy, Regular and Secular.
+   The Friar and the Sompnour. The Pardonere. The Poure Persone. John
+   Wiclif. The Translation of the Bible. The Ashes of Wiclif.
+
+
+
+HISTORICAL FACTS.
+
+
+Leaving the pilgrims' cavalcade for a more philosophical consideration of
+the historical teachings of the subject, it may be clearly shown that the
+work of Chaucer informs us of a wholesome reform in religion, or, in the
+words of George Ellis,[16] "he was not only respected as the father of
+English poetry, but revered as a champion of the Reformation."
+
+Let us recur briefly to the history. With William the Conqueror a great
+change had been introduced into England: under him and his immediate
+successors--his son William Rufus, his nephew Henry I., the usurper
+Stephen, and Henry II.,--the efforts of the "English kings of Norman race"
+were directed to the establishment of their power on a strong foundation;
+but they began, little by little, to see that the only foundation was that
+of the unconquerable English people; so that popular rights soon began to
+be considered, and the accession of Henry II., the first of the
+Plantagenets, was specially grateful to the English, because he was the
+first since the Conquest to represent the Saxon line, being the grandson
+of Henry I., and son of _Matilda_, niece of Edgar Atheling. In the mean
+time, as has been seen, the English language had been formed, the chief
+element of which was Saxon. This was a strong instrument of political
+rights, for community of language tended to an amalgamation of the Norman
+and Saxon peoples. With regard to the Church in England, the insulation
+from Rome had impaired the influence of the Papacy. The misdeeds and
+arrogance of the clergy had arrayed both people and monarch against their
+claims, as several of the satirical poems already mentioned have shown. As
+a privileged class, who used their immunities to do evil and corrupt the
+realm, the clergy became odious to the _nobles_, whose power they shared
+and sometimes impaired, and to the _people_, who could now read their
+faults and despise their comminations, and who were unwilling to pay
+hard-earned wages to support them in idleness and vice. It was not the
+doctrine, but the practice which they condemned. With the accession of the
+house of Plantagenet, the people were made to feel that the Norman
+monarchy was a curse, without alloy. Richard I. was a knight-errant and a
+crusader, who cared little for the realm; John was an adulterer, traitor,
+and coward, who roused the people's anger by first quarrelling with the
+Pope, and then basely giving him the kingdom to receive it again as a
+papal fief. The nation, headed by the warlike barons, had forced the great
+charter of popular rights from John, and had caused it to be confirmed and
+supplemented during the long reign of his son, the weak Henry III.
+
+Edward I. was engaged in cruel wars, both in Wales and Scotland, which
+wasted the people's money without any corresponding advantage.
+
+Edward II. was deposed and murdered by his queen and her paramour
+Mortimer; and, however great their crime, he was certainly unworthy and
+unable to control a fierce and turbulent people, already clamorous for
+their rights. These well-known facts are here stated to show the
+unsettled condition of things during the period when the English were
+being formed into a nation, the language established, and the earliest
+literary efforts made. Materials for a better organization were at hand in
+great abundance; only proper master-builders were needed. We have seen
+that everything now betokened the coming of a new era, in State, Church,
+and literature.
+
+The monarch who came to the throne in 1327, one year before the birth of
+Chaucer, was worthy to be the usher of this new era to England: a man of
+might, of judgment, and of forecast; the first truly _English_ monarch in
+sympathy and purpose who had occupied the throne since the Conquest:
+liberal beyond all former precedent in religion, he sheltered Wiclif in
+his bold invectives, and paved the way for the later encroachments upon
+the papal supremacy. With the aid of his accomplished son, Edward the
+Black Prince, he rendered England illustrious by his foreign wars, and
+removed what remained of the animosity between Saxon and Norman.
+
+
+REFORM IN RELIGION.--We are so accustomed to refer the Reformation to the
+time of Luther in Germany, as the grand religious turning-point in modern
+history, that we are apt to underrate, if not to forget, the religious
+movement in this most important era of English history. Chaucer and Wiclif
+wrote nearly half a century before John Huss was burned by Sigismond: it
+was a century after that that Luther burned the Pope's decretals at
+Wittenberg, and still later that Henry VIII. threw off the papal dominion
+in England. But great crises in a nation's history never arrive without
+premonition;--there are no moral earthquakes without premonitory throes,
+and sometimes these are more decisive and destructive than that which
+gives electric publicity. Such distinct signs appeared in the age of
+Chaucer, and the later history of the Church in England cannot be
+distinctly understood without a careful study of this period.
+
+It is well known that Chaucer was an adherent of John of Gaunt; that he
+and his great protector--perhaps with no very pious intents--favored the
+doctrines of Wiclif; that in the politico-religious disturbances in 1382,
+incident to the minority of Richard II., he was obliged to flee the
+country. But if we wish to find the most striking religious history of the
+age, we must seek it in the portraitures of religious characters and
+events in his Canterbury Tales. In order to a proper intelligence of
+these, let us look for a moment at the ecclesiastical condition of England
+at that time. Connected with much in doctrine and ritual worthy to be
+retained, and, indeed, still retained in the articles and liturgy of the
+Anglican Church, there was much, the growth of ignorance and neglect, to
+be reformed. The Church of England had never had a real affinity with
+Rome. The gorgeous and sensual ceremonies which, in the indolent airs of
+the Mediterranean, were imposing and attractive, palled upon the taste of
+the more phlegmatic Englishmen. Institutions organized at Rome did not
+flourish in that higher latitude, and abuses were currently discussed even
+before any plan was considered for reforming them.
+
+
+THE CLERGY.--The great monastic orders of St. Benedict, scattered
+throughout Europe, were, in the early and turbulent days, a most important
+aid and protection to Christianity. But by degrees, and as they were no
+longer needed, they had become corrupt, because they had become idle. The
+Cluniacs and Cistercians, branches of the Benedictines, are represented in
+Chaucer's poem by the monk and prioress, as types of bodies which needed
+reform.
+
+The Grandmontines, a smaller branch, were widely known for their foppery:
+the young monks painted their cheeks, and washed and covered their beards
+at night. The cloisters became luxurious, and sheltered, and, what is
+worse, sanctioned lewdness and debauchery.
+
+There was a great difference indeed between the _regular_ clergy, or
+those belonging to orders and monasteries, and the _secular_ clergy or
+parish priests, who were far better; and there was a jealous feud between
+them. There was a lamentable ignorance of the Scripture among the clergy,
+and gross darkness over the people. The paraphrases of Caedmon, the
+translations of Bede and Alfred, the rare manuscripts of the Latin Bible,
+were all that cast a faint ray upon this gloom. The people could not read
+Latin, even if they had books; and the Saxon versions were almost in a
+foreign language. Thus, distrusting their religious teachers, thoughtful
+men began to long for an English version of that Holy Book which contains
+all the words of eternal life. And thus, while the people were becoming
+more clamorous for instruction, and while Wiclif was meditating the great
+boon of a translated Bible, which, like a noonday sun, should irradiate
+the dark places and disclose the loathsome groups and filthy
+manifestations of cell and cloister, Chaucer was administering the
+wholesome medicine of satire and contempt. He displays the typical monk
+given up to every luxury, the costly black dress with fine fur edgings,
+the love-knot which fastens his hood, and his preference for pricking and
+hunting the hare, over poring into a stupid book in a cloister.
+
+
+THE FRIAR AND THE SOMPNOUR.--His satire extends also to the friar, who has
+not even that semblance of virtue which is the tribute of the hypocrite to
+our holy faith. He is not even the demure rascal conceived by Thomson in
+his Castle of Indolence:
+
+          ... the first amid the fry,
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    A little round, fat, oily man of God,
+    Who had a roguish twinkle in his eye,
+    When a tight maiden chanced to trippen by,
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Which when observed, he shrunk into his mew,
+    And straight would recollect his piety anew.
+
+But Chaucer's friar is a wanton and merry scoundrel, taking every
+license, kissing the wives and talking love-talk to the girls in his
+wanderings, as he begs for his Church and his order. His hood is stuffed
+with trinkets to give them; he is worthily known as the best beggar of his
+house; his eyes alight with wine, he strikes his little harp, trolls out
+funny songs and love-ditties. Anon, his frolic over, he preaches to the
+collected crowd violent denunciations of the parish priest, within the
+very limits of his parish. The very principles upon which these mendicant
+orders were established seem to be elements of evil. That they might be
+better than the monks, they had no cloisters and magnificent gardens, with
+little to do but enjoy them. Like our Lord, they were generally without a
+place to lay their heads; they had neither purse nor scrip. But instead of
+sanctifying, the itinerary was their great temptation and final ruin.
+Nothing can be conceived better calculated to harden the heart and to
+destroy the fierce sensibilities of our nature than to be a beggar and a
+wanderer. So that in our retrospective glance, we may pity while we
+condemn "the friar of orders gray." With a delicate irony in Chaucer's
+picture, is combined somewhat of a liking for this "worthy limitour."[17]
+
+In the same category of contempt for the existing ecclesiastical system,
+Chaucer places the sompnour, or summoner to the Church courts. Of his
+fire-red face, scattered beard, and the bilious knobs on his cheeks,
+"children were sore afraid." The friar, in his tale, represents him as in
+league with the devil, who carries him away. He is a drinker of strong
+wines, a conniver at evil for bribes: for a good sum he would teach "a
+felon"
+
+                     ... not to have none awe
+    In swiche a case of the archdeacon's curse.
+
+To him the Church system was nothing unless he could make profit of it.
+
+
+THE PARDONERE.--Nor is his picture of the pardoner, or vender of
+indulgences, more flattering. He sells--to the great contempt of the
+poet--a piece of the Virgin's veil, a bit of the sail of St. Peter's boat,
+holy pigges' bones, and with these relics he made more money in each
+parish in one day than the parson himself in two months.
+
+Thus taking advantage of his plot to ridicule these characters, and to
+make them satirize each other--as in the rival stories of the sompnour and
+friar--he turns with pleasure from these betrayers of religion, to show us
+that there was a leaven of pure piety and devotion left.
+
+
+THE POOR PARSON.--With what eager interest does he portray the lovely
+character of the _poor parson_, the true shepherd of his little flock, in
+the midst of false friars and luxurious monks!--poor himself, but
+
+    Riche was he of holy thought and work,
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    That Cristes gospel truely wolde preche,
+    His parishers devoutly wolde teche.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Wide was his parish and houses fer asonder,
+    But he left nought for ne rain no thonder,
+    In sickness and in mischief to visite
+    The ferrest in his parish, moche and lite.
+    Upon his fete, and in his hand a staf,
+    This noble example to his shepe he yaf,
+    That first he wrought and afterward he taught.
+
+Chaucer's description of the poor parson, which loses much by being
+curtailed, has proved to be a model for all poets who have drawn the
+likeness of an earnest pastor from that day to ours, among whom are
+Herbert, Cowper, Goldsmith, and Wordsworth; but no imitation has equalled
+this beautiful model. When urged by the host,
+
+    Tell us a fable anon, for cocke's bones,
+
+he quotes St. Paul to Timothy as rebuking those who tell fables; and,
+disclaiming all power in poetry, preaches them such a stirring discourse
+upon penance, contrition, confession, and the seven deadly sins, with
+their remedies, as must have fallen like a thunderbolt upon this careless,
+motly crew; and has the additional value of giving us Chaucer's epitome of
+sound doctrine in that bigoted and ignorant age: and, eminently sound and
+holy as it is, it rebukes the lewdness of the other stories, and, in point
+of morality, neutralizes if it does not justify the lewd teachings of the
+work, or in other words, the immorality of the age. This is the parson's
+own view: his story is the last which is told, and he tells us, in the
+prologue to his sermon:
+
+    To knitte up all this feste, and make an ende;
+    And Jesu for his grace wit me sende
+    To showen you the way in this viage
+    Of thilke parfit glorious pilgrimage,
+    That hight Jerusalem celestial.
+
+In an addendum to this discourse, which brings the Canterbury Tales to an
+abrupt close, and which, if genuine, as the best critics think it, was
+added some time after, Chaucer takes shame to himself for his lewd
+stories, repudiates all his "translations and enditinges of worldly
+vanitees," and only finds pleasure in his translations of Boethius, his
+homilies and legends of the saints; and, with words of penitence, he hopes
+that he shall be saved "atte the laste day of dome."
+
+
+JOHN WICLIF.[18]--The subject of this early reformation so clearly set
+forth in the stories of Chaucer, cannot be fully illustrated without a
+special notice of Chaucer's great contemporary and co-worker, John Wiclif.
+
+What Chaucer hints, or places in the mouths of his characters, with
+apparently no very serious intent, Wiclif, himself a secular priest,
+proclaimed boldly and as of prime importance, first from his professor's
+chair at Oxford, and then from his forced retirement at Lutterworth, where
+he may well have been the model of Chaucer's poor parson.
+
+Wiclif was born in 1324, four years before Chaucer. The same abuses which
+called forth the satires of Langland and Chaucer upon monk and friar, and
+which, if unchecked, promised universal corruption, aroused the
+martyr-zeal of Wiclif; and similar reproofs are to be found in his work
+entitled "Objections to Friars," and in numerous treatises from his pen
+against many of the doctrines and practices of the Church.
+
+Noted for his learning and boldness, he was sent by Edward III. one of an
+embassy to Bruges, to negotiate with the Pope's envoys concerning
+benefices held in England by foreigners. There he met John of Gaunt, the
+Duke of Lancaster. This prince, whose immediate descendants were to play
+so prominent a part in later history, was the fourth son of Edward III. By
+the death of the Black Prince, in 1376, and of Lionel, Duke of Clarence,
+in 1368, he became the oldest remaining child of the king, and the father
+of the man who usurped the throne of England and reigned as Henry IV. The
+influence of Lancaster was equal to his station, and he extended his
+protection to Wiclif. This, combined with the support of Lord Percy, the
+Marshal of England, saved the reformer from the stake when he was tried
+before the Bishop, of London on a charge of heresy, in 1377. He was again
+brought before a synod of the clergy at Lambeth, in 1378, but such was the
+favor of the populace in his behalf, and such, too, the weakness of the
+papal party, on account of a schism which had resulted in the election of
+two popes, that, although his opinions were declared heretical, he was not
+proceeded against.
+
+After this, although almost sick to death, he rose from what his enemies
+had hoped would be his death-bed, to "again declare the evil deeds of the
+friars." In 1381, he lectured openly at Oxford against the doctrine of
+transubstantiation; and for this, after a presentment by the Church--and a
+partial recantation, or explaining away--even the liberal king thought
+proper to command that he should retire from the university. Thus, during
+his latter years, he lived in retirement at his little parish of
+Lutterworth, escaping the dangers of the troublous time, and dying--struck
+with paralysis at his chancel--in 1384, sixteen years before Chaucer.
+
+
+TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE.--The labors of Wiclif which produced the most
+important results, were not his violent lectures as a reformer, but the
+translation of the Bible into English, the very language of the common
+people, greatly to the wrath of the hierarchy and its political upholders.
+This, too, is his chief glory: as a reformer he went too fast and too far;
+he struck fiercely at the root of authority, imperilling what was good, in
+his attack upon what was evil. In pulling up the tares he endangered the
+wheat, and from him, as a progenitor, came the Lollards, a fanatical,
+violent, and revolutionary sect.
+
+But his English Bible, the parent of the later versions, cannot be too
+highly valued. For the first time, English readers could search the whole
+Scriptures, and judge for themselves of doctrine and authority: there they
+could learn how far the traditions and commandments of men had encrusted
+and corrupted the pure word of truth. Thus the greatest impulsion was
+given to a reformation in doctrine; and thus, too, the exclusiveness and
+arrogance of the clergy received the first of many sledge-hammer blows
+which were to result in their confusion and discomfiture.
+
+"If," says Froude,[19] "the Black Prince had lived, or if Richard II. had
+inherited the temper of the Plantagenets, the ecclesiastical system would
+have been spared the misfortune of a longer reprieve."
+
+
+THE ASHES OF WICLIF.--The vengeance which Wiclif escaped during his life
+was wreaked upon his bones. In 1428, the Council of Constance ordered that
+if his bones could be distinguished from those of other, faithful people,
+they should "be taken out of the ground and thrown far off from Christian
+burial." On this errand the Bishop of Lincoln came with his officials to
+Lutterworth, and, finding them, burned them, and threw the ashes into the
+little stream called the Swift. Fuller, in his Church History, adds: "Thus
+this brook has conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into
+the narrow seas, they into the main ocean; and thus the ashes of Wiclif
+are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world
+over;" or, in the more carefully selected words of an English laureate of
+modern days,[20]
+
+                   ... this deed accurst,
+    An emblem yields to friends and enemies,
+    How the bold teacher's doctrine, _sanctified
+    By truth_, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAUCER (CONTINUED.)--PROGRESS OF SOCIETY, AND OF LANGUAGES.
+
+
+   Social Life. Government. Chaucer's English. His Death. Historical
+   Facts. John Gower. Chaucer and Gower. Gower's Language. Other Writers.
+
+
+
+SOCIAL LIFE.
+
+
+A few words must suffice to suggest to the student what may be learned, as
+to the condition of society in England, from the Canterbury Tales.
+
+All the portraits are representatives of classes. But an inquiry into the
+social life of the period will be more systematic, if we look first at the
+nature and condition of chivalry, as it still existed, although on the eve
+of departure, in England. This is found in the portraits of certain of
+Chaucer's pilgrims--the knight, the squire, and the yeoman; and in the
+special prologues to the various tales. The _knight_, as the
+representative of European chivalry, comes to us in name at least from the
+German forests with the irrepressible Teutons. _Chivalry_ in its rude
+form, however, was destined to pass through a refining and modifying
+process, and to obtain its name in France. Its Norman characteristic is
+found in the young _ecuyer_ or squire, of Chaucer, who aspires to equal
+his father in station and renown; while the English type of the
+man-at-arms (_l'homme d'armes_) is found in their attendant yeoman, the
+_tiers état_ of English chivalry, whose bills and bows served Edward III.
+at Cressy and Poictiers, and, a little later, made Henry V. of England
+king of France in prospect, at Agincourt. Chivalry, in its palmy days,
+was an institution of great merit and power; but its humanizing purpose
+now accomplished, it was beginning to decline.
+
+What a speaking picture has Chaucer drawn of the knight, brave as a lion,
+prudent in counsel, but gentle as a woman. His deeds of valor had been
+achieved, not at Cressy and Calais, but--what both chieftain and poet
+esteemed far nobler warfare--in battle with the infidel, at Algeçiras, in
+Poland, in Prussia, and Russia. Thrice had he fought with sharp lances in
+the lists, and thrice had he slain his foe; yet he was
+
+    Of his port as meke as is a mayde;
+    He never yet no vilainie ne sayde
+    In all his life unto ne manere wight,
+    He was a very parfit gentil knight.
+
+The entire paradox of chivalry is here presented by the poet. For, though
+Chaucer's knight, just returned from the wars, is going to show his
+devotion to God and the saints by his pilgrimage to the hallowed shrine at
+Canterbury, when he is called upon for his story, his fancy flies to the
+old romantic mythology. Mars is his god of war, and Venus his mother of
+loves, and, by an anachronism quite common in that day, Palamon and Arcite
+are mediæval knights trained in the school of chivalry, and aflame, in
+knightly style, with the light of love and ladies' eyes. These
+incongruities marked the age.
+
+Such was the flickering brightness of chivalry in Chaucer's time, even
+then growing dimmer and more fitful, and soon to "pale its ineffectual
+fire" in the light of a growing civilization. Its better principles, which
+were those of truth, virtue, and holiness, were to remain; but its forms,
+ceremonies, and magnificence were to disappear.
+
+It is significant of social progress, and of the levelling influence of
+Christianity, that common people should do their pilgrimage with community
+of interest as well as danger, and in easy, tale-telling conference with
+those of higher station. The franklin, with white beard and red face, has
+been lord of the sessions and knight of the shire. The merchant, with
+forked beard and Flaundrish beaver hat, discourses learnedly of taxes and
+ship-money, and was doubtless drawn from an existing original, the type of
+a class. Several of the personages belong to the guilds which were so
+famous in London, and
+
+    Were alle yclothed in o livere
+    Of a solempne and grete fraternite.
+
+
+GOVERNMENT.--Closely connected with this social progress, was the progress
+in constitutional government, the fruit of the charters of John and Henry
+III. After the assassination of Edward II. by his queen and her paramour,
+there opened upon England a new historic era, when the bold and energetic
+Edward III. ascended the throne--an era reflected in the poem of Chaucer.
+The king, with Wiclif's aid, checked the encroachments of the Church. He
+increased the representation of the people in parliament, and--perhaps the
+greatest reform of all--he divided that body into two houses, the peers
+and the commons, giving great consequence to the latter in the conduct of
+the government, and introducing that striking feature of English
+legislation, that no ministry can withstand an opposition majority in the
+lower house; and another quite as important, that no tax should be imposed
+without its consent. The philosophy of these great facts is to be found in
+the democratic spirit so manifest among the pilgrims; a spirit tempered
+with loyalty, but ready, where their liberties were encroached upon, to
+act with legislative vigor, as well as individual boldness.
+
+Not so directly, but still forcibly, does Chaucer present the results of
+Edward's wars in France, in the status of the knight, squire, and yeoman,
+and of the English sailor, and in the changes introduced into the language
+and customs of the English thereby.
+
+
+CHAUCER'S ENGLISH.--But we are to observe, finally, that Chaucer is the
+type of progress in the language, giving it himself the momentum which
+carried it forward with only technical modifications to the days of
+Spenser and the Virgin Queen. The _House of Fame_ and other minor poems
+are written in the octosyllabic verse of the Trouvères, but the
+_Canterbury Tales_ give us the first vigorous English handling of the
+decasyllabic couplet, or iambic pentameter, which was to become so
+polished an instrument afterward in the hands of Dryden and Pope. The
+English of all the poems is simple and vernacular.
+
+It is known that Dante had at first intended to compose the Divina
+Commedia in Latin. "But when," he said to the sympathizing Frate Ilario,
+"I recalled the condition of the present age, and knew that those generous
+men for whom, in better days, these things were written, had abandoned
+(_ahi dolore_) the liberal arts into vulgar hands, I threw aside the
+delicate lyre which armed my flank, and attuned another more befitting the
+ears of moderns." It seems strange that he should have thus regretted what
+to us seems a noble and original opportunity of double creation--poem and
+language. What Dante thus bewailed was his real warrant for immortality.
+Had he written his great work in Latin, it would have been consigned, with
+the Italian latinity of the middle ages, to oblivion; while his Tuscan
+still delights the ear of princes and lazzaroni. Professorships of the
+Divina Commedia are instituted in Italian universities, and men are
+considered accomplished when they know it by heart.
+
+What Dante had done, not without murmuring, Chaucer did more cheerfully in
+England. Claimed by both universities as a collegian, perhaps without
+truth, he certainly was an educated man, and must have been sorely tempted
+by Latin hexameters; but he knew his mission, and felt his power. With a
+master hand he moulded the language. He is reproached for having
+introduced "a wagon-load of foreign words," i.e. Norman words, which,
+although frowned upon by some critics, were greatly needed, were eagerly
+adopted, and constituted him the "well of English undefiled," as he was
+called by Spenser. It is no part of our plan to consider Chaucer's
+language or diction, a special study which the reader can pursue for
+himself. Occleve, in his work "_De Regimine Principium"_ calls him "the
+honour of English tonge," "floure of eloquence," and "universal fadir in
+science," and, above all, "the firste findere of our faire language." To
+Lydgate he was the "Floure of Poetes throughout all Bretaine." Measured by
+our standard, he is not always musical, "and," in the language of Dryden,
+"many of his verses are lame for want of half a foot, and sometimes a
+whole one;" but he must be measured by the standards of his age, by the
+judgment of his contemporaries, and by a thorough intelligence of the
+language as he found it and as he left it. Edward III., a practical
+reformer in many things, gave additional importance to English, by
+restoring it in the courts of law, and administering justice to the people
+in their own tongue. When we read of the _English_ kings of this early
+period, it is curious to reflect that these monarchs, up to the time of
+Edward I., spoke French as their vernacular tongue, while English had only
+been the mixed, corrupted language of the lower classes, which was now
+brought thus by king and poet into honorable consideration.
+
+
+HIS DEATH.--Chaucer died on the 25th of October, 1400, in his little
+tenement in the garden of St. Mary's Chapel, Westminster, and left his
+works and his fame to an evil and unappreciative age. His monument was not
+erected until one hundred and fifty-six years afterward, by Nicholas
+Brigham. It stands in the "poets' corner" of Westminster Abbey, and has
+been the nucleus of that gathering-place of the sacred dust which once
+enclosed the great minds of England. The inscription, which justly styles
+him "Anglorum vates ter maximus," is not to be entirely depended upon as
+to the "annus Domini," or "tempora vitae," because of the turbulent and
+destructive reigns that had intervened--evil times for literary effort,
+and yet making material for literature and history, and producing that
+wonderful magician, the printing-press, and paper, by means of which the
+former things might be disseminated, and Chaucer brought nearer to us than
+to them.
+
+
+HISTORICAL FACTS.--The year before Chaucer died, Richard II. was starved
+in his dungeon. Henry, the son of John of Gaunt, represented the
+usurpation of Lancaster, and the realm was convulsed with the revolts of
+rival aristocracy; and, although Prince Hal, or Henry V., warred with
+entire success in France, and got the throne of that kingdom away from
+Charles VI., (the Insane,) he died leaving to his infant son, Henry VI.,
+an inheritance which could not be secured. The rival claimant of York,
+Edward IV., had a strong party in the kingdom: then came the wars of the
+Roses; the murders and treason of Richard III.; the sordid valor of Henry
+VII.; the conjugal affection of Henry VIII.; the great religious
+earthquake all over Europe, known as the Reformation; constituting all
+together an epoch too stirring and unsettled to permit literature to
+flourish; an epoch which gave birth to no great poet or mighty master, but
+which contained only the seeds of things which were to germinate and
+flourish in a kindlier age.
+
+In closing this notice of Chaucer, it should be remarked that no English
+poet has been more successful in the varied delineation of character, or
+in fresh and charming pictures of Nature. Witty and humorous, sententious
+and didactic, solemn and pathetic, he not only pleases the fancy, but
+touches the heart.
+
+
+JOHN GOWER.--Before entering upon the barren period from Chaucer to
+Spenser, however, there is one contemporary of Chaucer whom we must not
+omit to mention; for his works, although of little literary value, are
+historical signs of the times: this is _John Gower_, styled variously Sir
+John and Judge Gower, as he was very probably both a knight and a justice.
+He seems to owe most of his celebrity to his connection, however slight,
+with Chaucer; although there is no doubt of his having been held in good
+repute by the literary patrons and critics of his own age. His fame rests
+upon three works, or rather three parts of one scheme--_Speculum
+Meditantis_, _Vox Clamantis_, and _Confessio Amantis_. The first of these,
+_the mirror of one who meditates_, was in French verse, and was, in the
+main, a treatise upon virtue and repentance, with inculcations to conjugal
+fidelity much disregarded at that time. This work has been lost. The _Vox
+Clamantis_, or _voice of one crying in the wilderness_, is directly
+historical, being a chronicle, in Latin elegiacs, of the popular revolts
+of Wat Tyler in the time of Richard II., and a sermon on fatalism, which,
+while it calls for a reformation in the clergy, takes ground against
+Wiclif, his doctrines, and adherents. In the later books he discusses the
+military and the lawyers; and thus he is the voice of one crying, like the
+Baptist in the wilderness, against existing abuses and for the advent of a
+better order. The _Confessio Amantis_, now principally known because it
+contains a eulogium of Chaucer, which in his later editions he left out,
+is in English verse, and was composed at the instance of Richard II. The
+general argument of this Lover's Confession is a dialogue between the
+lover and a priest of Venus, who, in the guise of a confessor, applies the
+breviary of the Church to the confessions of love.[21] The poem is
+interspersed with introductory or recapitulatory Latin verses.
+
+
+CHAUCER AND GOWER.--That there was for a time a mutual admiration between
+Chaucer and Gower, is shown by their allusion to each other. In the
+penultimate stanza of the Troilus and Creseide, Chaucer calls him "O
+Morall Gower," an epithet repeated by Dunbar, Hawes, and other writers;
+while in the _Confessio Amantis_, Gower speaks of Chaucer as his disciple
+and poet, and alludes to his poems with great praise. That they were at
+any time alienated from each other has been asserted, but the best
+commentators agree in thinking without sufficient grounds.
+
+The historical teachings of Gower are easy to find. He states truths
+without parable. His moral satires are aimed at the Church corruptions of
+the day, and yet are conservative; and are taken, says Berthelet, in his
+dedication of the Confessio to Henry VIII., not only out of "poets,
+orators, historic writers, and philosophers, but out of the Holy
+Scripture"--the same Scripture so eloquently expounded by Chaucer, and
+translated by Wiclif. Again, Gower, with an eye to the present rather than
+to future fame, wrote in three languages--a tribute to the Church in his
+Latin, to the court in his French, and to the progressive spirit of the
+age in his English. The latter alone is now read, and is the basis of his
+fame. Besides three poems, he left, among his manuscripts, fifty French
+sonnets, (cinquantes balades,) which were afterward printed by his
+descendant, Lord Gower, Duke of Sutherland.
+
+
+GOWER'S LANGUAGE.--Like Chaucer, Gower was a reformer in language, and was
+accused by the "severer etymologists of having corrupted the purity of the
+English by affecting to introduce so many foreign words and phrases;" but
+he has the tribute of Sir Philip Sidney (no mean praise) that Chaucer and
+himself were the leaders of a movement, which others have followed, "to
+beautifie our mother tongue," and thus the _Confessio Amantis_ ranks as
+one of the formers of our language, in a day when it required much moral
+courage to break away from the trammels of Latin and French, and at the
+same time to compel them to surrender their choicest treasures to the
+English.
+
+Gower was born in 1325 or 1326, and outlived Chaucer. It has been
+generally believed that Chaucer was his poetical pupil. The only evidence
+is found in the following vague expression of Gower in the Confessio
+Amantis:
+
+    And greet well Chaucer when ye meet
+    As _my disciple_ and my poete.
+    For in the flower of his youth,
+    In sondry wise as he well couth,
+    Of ditties and of songes glade
+    The which he for my sake made.
+
+It may have been but a patronizing phrase, warranted by Gower's superior
+rank and station; for to the modern critic the one is the uprising sun,
+and the other the pale star scarcely discerned in the sky. Gower died in
+1408, eight years after his more illustrious colleague.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE PERIOD OF CHAUCER.
+
+
+John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, a Scottish poet, born about 1320:
+wrote a poem concerning the deeds of King Robert I. in achieving the
+independence of Scotland. It is called _Broite_ or _Brute_, and in it, in
+imitation of the English, he traces the Scottish royal lineage to Brutus.
+Although by no means equal to Chaucer, he is far superior to any other
+English poet of the time, and his language is more intelligible at the
+present day than that of Chaucer or Gower. Sir Walter Scott has borrowed
+from Barbour's poem in his "Lord of the Isles."
+
+Blind Harry--name unknown: wrote the adventures of Sir William Wallace,
+about 1460.
+
+James I. of Scotland, assassinated at Perth, in 1437. He wrote "The Kings
+Quhair," (Quire or Book,) describing the progress of his attachment to the
+daughter of the Earl of Somerset, while a prisoner in England, during the
+reign of Henry IV.
+
+Thomas Occleve, flourished about 1420. His principal work is in Latin; De
+Regimine Principum, (concerning the government of princes.)
+
+John Lydgate, flourished about 1430: wrote _Masks_ and _Mummeries_, and
+nine books of tragedies translated from Boccaccio.
+
+Robert Henryson, flourished about 1430: Robin and Makyne, a pastoral; and
+a continuation of Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide, entitled "The Testament
+of Fair Creseide."
+
+William Dunbar, died about 1520: the greatest of Scottish poets, called
+"The Chaucer of Scotland." He wrote "The Thistle and the Rose," "The
+Dance," and "The Golden Targe."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE BARREN PERIOD BETWEEN CHAUCER AND SPENSER.
+
+
+   Greek Literature. Invention of Printing. Caxton. Contemporary History.
+   Skelton. Wyatt. Surrey. Sir Thomas More. Utopia, and other Works. Other
+   Writers.
+
+
+
+THE STUDY OF GREEK LITERATURE.
+
+
+Having thus mentioned the writers whom we regard as belonging to the
+period of Chaucer, although some of them, like Henryson and Dunbar,
+flourished at the close of the fifteenth century, we reach those of that
+literary epoch which may be regarded as the transition state between
+Chaucer and the age of Elizabeth: an epoch which, while it produced no
+great literary work, and is irradiated by no great name, was, however, a
+time of preparation for the splendid advent of Spenser and Shakspeare.
+
+Incident to the dangers which had so long beset the Eastern or Byzantine
+Empire, which culminated in the fall of Constantinople--and to the gradual
+but steady progress of Western Europe in arts and letters, which made it a
+welcome refuge for the imperilled learning of the East--Greek letters came
+like a fertilizing flood across the Continent into England. The philosophy
+of Plato, the power of the Athenian drama, and the learning of the
+Stagyrite, were a new impulse to literature. Before the close of the
+fifteenth century, Greek was taught at Oxford, and men marvelled as they
+read that "musical and prolific language, that gives a soul to the objects
+of sense, and a body to the abstractions of philosophy," a knowledge of
+which had been before entirely lost in the West. Thus was perfected what
+is known as the revival of letters, when classical learning came to enrich
+and modify the national literatures, if it did temporarily retard the
+vernacular progress. The Humanists carried the day against the
+Obscurantists; and, as scholarship had before consisted in a thorough
+knowledge of Latin, it now also included a knowledge of Greek, which
+presented noble works of poetry, eloquence, and philosophy, and gave us a
+new idiom for the terminologies of science.
+
+
+INVENTION OF PRINTING.--Nor was this all. This great wealth of learning
+would have still remained a dead letter to the multitude, and, in the
+main, a useless treasure even to scholars, had it not been for a simple
+yet marvellous invention of the same period. In Germany, some obscure
+mechanics, at Harlem, at Mayence, and at Strasbourg, were at work upon a
+machine which, if perfected, should at once extend letters a hundred-fold,
+and by that process revolutionize literature. The writers before, few as
+they were, had been almost as numerous as the readers; hereafter the
+readers were to increase in a geometrical proportion, and each great
+writer should address millions. Movable types, first of wood and then of
+metal, were made, the latter as early as 1441. Schœffer, Guttenberg, and
+Faust brought them to such perfection that books were soon printed and
+issued in large numbers. But so slowly did the art travel, partly on
+account of want of communication, and partly because it was believed to
+partake of necromancy, and partly, too, from the phlegmatic character of
+the English people, that thirty years elapsed before it was brought into
+England. The art of printing came in response to the demand of an age of
+progress: it was needed before; it was called for by the increasing number
+of readers, and when it came it multiplied that number largely.
+
+
+WILLIAM CAXTON.--That it did at last come to England was due to William
+Caxton, a native of Kent, and by vocation a mercer, who imported costly
+continental fabrics into England, and with them some of the new books now
+being printed in Holland. That he was a man of some eminence is shown by
+his having been engaged by Edward IV. on a mission to the Duke of
+Burgundy, with power to negotiate a treaty of commerce; that he was a
+person of skill and courtesy is evinced by his being retained in the
+service of Margaret, Duchess of York, when she married Charles, Duke of
+Burgundy. While in her train, he studied printing on the Continent, and is
+said to have printed some books there. At length, when he was more than
+sixty years old, he returned to England; and, in 1474, he printed what is
+supposed to be the first book printed in England, "The Game and Playe of
+the Chesse." Thus it was a century after Chaucer wrote the Canterbury
+Tales that printing was introduced into England. Caxton died in 1491, but
+his workmen continued to print, and among them Wynken de Worde stands
+conspicuous. Among the earlier works printed by Caxton were the Canterbury
+Tales, the Book of Fame, and the Troilus and Creseide of Chaucer.
+
+
+CONTEMPORARY HISTORY.--It will be remembered that this was the stormy
+period of the Wars of the Roses. The long and troubled reign of Henry VI.
+closed in sorrow in 1471. The titular crown of France had been easily
+taken from him by Charles VII. and Joan of Arc; and although Richard of
+York, the great-grandson of Edward III., had failed in his attempts upon
+the English throne, yet _his_ son Edward, afterward the Fourth, was
+successful. Then came the patricide of Clarence, the accession and
+cruelties of Richard III., the battle of Bosworth, and, at length, the
+union of the two houses in the persons of Henry VII. (Henry Tudor of
+Lancaster) and Elizabeth of York. Thus the strife of the succession was
+settled, and the realm had rest to reorganize and start anew in its
+historic career.
+
+The weakening of the aristocracy by war and by execution gave to the
+crown a power before unknown, and made it a fearful coigne of vantage for
+Henry VIII., whose accession was in 1509. People and parliament were alike
+subservient, and gave their consent to the unjust edicts and arbitrary
+cruelties of this terrible tyrant.
+
+In his reign the old English quarrel between Church and State--which
+during the civil war had lain dormant--again rose, and was brought to a
+final issue. It is not unusual to hear that the English Reformation grew
+out of the ambition of a libidinous monarch. This is a coincidence rather
+than a cause. His lust and his marriages would have occurred had there
+been no question of Pope or Church; conversely, had there been a continent
+king upon the throne, the great political and religious events would have
+happened in almost the same order and manner. That "knock of a king" and
+"incurable wound" prophesied by Piers Plowman were to come. Henry only
+seized the opportunity afforded by his ungodly passions as the best
+pretext, where there were many, for setting the Pope at defiance; and the
+spirit of reformation so early displayed, and awhile dormant from
+circumstances, and now strengthened by the voice of Luther, burst forth in
+England. There was little demur to the suppression of the monasteries; the
+tomb of St. Thomas à Becket was desecrated amidst the insulting mummeries
+of the multitude; and if Henry still burned Lutherans--because he could
+not forget that he had in earlier days denounced Luther--if he still
+maintained the six bloody articles[22]--his reforming spirit is shown in
+the execution of Fisher and More, by the anathema which he drew upon
+himself from the Pope, and by Henry's retaliation upon the friends and
+kinsmen of Cardinal Pole, the papal legate.
+
+Having thus briefly glanced at the history, we return to the literary
+products, all of which reflect more or less of the historic age, and by
+their paucity and poverty indicate the existence of the causes so
+unfavorable to literary effort. This statement will be partially
+understood when we mention, as the principal names of this period,
+Skelton, Wyatt, Surrey, and Sir Thomas More, men whose works are scarcely
+known to the ordinary reader, and which are yet the best of the time.
+
+
+SKELTON.--John Skelton, poet, priest, and buffoon, was born about the year
+1460, and educated at what he calls "Alma parens, O Cantabrigensis." Tutor
+to Prince Henry, afterward Henry VIII., he could boast, "The honour of
+England I lernyd to spelle." That he was highly esteemed in his day we
+gather from the eulogium of Erasmus, then for a short time professor of
+Greek at Oxford: "Unum Brittanicarum literarum lumen et decus." By another
+contemporary he is called the "inventive Skelton." As a priest he was not
+very holy; for, in a day when the marriage of the clergy was worse than
+their incontinence, he contracted a secret marriage. He enjoyed for a time
+the patronage of Wolsey, but afterward joined his enemies and attacked him
+violently. He was _laureated_: this does not mean, as at present, that he
+was poet laureate of England, but that he received a degree of which that
+was the title.
+
+His works are direct delineations of the age. Among these are "monodies"
+upon _Kynge Edwarde the forthe_, and the _Earle of Northumberlande_. He
+corrects for Caxton "The boke of the Eneydos composed by Vyrgyle." He
+enters heartily into numerous literary quarrels; is a reformer to the
+extent of exposing ecclesiastical abuses in his _Colin Clout_; and
+scourges the friars and bishops alike; and in this work, and his "Why come
+ye not to Courte?" he makes a special target of Wolsey, and the pomp and
+luxury of his household. He calls him "Mad Amelek, like to Mamelek"
+(Mameluke), and speaks
+
+    Of his wretched original
+    And his greasy genealogy.
+    He came from the sank (blood) royal
+    That was cast out of a butcher's stall.
+
+This was the sorest point upon which he could touch the great cardinal and
+prime minister of Henry VIII.
+
+Historically considered, one work of Skelton is especially valuable, for
+it places him among the first of English dramatists. The first effort of
+the modern drama was the _miracle play_; then came the _morality_; after
+that the _interlude_, which was soon merged into regular tragedy and
+comedy. Skelton's "Magnyfycence," which he calls "a goodly interlude and a
+merie," is, in reality, a morality play as well as an interlude, and marks
+the opening of the modern drama in England.
+
+The peculiar verse of Skelton, styled _skeltonical_, is a sort of English
+anacreontic. One example has been given; take, as another, the following
+lampoon of Philip of Spain and the armada:
+
+    A skeltonicall salutation
+    Or condigne gratulation
+    And just vexation
+    Of the Spanish nation,
+    That in bravado
+    Spent many a crusado
+    In setting forth an armado
+    England to invado.
+
+    Who but Philippus,
+    That seeketh to nip us,
+    To rob us and strip us,
+    And then for to whip us,
+    Would ever have meant
+    Or had intent
+    Or hither sent
+    Such strips of charge, etc., etc.
+
+It varies from five to six syllables, with several consecutive rhymes.
+
+His "Merie Tales" are a series of short and generally broad stories,
+suited to the vulgar taste: no one can read them without being struck with
+the truly historic character of the subjects and the handling, and without
+moralizing upon the age which they describe. Skelton, a contemporary of
+the French Rabelais, seems to us a weak English portrait of that great
+author; like him a priest, a buffoon, a satirist, and a lampooner, but
+unlike him in that he has given us no English _Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_
+to illustrate his age.
+
+
+WYATT.--The next writer who claims our attention is Sir Thomas Wyatt, the
+son of Sir Henry Wyatt. He was born in 1503, and educated at Cambridge.
+Early a courtier, he was imperilled by his attachment to Anne Boleyn,
+conceded, if not quite Platonic, yet to have never led him to criminality.
+Several of his poems were inspired by her charms. The one best known
+begins--
+
+    What word is that that changeth not,
+    Though it be turned and made in twain?
+    It is mine ANNA, God it wot, etc.
+
+That unfortunate queen--to possess whose charms Henry VIII. had repudiated
+Catherine of Arragon, and who was soon to be brought to the block after
+trial on the gravest charges--which we do not think substantiated--was,
+however, frivolous and imprudent, and liked such impassioned
+attentions--indeed, may be said to have suffered for them.
+
+Wyatt was styled by Camden "splendide doctus," but his learning, however
+honorable to him, was not of much benefit to the world; for his works are
+few, and most of them amatory--"songs and sonnets"--full of love and
+lovers: as a makeweight, in _foro conscientiæ_, he paraphrased the
+penitential Psalms. An excellent comment this on the age of Henry VIII.,
+when the monarch possessed with lust attempted the reformation of the
+Church. That Wyatt looked with favor upon the Reformation is indicated by
+one of his remarks to the king: "Heavens! that a man cannot repent him of
+his sins without the Pope's leave!" Imprisoned several times during the
+reign of Henry, after that monarch's death he favored the accession of
+Lady Jane Grey, and, with other of her adherents, was executed for high
+treason on the 11th of April, 1554. We have spoken of the spirit of the
+age. Its criticism was no better than its literature; for Wyatt, whom few
+read but the literary historian, was then considered
+
+    A hand that taught what might be said in rhyme,
+    That reft Chaucer the glory of his wit.
+
+The glory of Chaucer's wit remains, while Wyatt is chiefly known because
+he was executed.
+
+
+SURREY.--A twin star, but with a brighter lustre, was Henry Howard, Earl
+of Surrey, a writer whose works are remarkable for purity of thought and
+refinement of language. Surrey was a gay and wild young
+fellow--distinguished in the tournament which celebrated Henry's marriage
+with Anne of Cleves; now in prison for eating meat in Lent, and breaking
+windows at night; again we find him the English marshal when Henry invaded
+France in 1544. He led a restless life, was imperious and hot-tempered to
+the king, and at length quartered the king's arms with his own, thus
+assuming royal rights and imperilling the king's dignity. On this charge,
+which was, however, only a pretext, he was arrested and executed for high
+treason in 1547, before he was thirty years old.
+
+Surrey is the greatest poetical name of Henry the Eighth's reign, not so
+much for the substance of his poems as for their peculiar handling. He is
+claimed as the introducer of blank verse--the iambic pentameter without
+rhyme, occasionally broken for musical effect by a change in the place of
+the cæsural pause. His translation of the Fourth Book of the Æneid,
+imitated perhaps from the Italian version of the Cardinal de Medici, is
+said to be the first specimen of blank verse in English. How slow its
+progress was is proved by Johnson's remarks upon the versification of
+Milton.[23] Thus in his blank verse Surrey was the forerunner of Milton,
+and in his rhymed pentameter couplet one of the heralds of Dryden and
+Pope.
+
+
+SIR THOMAS MORE.--In a bird's-eye view of literature, the division into
+poetry and prose is really a distinction without a difference. They are
+the same body in different clothing, at labor and at festivity--in the
+working suit and in the court costume. With this remark we usher upon the
+literary scene Thomas More, in many respects one of the most remarkable
+men of his age--scholar, jurist, statesman, gentleman, and Christian; and,
+withal, a martyr to his principles of justice and faith. In a better age,
+he would have retained the highest honors: it is not to his discredit that
+in that reign he was brought to the block.
+
+He was born in 1480. A very precocious youth, a distinguished career was
+predicted for him. He was greatly favored by Henry VIII., who constantly
+visited him at Chelsea, hanging upon his neck, and professing an intensity
+of friendship which, it is said, More always distrusted. He was the friend
+and companion of Erasmus during the residence of that distinguished man in
+England. More was gifted as an orator, and rose to the distinction of
+speaker of the House of Commons; was presented with the great seal upon
+the dismissal of Wolsey, and by his learning, his affability, and his
+kindness, became the most popular, as he seemed to be the most prosperous
+man in England. But, the test of Henry's friendship and of More's
+principles came when the king desired his concurrence in the divorce of
+Catherine of Arragon. He resigned the great seal rather than sign the
+marriage articles of Anne Boleyn, and would not take the oath as to the
+lawfulness of that marriage. Henry's kindness turned to fury, and More was
+a doomed man. A devout Romanist, he would not violate his conscience by
+submitting to the act of supremacy which made Henry the head of the
+Church, and so he was tried for high treason, and executed on the 6th of
+July, 1535. There are few scenes more pathetic than his last interview
+with his daughter Margaret, in the Tower, and no death more calmly and
+beautifully grand than his. He kissed the executioner and forgave him.
+"Thou art," said he, "to do me the greatest benefit that I can receive:
+pluck up thy spirit man, and be not afraid to do thine office."
+
+
+UTOPIA.--His great work, and that which best illustrates the history of
+the age, is his Utopia, (ου τοπος, not a place.) Upon an island discovered
+by a companion of Vespuccius, he established an imaginary commonwealth, in
+which everybody was good and everybody happy. Purely fanciful as is his
+Utopia, and impossible of realization as he knew it to be while men are
+what they are, and not what they ought to be, it is manifestly a satire on
+that age, for his republic shunned English errors, and practised social
+virtues which were not the rule in England.
+
+Although More wrote against Luther, and opposed Henry's Church
+innovations, we are struck with his Utopian claim for great freedom of
+inquiry on all subjects, even religion; and the bold assertion that no man
+should be punished for his religion, because "a man cannot make himself
+believe anything he pleases," as Henry's six bloody articles so fearfully
+asserted he must. The Utopia was written in Latin, but soon translated
+into English. We use the adjective _utopian_ as meaning wildly fanciful
+and impossible: its true meaning is of high excellence, to be striven
+for--in a word, human perfection.
+
+
+OTHER WORKS.--More also wrote, in most excellent English prose, a history
+of the princes, Edward V. and his brother Richard of York, who were
+murdered in the Tower; and a history of their murderer and uncle, Richard
+III. This Richard--and we need not doubt his accuracy of statement, for he
+was born five years before Richard fell at Bosworth--is the short,
+deformed youth, with his left shoulder higher than the right; crafty,
+stony-hearted, and cruel, so strikingly presented by Shakspeare, who takes
+More as his authority. "Not letting (sparing) to kiss whom he thought to
+kill ... friend and foe was indifferent where his advantage grew; he
+spared no man's death whose life withstood his purpose. He slew, with his
+own hands, King Henry VI., being a prisoner in the Tower."
+
+With the honorable name of More we leave this unproductive period, in
+which there was no great growth of any kind, but which was the
+planting-time, when seeds were sown that were soon to germinate and bloom
+and astonish the world. The times remind us of the dark saying in the
+Bible, "Out of the eater came forth meat; out of the strong came
+sweetness."
+
+The art of printing had so increased the number of books, that public
+libraries began to be collected, and, what is better, to be used. The
+universities enlarged their borders, new colleges were added to Cambridge
+and Oxford; new foundations laid. The note of preparation betokened a
+great advent; the scene was fully prepared, and the actors would not be
+wanting.
+
+Upon the death of Henry VIII., in 1547, Edward VI., his son by Jane
+Seymour, ascended the throne, and during his minority a protector was
+appointed in the person of his mother's brother, the Earl of Hertford,
+afterward Duke of Somerset. Edward was a sickly youth of ten years old,
+but his reign is noted for the progress of reform in the Church, and
+especially for the issue of the _Book of Common Prayer_, which must be
+considered of literary importance, as, although with decided
+modifications, and an interruption in its use during the brief reign of
+Mary, it has been the ritual of worship in the Anglican Church ever since.
+It superseded the Latin services--of which it was mainly a translation
+rearranged and modified--finally and completely, and containing, as it
+does, the whole body of doctrine, it was the first clear manifesto of the
+creeds and usages of that Church, and a strong bond of union among its
+members.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE PERIOD.
+
+
+_Thomas Tusser_, 1527-1580: published, in 1557, "A Hundreth Good Points of
+Husbandrie," afterward enlarged and called, "Five Hundred Points of Good
+Husbandrie, united to as many of Good Huswiferie;" especially valuable as
+a picture of rural life and labor in that age.
+
+Alexander Barklay, died 1552: translated into English poetry the _Ship of
+Fools_, by Sebastian Brandt, of Basle.
+
+Reginald Pecock, Bishop of St. Asaph and of Chichester: published, in
+1449, "The Repressor of Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy." He attacked the
+Lollards, but was suspected of heresy himself, and deprived of his
+bishopric.
+
+John Fisher, 1459-1535: was made Bishop of Rochester in 1504; opposed the
+Reformation, and refused to approve of Henry's divorce from Catherine of
+Arragon; was executed by the king. The Pope sent him a cardinal's hat
+while he was lying under sentence. Henry said he would not leave him a
+head to put it on. Wrote principally sermons and theological treatises.
+
+Hugh Latimer, 1472-1555: was made Bishop of Worcester in 1535. An ardent
+supporter of the Reformation, who, by a rude, homely eloquence, influenced
+many people. He was burned at the stake at the age of eighty-three, in
+company with Ridley, Bishop of London, by Queen Mary. His memorable words
+to his fellow-martyr are: "We shall this day light a candle in England
+which, I trust, shall never be put out."
+
+John Leland, or Laylonde, died 1552: an eminent antiquary, who, by order
+of Henry VIII., examined, _con amore_, the records of libraries,
+cathedrals, priories, abbeys, colleges, etc., and has left a vast amount
+of curious antiquarian learning behind him. He became insane by reason of
+the pressure of his labors.
+
+George Cavendish, died 1557: wrote "The Negotiations of Woolsey, the Great
+Cardinal of England," etc., which was republished as the "Life and Death
+of Thomas Woolsey." From this, it is said, Shakspeare drew in writing his
+"Henry VIII."
+
+Roger Ascham, 1515-1568: specially famous as the successful instructor of
+Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey, whom he was able to imbue with a taste for
+classical learning. He wrote a treatise on the use of the bow, called
+_Toxophilus_, and _The Schoolmaster_, which contains many excellent and
+judicious suggestions, worthy to be carried out in modern education. It
+was highly praised by Dr. Johnson. It was written for the use of the
+children of Sackville, Lord Buckhurst.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+SPENSER AND THE ELIZABETHAN AGE.
+
+
+   The Great Change. Edward VI. and Mary. Sidney. The Arcadia. Defence of
+   Poesy. Astrophel and Stella. Gabriel Harvey. Edmund Spenser--Shepherd's
+   Calendar. His Great Work.
+
+
+
+THE GREAT CHANGE.
+
+
+With what joy does the traveller in the desert, after a day of scorching
+glow and a night of breathless heat, descry the distant trees which mark
+the longed-for well-spring in the emerald oasis, which seems to beckon
+with its branching palms to the converging caravans, to come and slake
+their fever-thirst, and escape from the threatening sirocco!
+
+The pilgrim arrives at the caravansery: not the long, low stone house,
+unfurnished and bare, which former experience had led him to expect; but a
+splendid palace. He dismounts; maidens purer and more beautiful than
+fabled houris, accompanied by slaves bearing rare dishes and goblets of
+crusted gold, offer him refreshments: perfumed baths, couches of down,
+soft and soothing music are about him in delicious combination. Surely he
+is dreaming; or if this be real, were not the burning sun and the sand of
+the desert, the panting camel and the dying horse of an hour ago but a
+dream?
+
+Such is not an overwrought illustration of English literature in the long,
+barren reach from Chaucer to Spenser, as compared with the freshness,
+beauty, and grandeur of the geniuses which adorned Elizabeth's court, and
+tended to make her reign as illustrious in history as the age of Pericles,
+of Augustus, or of Louis XIV. Chief among these were Spenser and
+Shakspeare. As the latter has been truly characterized as not for an age,
+but for all time, the former may be more justly considered as the highest
+exponent and representative of that period. The Faerie Queene, considered
+only as a grand heroic poem, is unrivalled in its pictures of beautiful
+women, brave men, daring deeds, and Oriental splendor; but in its
+allegorical character, it is far more instructive, since it enumerates and
+illustrates the cardinal virtues which should make up the moral character
+of a gentleman: add to this, that it is teeming with history, and in its
+manifold completeness we have, if not an oasis in the desert, more truly
+the rich verge of the fertile country which bounds that desert, and which
+opens a more beautiful road to the literary traveller as he comes down the
+great highway: wearied and worn with the factions and barrenness of the
+fifteenth century, he fairly revels with delight in the fertility and
+variety of the Elizabethan age.
+
+
+EDWARD AND MARY.--In pursuance of our plan, a few preliminary words will
+present the historic features of that age. In the year 1547, Henry VIII.,
+the royal Bluebeard, sank, full of crimes and beset with deathbed horrors,
+into a dishonorable grave.[24] A poor, weak youth, his son, Edward VI.,
+seemed sent by special providence on a short mission of six years, to
+foster the reformed faith, and to give the land a brief rest after the
+disorders and crimes of his father's reign.
+
+After Edward came Queen Mary, in 1553--the bloody Mary, who violently
+overturned the Protestant system, and avenged her mother against her
+father by restoring the Papal sway and making heresy the unpardonable
+sin. It may seem strange, in one breath to denounce Henry and to defend
+his daughter Mary; but severe justice, untempered with sympathy, has been
+meted out to her. We acknowledge all her recorded actions, but let it be
+remembered that she was the child of a basely repudiated mother, Catherine
+of Arragon, who, as the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, was a
+Catholic of the Catholics. Mary had been declared illegitimate; she was
+laboring under an incurable disease, affecting her mind as well as her
+body; she was the wife of Philip II. of Spain, a monster of iniquity,
+whose sole virtue--if we may so speak--was his devotion to his Church. She
+inherited her bigotry from her mother, and strengthened it by her
+marriage; and she thought that in persecuting heretics she was doing God
+service, which would only be a perfect service when she should have burned
+out the bay-tree growth of heresy and restored the ancient faith.
+
+Such were her character and condition as displayed to the English world;
+but we know, in addition, that she bore her sufferings with great
+fortitude; that, an unloved wife, she was a pattern of conjugal affection
+and fidelity; that she was a dupe in the hands of designing men and a
+fierce propaganda; and we may infer that, under different circumstances
+and with better guidance, the real elements of her character would have
+made her a good monarch and presented a far more pleasing historical
+portrait.
+
+Justice demands that we should say thus much, for even with these
+qualifications, the picture of her reign is very dark and painful. After a
+sad and bloody rule of five years--a reign of worse than Roman
+proscription, or later French terrors--she died without leaving a child.
+There was but one voice as to her successor. Delirious shouts of joy were
+heard throughout the land: "God save Queen Elizabeth!" "No more burnings
+at Smithfield, nor beheadings on Tower green! No more of Spanish Philip
+and his pernicious bigots! Toleration, freedom, light!" The people of
+England were ready for a golden age, and the golden age had come.
+
+
+ELIZABETH.--And who was Elizabeth? The daughter of the dishonored Anne
+Boleyn, who had been declared illegitimate, and set out of the succession;
+who had been kept in ward; often and long in peril of her life; destined,
+in all human foresight, to a life of sorrow, humiliation, and obscurity;
+her head had been long lying "'twixt axe and crown," with more probability
+of the former than the latter.
+
+Wonderful was the change. With her began a reign the like of which the
+world had never seen; a great and brilliant crisis in English history, in
+which the old order passed away and the new was inaugurated. It was like a
+new historic fulfilment of the prophecy of Virgil:
+
+    Magnus ... sæclorum nascitur ordo;
+    Jam redit et _Virgo_, redeunt Saturnia regna.
+
+Her accession and its consequences were like the scenes in some fairy
+tale. She was indeed a Faerie Queene, as she was designated in Spenser's
+magnificent allegory. Around her clustered a new chivalry, whose gentle
+deeds were wrought not only with the sword, but with the pen. Stout heart,
+stalwart arm, and soaring imagination, all wore her colors and were amply
+rewarded by her smiles; and whatever her personal faults--and they were
+many--as a monarch, she was not unworthy of their allegiance.
+
+
+SIDNEY.--Before proceeding to a consideration of Spenser's great poem, it
+is necessary to mention two names intimately associated with him and with
+his fame, and of special interest in the literary catalogue of Queen
+Elizabeth's court, brilliant and numerous as that catalogue was.
+
+Among the most striking characters of this period was Sir Philip Sidney,
+whose brief history is full of romance and attraction; not so much for
+what he did as for what he personally was, and gave promise of being.
+Whenever we seek for an historical illustration of the _gentleman_, the
+figure of Sidney rises in company with that of Bayard, and claims
+distinction. He was born at Pennshurst in Kent, on the 29th of November,
+1554. He was the nephew of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the chief
+favorite of the queen. Precocious in grace, dignity, and learning, Sidney
+was educated both at Oxford and Cambridge, and in his earliest manhood he
+was a _prud' homme_, handsome, elegant, learned, and chivalrous; a
+statesman, a diplomatist, a soldier, and a poet; "not only of excellent
+wit, but extremely beautiful of face. Delicately chiselled Anglo-Norman
+features, smooth, fair cheek, a faint moustache, blue eyes, and a mass of
+amber-colored hair," distinguished him among the handsome men of a court
+where handsome men were in great request.
+
+He spent some time at the court of Charles IX. of France--which, however,
+he left suddenly, shocked and disgusted by the massacre of St.
+Bartholomew's Eve--and extended his travels into Germany. The queen held
+him in the highest esteem--although he was disliked by the Cecils, the
+constant rivals of the Dudleys; and when he was elected to the crown of
+Poland, the queen refused him permission to accept, because she would not
+lose "the brightest jewel of her crown--her Philip," as she called him to
+distinguish him from her sister Mary's Philip, Philip II. of Spain. A few
+words will finish his personal story. He went, by the queen's permission,
+with his uncle Leicester to the Low Countries, then struggling, with
+Elizabeth's assistance, against Philip of Spain. There he was made
+governor of Flushing--the key to the navigation of the North Seas--with
+the rank of general of horse. In a skirmish near Zutphen (South Fen) he
+served as a volunteer; and, as he was going into action fully armed,
+seeing his old friend Sir William Pelham without cuishes upon his thighs,
+prompted by mistaken but chivalrous generosity, he took off his own, and
+had his thigh broken by a musket-ball. This was on the 2d of October,
+1586, N.S. He lingered for twenty days, and then died at Arnheim, mourned
+by all. The story of his passing the untasted water to the wounded
+soldier, will never become trite: "This man's necessity is greater than
+mine," was an immortal speech which men like to quote.[25]
+
+
+SIDNEY'S WORKS.--But it is as a literary character that we must consider
+Sidney; and it is worthy of special notice that his works could not have
+been produced in any other age. The principal one is the _Arcadia_. The
+name, which was adopted from Sannazzaro, would indicate a pastoral--and
+this was eminently the age of English pastoral--but it is in reality not
+such. It presents indeed sylvan scenes, but they are in the life of a
+knight. It is written in prose, interspersed with short poems, and was
+inspired by and dedicated to his literary sister Mary, the Countess of
+Pembroke. It was called indeed the _Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia_. There
+are many scenes of great beauty and vigor; there is much which represents
+the manners, of the age, but few persons can now peruse it with pleasure,
+because of the peculiar affectations of style, and its overload of
+ornament. There grew naturally in the atmosphere of the court of a regnant
+queen, an affected, flattering, and inflated language, known to us as
+_Euphuism_. Of this John Lilly has been called the father, but we really
+only owe to him the name, which is taken from his two works, _Euphues,
+Anatomy of Wit_, and _Euphues and his England_. The speech of the Euphuist
+is hardly caricatured in Sir Walter Scott's delineation of Sir Piercie
+Shafton in "The Monastery." The gallant men of that day affected this form
+of address to fair ladies, and fair ladies liked to be greeted in such
+language. Sidney's works have a relish of this diction, and are imbued
+with the spirit which produced it.
+
+
+DEFENCE OF POESIE.--The second work to be mentioned is his "Defence of
+Poesie." Amid the gayety and splendor of that reign, there was a sombre
+element. The Puritans took gloomy views of life: they accounted
+amusements, dress, and splendor as things of the world; and would even
+sweep away poetry as idle, and even wicked. Sir Philip came to its defence
+with the spirit of a courtier and a poet, and the work in which he upholds
+it is his best, far better in style and sense than his Arcadia. It is one
+of the curiosities of literature, in itself, and in its representation of
+such a social condition as could require a defence of poetry. His
+_Astrophel and Stella_ is a collection of amatory poems, disclosing his
+passion for Lady Rich, the sister of the Earl of Essex. Although something
+must be allowed to the license of the age, in language at least, yet still
+the _Astrophel and Stella_ cannot be commended for its morality. The
+sentiments are far from Platonic, and have been severely censured by the
+best critics. Among the young gallants of Euphuistic habitudes, Sidney was
+known as _Astrophel_; and Spenser wrote a poem mourning the death of
+Astrophel: _Stella_, of course, was the star of his worship.
+
+
+GABRIEL HARVEY.--Among the friends of both Sidney and Spenser, was one who
+had the pleasure of making them acquainted--Gabriel Harvey. He was born,
+it is believed, in 1545, and lived until 1630. Much may be gathered of the
+literary character and tendencies of the age by a perusal of the "three
+proper and wittie familiar letters" which passed between Spenser and
+himself, and the "four letters and certain sonnets," containing valuable
+notices of contemporary poets. He also prefixed a poem entitled
+_Hobbinol_, to the Faery Queene. But Harvey most deserves our notice
+because he was the champion of the hexameter verse in English, and imbued
+even Spenser with an enthusiasm for it.
+
+Each language has its own poetic and rhythmic capacities. Actual
+experiment and public taste have declared their verdict against hexameter
+verse in English. The genius of the Northern languages refuses this old
+heroic measure, which the Latins borrowed from the Greeks, and all the
+scholarship and finish of Longfellow has not been able to establish it in
+English. Harvey was a pedant so thoroughly tinctured with classical
+learning, that he would trammel his own language by ancient rules, instead
+of letting it grow into the assertion of its own rules.
+
+
+EDMUND SPENSER--THE SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR.--Having noticed these lesser
+lights of the age of Spenser, we return to a brief consideration of that
+poet, who, of all others, is the highest exponent and representative of
+literature in the age of Queen Elizabeth, and whose works are full of
+contemporary history.
+
+Spenser was born in the year of the accession of Queen Mary, 1553, at
+London, and of what he calls "a house of ancient fame." He was educated at
+Cambridge, where he early displayed poetic taste and power, and he went,
+after leaving college, to reside as a tutor in the North of England. A
+love affair with "a skittish female," who jilted him, was the cause of his
+writing the _Shepherd's Calendar_; which he soon after took with him in
+manuscript to London, as the first fruits of a genius that promised far
+nobler things.
+
+Harvey introduced him to Sidney, and a tender friendship sprang up between
+them: he spent much of his time with Sidney at Pennshurst, and dedicated
+to him the _Shepherd's Calendar_. He calls it "an olde name for a newe
+worke." The plan of it is as follows: There are twelve parts,
+corresponding to twelve months: these he calls _aeglogues_, or
+goat-herde's songs, (not _eclogues_ or εκλογαι--well-chosen words.) It is
+a rambling work in varied melody, interspersed and relieved by songs and
+lays.
+
+
+HIS ARCHAISMS.--In view of its historical character, there are several
+points to be observed. It is of philological importance to notice that in
+the preliminary epistle, he explains and defends his use of archaisms--for
+the language of none of his poems is the current English of the day, but
+always that of a former period--saying that he uses old English words
+"restored as to their rightful heritage;" and it is also evident that he
+makes new ones, in accordance with just principles of philology. This fact
+is pointed out, lest the cursory reader should look for the current
+English of the age of Elizabeth in Spenser's poems.
+
+How much, or rather how little he thought of the poets of the day, may be
+gathered from his saying that he "scorns and spews the rakebelly rout of
+ragged rymers." It further displays the boldness of his English, that he
+is obliged to add "a Glosse or Scholion," for the use of the reader.
+
+Another historical point worthy of observation is his early adulation of
+Elizabeth, evincing at once his own courtiership and her popularity. In
+"February" (Story of the Oak and Briar) he speaks of "colours meete to
+clothe a mayden queene." The whole of "April" is in her honor:
+
+    Of fair Eliza be your silver song,
+      That blessed wight,
+    The floure of virgins, may she flourish long,
+      In princely plight.
+
+In "September" "he discourseth at large upon the loose living of Popish
+prelates," an historical trait of the new but cautious reformation of the
+Marian Church, under Elizabeth. Whether a courtier like Spenser could
+expect the world to believe in the motto with which he concludes the
+epilogue, "Merce non mercede," is doubtful, but the words are significant;
+and it is not to his discredit that he strove for both.
+
+
+HIS GREATEST WORK.--We now approach _The Faerie Queene_, the greatest of
+Spenser's works, the most remarkable poem of that age, and one of the
+greatest landmarks in English literature and English history. It was not
+published in full until nearly all the great events of Elizabeth's reign
+had transpired, and it is replete with the history of nearly half a
+century in the most wonderful period of English history. To courtly
+readers of that day the history was only pleasantly illustrative--to the
+present age it is invaluable for itself: the poem illustrates the history.
+
+He received, through the friendship of Sidney, the patronage of his uncle,
+Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester--a powerful nobleman, because, besides
+his family name, and the removal of the late attainder, which had been in
+itself a distinction, he was known to be the lover of the queen; for
+whatever may be thought of her conduct, we know that in recommending him
+as a husband to the widowed Queen of Scots, she said she would have
+married him herself had she designed to marry at all; or, it may be said,
+she would have married him had she dared, for that act would have ruined
+her.
+
+Spenser was a loyal and enthusiastic subject, a poet, and a scholar. From
+these characteristics sprang the Faerie Queene. After submitting the first
+book to the criticism of his friend and his patron, he dedicated the work
+to "The most high, mighty, and magnificent empress, renowned for piety,
+virtue, and all gracious government, Elizabeth, by the grace of God Queen
+of England, France, and Ireland, and of Virginia."[26]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE HISTORY IN THE FAERIE QUEENE.
+
+
+   The Faerie Queene. The Plan Proposed. Illustrations of the History. The
+   Knight and the Lady. The Wood of Error and the Hermitage. The Crusades.
+   Britomartis and Sir Artegal. Elizabeth. Mary Queen of Scots. Other
+   Works. Spenser's Fate. Other Writers.
+
+
+
+THE FAERIE QUEENE.
+
+
+The Faerie Queene is an allegory, in many parts capable of more than one
+interpretation. Some of the characters stand for two, and several of them
+even for three distinct historical personages.
+
+The general plan and scope of the poem may be found in the poet's letter
+to his friend, Sir Walter Raleigh. It is designed to enumerate and
+illustrate the moral virtues which should characterize a noble or gentle
+person--to present "the image of a brave knight perfected in the twelve
+private morall vertues, as Aristotle hath devised." It appears that the
+author designed twelve books, but he did not accomplish his purpose. The
+poem, which he left unfinished, contains but six books or legends, each of
+which relates the adventures of a knight who is the patron and
+representative of a special virtue.
+
+   _Book_ I. gives the adventures of St. George, the Red-Cross Knight, by
+   whom is intended the virtue of Holiness.
+
+   _Book_ II., those of Sir Guyon, or Temperance.
+
+   _Book_ III., Britomartis, a lady-knight, or Chastity.
+
+   _Book_ IV., Cambel and Triamond, or Friendship.
+
+   _Book_ V., Sir Artegal, or Justice.
+
+   _Book_ VI., Sir Calydore, or Courtesy.
+
+The perfect hero of the entire poem is King Arthur, chosen "as most fitte,
+for the excellency of his person, being made famous by many men's former
+workes, and also furthest from the daunger of envy and suspition of
+present time."
+
+It was manifestly thus, too, that the poet solved a difficult and delicate
+problem: he pleased the queen by adopting this mythic hero, for who else
+was worthy of her august hand?
+
+And in the person of the faerie queene herself Spenser informs us: "I mean
+_glory_ in my general intention, but in my particular, I conceive the most
+excellent and glorious person of our sovereign, the _Queene_."
+
+Did we depend upon the poem for an explanation of Spenser's design, we
+should be left in the dark, for he intended to leave the origin and
+connection of the adventures for the twelfth book, which was never
+written; but he has given us his plan in the same preliminary letter to
+Raleigh.
+
+
+THE PLAN PROPOSED.--"The beginning of my history," he says, "should be in
+the twelfth booke, which is the last; where I devise that the Faerie
+Queene kept her Annual Feaste XII days; uppon which XII severall days the
+occasions of the XII severall adventures hapned, which being undertaken by
+XII severall knights, are in these XII books handled and discoursed."
+
+First, a tall, clownish youth falls before the queen and desires a boon,
+which she might not refuse, viz. the achievement of any adventure which
+might present itself. Then appears a fair lady, habited in mourning, and
+riding on an ass, while behind her comes a dwarf, leading a caparisoned
+war-horse, upon which was the complete armor of a knight. The lady falls
+before the queen and complains that her father and mother, an ancient king
+and queen, had, for many years, been shut up by a dragon in a brazen
+castle, and begs that one of the knights may be allowed to deliver them.
+
+The young clown entreats that he may take this adventure, and
+notwithstanding the wonder and misgiving of all, the armor is found to fit
+him well, and when he had put it on, "he seemed the goodliest man in all
+the company, and was well liked by the lady, and eftsoones taking on him
+knighthood, and mounting on that strounge courser, he went forth with her
+on that adventure; where beginneth the First Booke."
+
+In a similar manner, other petitions are urged, and other adventures
+undertaken.
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE HISTORY.--The history in this poem lies directly upon
+the surface. Elizabeth was the Faery Queen herself--faery in her real
+person, springing Cinderella-like from durance and danger to the most
+powerful throne in Europe. Hers was a reign of faery character, popular
+and august at home, after centuries of misrule and civil war; abroad
+English influence and power were exerted in a magical manner. It is she
+who holds a court such as no Englishman had ever seen; who had the power
+to transform common men into valiant warriors, elegant courtiers, and
+great statesmen; to send forth her knights upon glorious
+adventures--Sidney to die at Zutphen, Raleigh to North and South America,
+Frobisher--with a wave of her hand as he passes down the Thames--to try
+the northwest passage to India; Effingham, Drake, and Hawkins to drive off
+to the tender mercy of northern storms the Invincible Armada, and then to
+point out to the coming generations the distant fields of English
+enterprise.
+
+"Chivalry was dying; the abbey and the castle were soon together to
+crumble into ruins; and all the forms, desires, beliefs, convictions of
+the old world were passing away, never to return;"[27] but this virgin
+queen was the founder of a new chivalry, whose deeds were not less
+valiant, and far more useful to civilization.
+
+It is not our purpose, for it would be impossible, to interpret all the
+history contained in this wonderful poem: a few of the more striking
+presentations will be indicated, and thus suggest to the student how he
+may continue the investigation for himself.
+
+
+THE KNIGHT AND THE LADY.--In the First Book we are at once struck with the
+fine portraiture of the Red Crosse Knight, the Patron of Holinesse, which
+we find in the opening lines:
+
+    A gentle knight was pricking on the plain,
+    Ycladd in mighty arms and silver shield.
+
+As we read we discover, without effort, that he is the St. George of
+England, or the impersonation of England herself, whose red-cross banner
+distinguishes her among the nations of the earth. It is a description of
+Christian England with which the poet thus opens his work:
+
+    And on his brest a bloodie cross he bore,
+      The dear remembrance of his dying Lord,
+    For whose sweet sake that glorious badge he wore,
+      And dead, as living ever, Him adored.
+    Upon his shield the like was also scored,
+    For sovereign hope which in his help he had.
+
+Then follows his adventure--that of St. George and the Dragon. By slaying
+this monster, he will give comfort and aid to a peerless lady, the
+daughter of a glorious king; this fair lady, _Una_, who has come a long
+distance, and to whom, as a champion, the Faery Queene has presented the
+red-cross knight. Thus is presented the historic truth that the reformed
+and suffering Church looked to Queen Elizabeth for succor and support, for
+the Lady Una is one of several portraitures of the Church in this poem.
+
+As we proceed in the poem, the history becomes more apparent. The Lady
+Una, riding upon a lowly ass, shrouded by a veil, covered with a black
+stole, "as one that inly mourned," and leading "a milk-white lamb," is the
+Church. The ass is the symbol of her Master's lowliness, who made even his
+triumphant entry into Jerusalem upon "a colt the foal of an ass;" the
+lamb, the emblem of the innocence and of the helplessness of the "little
+flock;" the black stole is meant to represent the Church's trials and
+sorrows in her former history as well as in that naughty age. The dragon
+is the old serpent, her constant and bitter foe, who, often discomfited,
+returns again and again to the attack in hope of her overthrow.
+
+
+THE WOOD OF ERROR.--The adventures of the knight and the lady take them
+first into the Wood of Error, a noble and alluring grove, within which,
+however, lurks a loathsome serpent. The knight rushes upon this female
+monster with great boldness, but
+
+    ... Wrapping up her wreathed body round,
+      She leaped upon his shield and her huge train
+    All suddenly about his body wound,
+      That hand and foot he strove to stir in vain.
+      God help the man so wrapt in Error's endless chain.
+
+The Lady Una cries out:
+
+    ... Now, now, sir knight, shew what ye bee,
+      _Add faith unto thy force_, and be not faint.
+    Strangle her, else she sure will strangle thee.
+
+He follows her advice, makes one desperate effort, Error is slain, and the
+pilgrimage resumed.
+
+Thus it is taught that the Church has waged successful battle with Error
+in all its forms--paganism, Arianism, Socinianism, infidelity; and in all
+ages of her history, whether crouching in the lofty groves of the Druids,
+or in the more insidious forms of later Christian heresy.
+
+
+THE HERMITAGE.--On leaving the Wood of Error, the knight and Lady Una
+encounter a venerable hermit, and are led into his hermitage. This is
+_Archimago_, a vile magician thus disguised, and in his retreat foul
+spirits personate both knight and lady, and present these false doubles to
+each. Each sees what seems to be the other's fall from virtue, and,
+horrified by the sight, the real persons leave the hermitage by separate
+ways, and wander, in inextricable mazes lost, until fortune and faery
+bring them together again and disclose the truth.
+
+Here Spenser, who was a zealous Protestant, designs to present the
+monastic system, the disfavor into which the monasteries had fallen, and
+the black arts secretly studied among better arts in the cloisters,
+especially in the period just succeeding the Norman conquest.
+
+
+THE CRUSADES.--As another specimen of the historic interpretation, we may
+trace the adventures of England in the Crusades, as presented in the
+encounter of St. George with _Sansfoy_, (without faith,) or the Infidel.
+
+From the hermitage of Archimago,
+
+    The true St. George had wandered far away,
+      Still flying from his thoughts and jealous fear,
+    Will was his guide, and grief led him astray;
+    At last him chanced to meet upon the way
+      A faithless Saracen all armed to point,
+    In whose great shield was writ with letters gay
+      SANSFOY: full large of limb, and every joint
+      He was, and cared not for God or man a point.
+
+Well might the poet speak of Mohammedanism as large of limb, for it had
+stretched itself like a Colossus to India, and through Northern Africa
+into Spain, where it threatened Christendom, beyond the Pyrenees. It was
+then that the unity of the Church, the concurrence of Europe in one form
+of Christianity, made available the enthusiasm which succeeded in stemming
+the torrent of Islam, and setting bounds to its conquests.
+
+It is not our purpose to pursue the adventures of the Church, but to
+indicate the meaning of the allegory and the general interpretation; it
+will give greater zest to the student to make the investigation for
+himself, with the all-sufficient aids of modern criticism.
+
+Assailed in turn by error in doctrine, superstition, hypocrisy,
+enchantments, lawlessness, pride, and despair, the red-cross knight
+overcomes them all, and is led at last by the Lady Una into the House of
+Holiness, a happy and glorious house. There, anew equipped with the shield
+of Faith, the helmet of Salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, he goes
+forth to greater conquests; the dragon is slain, the Lady Una triumphant,
+the Church delivered, and Holiness to the Lord established as the law of
+his all-subduing kingdom on earth.
+
+
+BRITOMARTIS.--In the third book the further adventures of the red-cross
+knight are related, but a heroine divides our attention with him.
+_Britomartis_, or Chastity, finds him attacked by six lawless knights, who
+try to compel him to give up his lady and serve another. Here Britomartis
+represents Elizabeth, and the historic fact is the conflict of English
+Protestantism carried on upon land and sea, in the Netherlands, in France,
+and against the Invincible Armada of Philip. The new mistress offered him
+in the place of Una is the Papal Church, and the six knights are the
+nations fighting for the claims of Rome.
+
+The valiant deeds of Britomartis represent also the power of chastity, to
+which Scott alludes when he says,
+
+    She charmed at once and tamed the heart,
+    Incomparable Britomarte.[28]
+
+And here the poet pays his most acceptable tribute to the Virgin Queen.
+She is in love with Sir Artegal--abstract justice. She has encountered him
+in fierce battle, and he has conquered her. It was the fond boast of
+Elizabeth that she lived for her people, and for their sake refused to
+marry. The following portraiture will be at once recognized:
+
+    And round about her face her yellow hair
+      Having, thro' stirring, loosed its wonted band,
+    Like to a golden border did appear,
+      Framed in goldsmith's forge with cunning hand;
+      Yet goldsmith's cunning could not understand
+    To frame such subtle wire, so shiny clear,
+      For it did glisten like the glowing sand,
+    The which Pactolus with his waters sheer,
+    Throws forth upon the rivage, round about him near.
+
+This encomium upon Elizabeth's hair recalls the description of another
+courtier, that it was like the last rays of the declining sun. Ill-natured
+persons called it red.
+
+
+SIR ARTEGAL, OR JUSTICE.--As has been already said, Artegal, or Justice,
+makes conquest of Britomartis or Elizabeth. It is no earthly love that
+follows, but the declaration of the queen that in her continued maidenhood
+justice to her people shall be her only spouse. Such, whatever the honest
+historian may think, was the poet's conceit of what would best please his
+royal mistress.
+
+It has been already stated that by Gloriana, the Faerie Queene, the poet
+intended the person of Elizabeth in her regnant grandeur: Britomartis
+represents her chastity. Not content with these impersonations, Spenser
+introduces a third: it is Belphœbe, the abstraction of virginity; a
+character for which, however, he designs a dual interpretation. Belphœbe
+is also another representation of the Church; in describing her he rises
+to great splendor of language:
+
+    ... her birth was of the morning dew,
+    And her conception of the glorious prime.
+
+We recur, as we read, to the grandeur of the Psalmist's words, as he
+speaks of the coming of her Lord: "In the day of thy power shall the
+people offer thee free-will offerings with a holy worship; the dew of thy
+birth is of the womb of the morning."
+
+
+ELIZABETH.--In the fifth book a great number of the statistics of
+contemporary history are found. A cruel sultan, urged on by an abandoned
+sultana, is Philip with the Spanish Church. Mercilla, a queen pursued by
+the sultan and his wife, is another name for Elizabeth, for he tells us
+she was
+
+    ... a maiden queen of high renown;
+    For her great bounty knowen over all.
+
+Artegal, assuming the armor of a pagan knight, represents justice in the
+person of Solyman the Magnificent, making war against Philip of Spain. In
+the ninth canto of the sixth book, the court of Elizabeth is portrayed; in
+the tenth and eleventh, the war in Flanders--so brilliantly described in
+Mr. Motley's history. The Lady Belge is the United Netherlands; Gerioneo,
+the oppressor, is the Duke of Alva; the Inquisition appears as a horrid
+but nameless monster, and minor personages occur to complete the historic
+pictures.
+
+The adventure of Sir Artegal in succor of the Lady Irena, (Erin,)
+represents the proceedings of Elizabeth in Ireland, in enforcing the
+Reformation, abrogating the establishments of her sister Mary, and thus
+inducing Tyrone's rebellion, with the consequent humiliation of Essex.
+
+
+MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.--With one more interpretation we close. In the fifth
+book, Spenser is the apologist of Elizabeth for her conduct to her cousin,
+Mary Queen of Scots, and he has been very delicate in his distinctions. It
+is not her high abstraction of justice, Sir Artegal, who does the
+murderous deed, but his man _Talus_, retributive justice, who, like a
+limehound, finds her hidden under a heap of gold, and drags her forth by
+her fair locks, in such rueful plight that even Artegal pities her:
+
+    Yet for no pity would he change the course
+      Of justice which in Talus hand did lie,
+    Who rudely haled her forth without remorse,
+      Still holding up her suppliant hands on high,
+      And kneeling at his feet submissively;
+    But he her suppliant hands, those _hands of gold_,
+      And eke her feet, those feet of _silver try_,
+    Which sought unrighteousness and justice sold,
+    Chopped off and nailed on high that all might them behold.
+
+She was a royal lady, a regnant queen: her hands held a golden sceptre,
+and her feet pressed a silver footstool. She was thrown down the castle
+wall, and drowned "in the dirty mud."
+
+"But the stream washed away her guilty blood." Did it wash away
+Elizabeth's bloody guilt? No. For this act she stands in history like Lady
+Macbeth, ever rubbing her hands, but "the damned spot" will not out at her
+bidding. Granted all that is charged against Mary, never was woman so
+meanly, basely, cruelly treated as she.
+
+What has been said is only in partial illustration of the plan and manner
+of Spenser's great poem: the student is invited and encouraged to make an
+analysis of the other portions himself. To the careless reader the poem is
+harmonious, the pictures beautiful, and the imagery gorgeous; to the
+careful student it is equally charming, and also discloses historic
+pictures of great value.
+
+It is so attractive that the critic lingers unconsciously upon it.
+Spenser's tributes to the character of woman are original, beautiful, and
+just, and the fame of his great work, originally popular and designed for
+a contemporary purpose only, has steadily increased. Next to Milton, he is
+the most learned of the British poets. Warton calls him the _serious
+Spenser_. Thomson says he formed himself upon Spenser. He took the ottava
+rima, or eight-lined stanza of the Italian poets, and by adding an
+Alexandrine line, formed it into what has since been called the Spenserian
+stanza, which has been imitated by many great poets since, and by Byron,
+the greatest of them, in his Childe Harold. Of his language it has already
+been said that he designedly uses the archaic, or that of Chaucer; or, as
+Pope has said,
+
+   Spenser himself affects the obsolete.
+
+The plan of the poem, neglecting the unities of an epic, is like that of a
+general history, rambling and desultory, or like the transformations of a
+fairy tale, as it is: his descriptions are gorgeous, his verse exceedingly
+melodious, and his management of it very graceful. The Gerusalemme
+Liberata of Tasso appeared while he was writing the Faery Queene, and he
+imitated portions of that great epic in his own, but his imitations are
+finer than the original.
+
+
+HIS OTHER WORKS.--His other works need not detain us: Hymns in honor of
+Love and Beauty, Prothalamion, and Epithalamion, Mother Hubbard's Tale,
+Amoretti or Sonnets, The Tears of the Muses or Brittain's Ida, are little
+read at the present day. His Astrophel is a tender "pastoral elegie" upon
+the death of the most noble and valorous knight, Sir Philip Sidney; and is
+better known for its subject than for itself. This was a favorite theme of
+the friendly and sensitive poet; he has also written several elegies and
+æglogues in honor of Sidney.
+
+
+SPENSER'S FATE.--The fate of Spenser is a commentary upon courtiership,
+even in the reign of Elizabeth, the Faery Queene. Her requital of his
+adoration was an annual pension of fifty pounds, and the ruined castle and
+unprofitable estate of Kilcolman in Ireland, among a half-savage
+population, in a period of insurrections and massacres, with the
+requirement that he should reside upon his grant. An occasional visit from
+Raleigh, then a captain in the army, a rambler along the banks of the
+picturesque Mulla, and the composition and arrangement of the great poem
+with the suggestions of his friend, were at once his labors and his only
+recreations. He sighed after the court, and considered himself as hardly
+used by the queen.
+
+At length an insurrection broke out, and his home was set on fire: he fled
+from his flaming castle, and in the confusion his infant child was left
+behind and burned to death. A few months after, he died in London, on
+January 16, 1598-9, broken-hearted and poor, at an humble tavern, in King
+Street. Buried at the expense of the Earl of Essex, Ann Countess of Dorset
+bore the expense of his monument in Westminster Abbey, in gratitude for
+his noble championship of woman. Upon that are inscribed these words:
+_Anglorum poetarum nostri seculi facile princeps_--truer words, great as
+is the praise, than are usually found in monumental inscriptions.
+
+Whatever our estimate of Spenser, he must be regarded as the truest
+literary exponent and representative of the age of Elizabeth, almost as
+much her biographer as Miss Strickland, and her historian as Hume: indeed,
+neither biographer nor historian could venture to draw the lineaments of
+her character without having recourse to Spenser and his literary
+contemporaries.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE AGE OF SPENSER.
+
+
+_Richard Hooker_, 1553-1598: educated at Oxford, he became Master of the
+Temple in London, a post which he left with pleasure to take a country
+parish. He wrote a famous work, entitled "A Treatise on the Laws of
+Ecclesiastical Polity," which is remarkable for its profound learning,
+powerful logic, and eloquence of style. In it he defends the position of
+the Church of England, against Popery on the one hand and Calvinism on the
+other.
+
+_Robert Burton_, 1576-1639: author of "The Anatomy of Melancholie," an
+amusing and instructive medley of quotations and classical anecdotes,
+showing a profound erudition. In this all the causes and effects of
+melancholy are set forth with varied illustrations. His _nom de plume_ was
+Democritus, Jr., and he is an advocate of the laughing philosophy.
+
+_Thomas Hobbes_, 1588-1679: tutor to Charles II., when Prince of Wales,
+and author of the _Leviathan_. This is a philosophical treatise, in which
+he advocates monarchical government, as based upon the fact that all men
+are selfish, and that human nature, being essentially corrupt, requires an
+iron control: he also wrote upon _Liberty and Necessity_, and on _Human
+Nature_.
+
+John Stow, 1525-1605: tailor and antiquary. Principally valuable for his
+"Annales," "Summary of English Chronicles," and "A Survey of London." The
+latter is the foundation of later topographical descriptions of the
+English metropolis.
+
+Raphael Hollinshed, or Holinshed, died about 1580: his _Chronicles of
+Englande, Scotlande, and Irelande_, were a treasure-house to Shakspeare,
+from which he drew materials for King Lear, Cymbeline, Macbeth, and other
+plays.
+
+Richard Hakluyt, died 1616: being greatly interested in voyages and
+travels, he wrote works upon the adventures of others. Among these are,
+"Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America," and "Four Voyages
+unto Florida," which have been very useful in the compilation of early
+American history.
+
+Samuel Purchas, 1577-1628: like Hakluyt, he was exceedingly industrious in
+collecting material, and wrote "Hakluyt's Posthumus, or Purchas, his
+Pilgrimes," a history of the world "in Sea Voyages and Land Travels."
+
+Sir Walter Raleigh, 1552-1618: a man famous for his personal strength and
+comeliness, vigor of mind, valor, adventures, and sufferings. A prominent
+actor in the stirring scenes of Elizabeth's reign, he was high in the
+favor of the queen. Accused of high treason on the accession of James I.,
+and imprisoned under sentence of death, an unsuccessful expedition to
+South America in search of El Dorado, which caused complaints from the
+Spanish king, led to his execution under the pending sentence. He wrote,
+chiefly in prison, a History of the World, in which he was aided by his
+literary friends, and which is highly commended. It extends to the end of
+the second Macedonian war. Raleigh was also a poet, and wrote several
+special treatises.
+
+William Camden, 1551-1623: author of Britannia, or a chorographic
+description of the most flourishing kingdoms of England, Scotland,
+Ireland, and the adjacent islands, from the earliest antiquity. This work,
+written in Latin, has been translated into English. He also wrote a sketch
+of the reign of Elizabeth.
+
+_George Buchanan_, 1506-1581: celebrated as a Latin writer, an historian,
+a poet, and an ecclesiastical polemic. He wrote a _History of Scotland_, a
+Latin version of the Psalms, and a satire called _Chamæleon_. He was a
+man of profound learning and indomitable courage; and when told, just
+before his death, that the king was incensed at his treatise _De Jure
+Regni_, he answered that he was not concerned at that, for he was "going
+to a place where there were few kings."
+
+Thomas Sackville, Earl Dorset, Lord Buckhurst, 1536-1608: author, or
+rather originator of "The Mirror for Magistrates," showing by illustrious,
+unfortunate examples, the vanity and transitory character of human
+success. Of Sackville and his portion of the Mirror for Magistrates, Craik
+says they "must be considered as forming the connecting link between the
+Canterbury Tales and the Fairy Queen."
+
+_Samuel Daniel_, 1562-1619: an historian and a poet. His chief work is
+"The Historie of the Civile Warres between the Houses of York and
+Lancaster," "a production," says Drake, "which reflects great credit on
+the age in which it was written." This work is in poetical form; and,
+besides it, he wrote many poems and plays, and numerous sonnets.
+
+Michael Drayton, 1563-1631: a versatile writer, most favorably known
+through his _Polyolbion_, a poem in thirty books, containing a detailed
+description of the topography of England, in Alexandrine verses. His
+_Barons' Wars_ describe the civil commotions during the reign of Edward
+II.
+
+Sir John Davies, 1570-1626: author of _Nosce Teipsum_ and _The Orchestra_.
+The former is commended by Hallam; and another critic calls it "the best
+poem, except Spenser's Faery Queen, in Queen Elizabeth's, or even, in
+James VI.'s time."
+
+John Donne, 1573-1631: a famous preacher, Dean of St. Paul's: considered
+at the head of the metaphysical school of poets: author of
+_Pseudo-Martyr_, _Polydoron_, and numerous sermons. He wrote seven
+_satires_, which are valuable, but his style is harsh, and his ideas
+far-fetched.
+
+Joseph Hall, 1574-1656: an eminent divine, author of six books of
+_satires_, of which he called the first three _toothless_, and the others
+_biting_ satires. These are valuable as presenting truthful pictures of
+the manners and morals of the age and of the defects in contemporary
+literature.
+
+Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, 1554-1628: he wrote the Life of Sidney,
+and requested to have placed upon his tomb, "The friend of Sir Philip
+Sidney." He was also the author of numerous treatises: "Monarchy," "Humane
+Learning," "Wars," etc., and of two tragedies.
+
+George Chapman, 1557-1634: author of a translation of Homer, in verses of
+fourteen syllables. It retains much of the spirit of the original, and is
+still considered one of the best among the numerous versions of the
+ancient poet. He also wrote _Cæsar and Pompey, Byron's Tragedy_, and other
+plays.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE ENGLISH DRAMA.
+
+
+   Origin of the Drama. Miracle Plays. Moralities. First Comedy. Early
+   Tragedies. Christopher Marlowe. Other Dramatists. Playwrights and
+   Morals.
+
+
+
+ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH DRAMA.
+
+
+To the Elizabethan period also belongs the glory of having produced and
+fostered the English drama, itself so marked a teacher of history, not
+only in plays professedly historical, but also in the delineations of
+national character, the indications of national taste, and the satirical
+scourgings of the follies of the day. A few observations are necessary as
+to its feeble beginnings. The old Greek drama indeed existed as a model,
+especially in the tragedies of Euripides and the comedies of Aristophanes;
+but until the fall of Constantinople, these were a dead letter to Western
+Europe, and when the study of Greek was begun in England, they were only
+open to men of the highest education and culture; whereas the drama
+designed for the people was to cater in its earlier forms to the rude
+tastes and love of the marvellous which are characteristic of an
+unlettered people. And, besides, the Roman drama of Plautus and of Terence
+was not suited to the comprehension of the multitude, in its form and its
+preservation of the unities. To gratify the taste for shows and
+excitement, the people already had the high ritual of the Church, but they
+demanded something more: the Church itself acceded to this demand, and
+dramatized Scripture at once for their amusement and instruction. Thus the
+_mysteria_ or _miracle play_ originated, and served a double purpose.
+
+"As in ancient Greece, generations before the rise of the great dramas of
+Athens, itinerant companies wandered from village to village, carrying
+their stage furniture in their little carts, and acted in their booths and
+tents the grand stories of the mythology--so in England the mystery
+players haunted the wakes and fairs, and in barns or taverns, taprooms, or
+in the farm-house kitchen, played at saints and angels, and transacted on
+their petty stage the drama of the Christian faith."[29]
+
+
+THE MYSTERY, OR MIRACLE PLAY.--The subjects of these dramas were taken
+from such Old Testament narratives as the creation, the lives of the
+patriarchs, the deluge; or from the crucifixion, and from legends of the
+saints: the plays were long, sometimes occupying portions of several days
+consecutively, during seasons of religious festival. They were enacted in
+monasteries, cathedrals, churches, and church-yards. The _mise en scène_
+was on two stages or platforms, on the upper of which were represented the
+Persons of the Trinity, and on the lower the personages of earth; while a
+yawning cellar, with smoke arising from an unseen fire, represented the
+infernal regions. This device is similar in character to the plan of
+Dante's poem--Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.
+
+The earliest of these mysteries was performed somewhere about the year
+1300, and they held sway until 1600, being, however, slowly supplanted by
+the _moralities_, which we shall presently consider. Many of these
+_mysteries_ still remain in English, and notices of them may be found in
+_Collier's History of Dramatic Poetry_.
+
+A miracle play was performed to celebrate the birth of Philip II. of
+Spain. They are still performed in Andalusia, and one written within a few
+years for such representation, was enacted at Seville, with great pomp of
+scenic effect, in the Holy Week of 1870. Similar scenes are also
+witnessed by curious foreigners at the present day in the Ober-Ammergau of
+Bavaria. These enable the traveller of to-day to realize the former
+history.
+
+To introduce a comic element, the devil was made to appear with horns,
+hoof, and tail, to figure with grotesque malignity throughout the play,
+and to be reconsigned at the close to his dark abode by the divine power.
+
+
+MORALITIES.--As the people became enlightened, and especially as religious
+knowledge made progress, such childish shows were no longer able to
+satisfy them. The drama undertook a higher task of instruction in the form
+of what was called a _morality_, or _moral play_. Instead of old stories
+reproduced to please the childish fancy of the ignorant, genius invented
+scenes and incidents taken indeed from common life, but the characters
+were impersonal; they were the ideal virtues, _morality, hope, mercy,
+frugality_, and their correlative vices. The _mystery_ had endeavored to
+present similitudes; the _moralities_ were of the nature of allegory, and
+evinced a decided progress in popular intelligence.
+
+These for a time divided the interest with the mysteries, but eventually
+superseded them. The impersonality of the characters enabled the author to
+make hits at political circumstances and existent follies with impunity,
+as the multitude received advice and reproof addressed to them abstractly,
+without feeling a personal sting, and the government would not condescend
+to notice such abstractions. The moralities were enacted in court-yards or
+palaces, the characters generally being personated by students, or
+merchants from the guilds. A great improvement was also made in the length
+of the play, which was usually only an hour in performance. The public
+taste was so wedded to the devil of the mysteries, that he could not be
+given up in the moral plays: he kept his place; but a rival buffoon
+appeared in the person of _the vice_, who tried conclusions with the
+archfiend in serio-comic style until the close of the performance, when
+Satan always carried the vice away in triumph, as he should do.
+
+The moralities retained their place as legitimate drama throughout the
+sixteenth century, and indeed after the modern drama appeared. It is
+recorded that Queen Elizabeth, in 1601, then an old woman, witnessed one
+of these plays, entitled "The Contention between Liberality and
+Prodigality." This was written by Lodge and Greene, two of the regular
+dramatists, after Ben Jonson had written "Every Man in his Humour," and
+while Shakspeare was writing Hamlet. Thus the various progressive forms of
+the drama overlapped each other, the older retaining its place until the
+younger gained strength to assert its rights and supersede its rival.
+
+
+THE INTERLUDE.--While the moralities were slowly dying out, another form
+of the drama had appeared as a connecting link between them and the
+legitimate drama of Shakspeare. This was the _interlude_, a short play, in
+which the _dramatis personæ_ were no longer allegorical characters, but
+persons in real life, usually, however, not all bearing names even
+assumed, but presented as a friar, a curate, a tapster, etc. The chief
+characteristic of the interlude was, however, its satire; it was a more
+outspoken reformer than the morality, scourged the evils of the age with
+greater boldness, and plunged into religious controversy with the zeal of
+opposing ecclesiastics. The first and principal writer of these interludes
+was John Heywood, a Roman Catholic, who wrote during the reign of Henry
+VIII., and, while a professed jester, was a great champion of his Church.
+
+As in all cases of progress, literary and scientific, the lines of
+demarcation cannot be very distinctly drawn, but as the morality had
+superseded the mystery, and the interlude the morality, so now they were
+all to give way before the regular drama. The people were becoming more
+educated; the greater spread of classical knowledge had caused the
+dramatists to study and assimilate the excellences of Latin and Greek
+models; the power of the drama to instruct and refine, as well as to
+amuse, was acknowledged, and thus its capability of improvement became
+manifest. The forms it then assumed were more permanent, and indeed have
+remained almost unchanged down to our own day.
+
+What is called the _first_ comedy in the language cannot be expected to
+show a very decided improvement over the last interludes or moralities,
+but it bears those distinctive marks which establish its right to the
+title.
+
+
+THE FIRST COMEDY.--This was _Ralph Roister Doister_, which appeared in the
+middle of the sixteenth century: (a printed copy of 1551 was discovered in
+1818.) Its author was Nicholas Udall, the master of Eton, a clergyman, but
+very severe as a pedagogue; an ultra Protestant, who is also accused of
+having stolen church plate, which may perhaps mean that he took away from
+the altar what he regarded as popish vessels and ornaments. He calls the
+play "a comedy and interlude," but claims that it is imitated from the
+Roman drama. It is regularly divided into acts and scenes, in the form of
+our modern plays. The plot is simple: Ralph, a gay Lothario, courts as gay
+a widow, and the by-play includes a designing servant and an intriguing
+lady's-maid: these are the stock elements of a hundred comedies since.
+
+Contemporary with this was _Gammer Gurton's Needle_, supposed to be
+written, but not conclusively, by John Still, Bishop of Bath and Wells,
+about 1560. The story turns upon the loss of a steel needle--a rare
+instrument in that day, as it was only introduced into England from Spain
+during the age of Elizabeth. This play is a coarser piece than Ralph
+Roister Doister; the buffoon raises the devil to aid him in finding the
+lost needle, which is at length found, by very palpable proof, to be
+sticking in the seat of Goodman Hodge's breeches.
+
+
+THE FIRST TRAGEDY.--Hand in hand with these first comedies came the
+earliest tragedy, _Gorboduc_, by Sackville and Norton, known under another
+name as _Ferrex and Porrex_; and it is curious to observe that this came
+in while the moralities still occupied the stage, and before the
+interludes had disappeared, as it was played before the queen at White
+Hall, in 1562. It is also to be noted that it introduced a chorus like
+that of the old Greek drama. Ferrex and Porrex are the sons of King
+Gorboduc: the former is killed by the latter, who in turn is slain by his
+own mother. Of Gorboduc, Lamb says, "The style of this old play is stiff
+and cumbersome, like the dresses of the times. There may be flesh and
+blood underneath, but we cannot get at it."
+
+With the awakened interest of the people, the drama now made steady
+progress. In 1568 the tragedy of _Tancred and Gismunda_, based upon one of
+the stories of Boccaccio, was enacted before Elizabeth.
+
+A license for establishing a regular theatre was got out by Burbage in
+1574. Peele and Greene wrote plays in the new manner: Marlowe, the
+greatest name in the English drama, except those of Shakspeare and Ben
+Jonson, gave to the world his _Tragical History of the Life and Death of
+Doctor Faustus_, which many do not hesitate to compare favorably with
+Goethe's great drama, and his _Rich Jew of Malta_, which contains the
+portraiture of Barabas, second only to the Shylock of Shakspeare. Of
+Marlowe a more special mention will be made.
+
+
+PLAYWRIGHTS AND MORALS.--It was to the great advantage of the English
+regular drama, that the men who wrote were almost in every case highly
+educated in the classics, and thus able to avail themselves of the best
+models. It is equally true that, owing to the religious condition of the
+times, when Puritanism launched forth its diatribes against all
+amusements, they were men in the opposition, and in most cases of
+irregular lives. Men of the world, they took their characters from among
+the persons with whom they associated; and so we find in their plays
+traces of the history of the age, in the appropriation of classical forms,
+in the references to religious and political parties, and in their
+delineation of the morals, manners, and follies of the period: if the
+drama of the present day owes to them its origin and nurture, it also
+retains as an inheritance many of the faults and deformities from which in
+a more refined period it is seeking to purge itself. It is worthy of
+notice, that as the drama owes everything to popular patronage, its moral
+tone reflects of necessity the moral character of the people who frequent
+it, and of the age which sustains it.
+
+
+CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE.--Among those who may be regarded as the immediate
+forerunners and ushers of Shakspeare, and who, although they prepared the
+way for his advent, have been obscured by his greater brilliance, the one
+most deserving of special mention is Marlowe.
+
+Christopher Marlowe was born at Canterbury, about the year 1564. He was a
+wild, irregular genius, of bad morals and loose life, but of fine
+imagination and excellent powers of expression. He wrote only tragedies.
+
+His _Tamburlaine the Great_ is based upon the history of that _Timour
+Leuk_, or _Timour the Lame_, the great Oriental conqueror of the
+fourteenth century:
+
+    So large of limb, his joints so strongly knit,
+    Such breadth of shoulders as might mainly bear
+    Old Atlas' burthen.
+
+The descriptions are overdrawn, and the style inflated, but the subject
+partakes of the heroic, and was popular still, though nearly two
+centuries had passed since the exploits of the historic hero.
+
+_The Rich Jew of Malta_ is of value, as presenting to us Barabas the Jew
+as he appeared to Christian suspicion and hatred in the fifteenth century.
+As he sits in his country-house with heaps of gold before him, and
+receives the visits of merchants who inform him of the safe arrival of his
+ships, it is manifest that he gave Shakspeare the first ideal of his
+Shylock, upon which the greater dramatist greatly improved.
+
+_The Tragicall Life and Death of Doctor John Faustus_ certainly helped
+Goethe in the conception and preparation of his modern drama, and contains
+many passages of rare power. Charles Lamb says: "The growing horrors of
+Faustus are awfully marked by the hours and half-hours which expire and
+bring him nearer and nearer to the enactment of his dire compact. It is
+indeed an agony and bloody sweat."
+
+_Edward II._ presents in the assassination scene wonderful power and
+pathos, and is regarded by Hazlitt as his best play.
+
+Marlowe is the author of the pleasant madrigal, called by Izaak Walton
+"that smooth song":
+
+    Come live with me and be my love.
+
+The playwright, who had led a wild life, came to his end in a tavern
+brawl: he had endeavored to use his dagger upon one of the waiters, who
+turned it upon him, and gave him a wound in the head of which he died, in
+1593.
+
+His talents were of a higher order than those of his contemporaries; he
+was next to Shakspeare in power, and was called by Phillips "a second
+Shakspeare."
+
+
+
+OTHER DRAMATIC WRITERS BEFORE SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+Thomas Lodge, 1556-1625: educated at Oxford. Wrote _The Wounds of
+Civil-War_, and other tragedies. Rosalynd, a novel, from which Shakspeare
+drew in his _As You Like It_. He translated _Josephus_ and _Seneca_.
+
+Thomas Kyd, died about 1600: _The Spanish Tragedy, or, Hieronymo is Mad
+Again_. This contains a few highly wrought scenes, which have been
+variously attributed to Ben Jonson and to Webster.
+
+Robert Tailor: wrote _The Hog hath Lost his Pearl_, a comedy, published in
+1614. This partakes of the character of the _morality_.
+
+John Marston: wrote _Antonio and Mellida_, 1602; _Antonio's Revenge_,
+1602; _Sophonisba, a Wonder of Women_, 1606; _The Insatiate Countess_,
+1603, and many other plays. Marston ranks high among the immediate
+predecessors of Shakspeare, for the number, variety, and vigorous handling
+of his plays.
+
+George Peele, born about 1553: educated at Oxford. Many of his pieces are
+broadly comic. The principal plays are: _The Arraignment of Paris_,
+_Edward I._ and _David and Bethsabe_. The latter is overwrought and full
+of sickish sentiment.
+
+Thomas Nash, 1558-1601: a satirist and polemic, who is best known for his
+controversy with Gabriel Harvey. Most of his plays were written in
+conjunction with others. He was imprisoned for writing _The Isle of Dogs_,
+which was played, but not published. He is very licentious in his
+language.
+
+John Lyly, born about 1553: wrote numerous smaller plays, but is chiefly
+known as the author of _Euphues, Anatomy of Wit_, and _Euphues and his
+England_.
+
+Robert Greene, died 1592: educated at Cambridge. Wrote _Alphonsus, King of
+Arragon_, _James IV._, _George-a-Greene_, _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_,
+and other plays. After leading a profligate life, he left behind him a
+pamphlet entitled, "A Groat's-worth of Wit, bought with a Million of
+Repentance:" this is full of contrition, and of advice to his
+fellow-actors and fellow-sinners. It is mainly remarkable for its abuse of
+Shakspeare, "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers;" "Tygre's
+heart wrapt in a player's hide;" "an absolute Johannes factotum, in his
+own conceyt the onely _shakescene_ in the country."
+
+Most of these dramatists wrote in copartnership with others, and many of
+the plays which bear their names singly, have parts composed by
+colleagues. Such was the custom of the age, and it is now very difficult
+to declare the distinct authorship of many of the plays.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+   The Power of Shakspeare. Meagre Early History. Doubts of his Identity.
+   What is known. Marries, and goes to London. "Venus" and "Lucrece."
+   Retirement and Death. Literary Habitudes. Variety of the Plays. Table
+   of Dates and Sources.
+
+
+
+THE POWER OF SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+We have now reached, in our search for the historic teachings in English
+literature, and in our consideration of the English drama, the greatest
+name of all, the writer whose works illustrate our position most strongly,
+and yet who, eminent type as he is of British culture in the age of
+Elizabeth, was truly and pithily declared by his friend and contemporary,
+Ben Jonson, to be "not for an age, but for all time." It is also
+singularly true that, even in such a work as this, Shakspeare really
+requires only brief notice at our hands, because he is so universally
+known and read: his characters are among our familiar acquaintance; his
+simple but thoughtful words are incorporated in our common conversation;
+he is our every-day companion. To eulogize him to the reading public is
+
+    To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
+    To lend a perfume to the violet ...
+
+The Bible and Shakspeare have been long conjoined as the two most
+necessary books in a family library; and Mrs. Cowden Clarke, the author of
+the Concordance to Shakspeare, has pointedly and truthfully said: "A poor
+lad, possessing no other book, might on this single one make himself a
+gentleman and a scholar: a poor girl, studying no other volume, might
+become a lady in heart and soul."
+
+
+MEAGRE EARLY HISTORY.--It is passing strange, considering the great value
+of his writings, and his present fame, that of his personal history so
+little is known. In the words of Steevens, one of his most successful
+commentators: "All that is known, with any degree of certainty, concerning
+Shakspeare, is--that he was born at Stratford upon Avon--married and had
+children there--went to London, where he commenced actor, and wrote poems
+and plays--returned to Stratford, made his will, died, and was buried."
+
+This want of knowledge is in part due to his obscure youth, during which
+no one could predict what he would afterward achieve, and therefore no one
+took notes of his life: to his own apparent ignorance and carelessness of
+his own merits, and to the low repute in which plays, and especially
+playwrights, were then held; although they were in reality making their
+age illustrious in history. The pilgrim to Stratford sees the little low
+house in which he is said to have been born, purchased by the nation, and
+now restored into a smart cottage: within are a few meagre relics of the
+poet's time; not far distant is the foundation--recently uncovered--of his
+more ambitious residence in New Place, and a mulberry-tree, which probably
+grew from a slip of that which he had planted with his own hand. Opposite
+is the old Falcon Inn, where he made his daily potations. Very near rises,
+above elms and lime-trees, the spire of the beautiful church on the bank
+of the Avon, beneath the chancel of which his remains repose, with those
+of his wife and daughter, overlooked by his bust, of which no one knows
+the maker or the history, except that it dates from his own time. His bust
+is of life-size, and was originally painted to imitate nature--eyes of
+hazel, hair and beard auburn, doublet scarlet, and sleeveless gown of
+black. Covered by a false taste with white paint to imitate marble, while
+it destroyed identity and age: it has since been recolored from
+traditional knowledge, but it is too rude to give us the expression of his
+face.
+
+The only other probable likeness is that from an old picture, an engraving
+of which, by Droeshout, is found in the first folio edition of his plays,
+published in 1623, seven years after his death: it was said by Ben Jonson
+to be a good likeness. We are very fortunate in having these,
+unsatisfactory as they are, for it is simple truth that beyond these
+places and things, there is little, if anything, to illustrate the
+personal history of Shakspeare. All that we can know of the man is found
+in his works.
+
+
+DOUBTS OF HIS IDENTITY.--This ignorance concerning him has given rise to
+numerous doubts as to his literary identity, and many efforts have been
+made to find other authors for his dramas. Among the most industrious in
+this deposing scheme, have been Miss Delia Bacon and Mr. Nathaniel Holmes,
+who concur in attributing his best plays to Francis Bacon. That Bacon did
+not acknowledge his own work, they say, is because he rated the dramatic
+art too far beneath his dignity to confess any complicity with it. In
+short, he and other great men of that day wrote immortal works which they
+were ashamed of, and were willing to father upon the common actor and
+stage-manager, one William Shakspeare!
+
+While it is not within the scope of this volume to enter into the
+controversy, it is a duty to state its existence, and to express the
+judgment that these efforts have been entirely unsuccessful, but have not
+been without value in that they have added a little to the meagre history
+by their researches, and have established the claims of Shakspeare on a
+firmer foundation than before.
+
+
+WHAT IS KNOWN.--William Shakspeare (spelt _Shackspeare_ in the body of his
+will, but signed _Shakspeare_) was the third of eight children, and the
+eldest son of John Shakspeare and Mary Arden: he was born at the beautiful
+rural town of Stratford, on the little river Avon, on the 23d of April,
+1564. His father, who was of yeoman rank, was probably a dealer in wool
+and leather. Aubrey, a gossiping chronicler of the next generation, says
+he was a butcher, and some biographers assert that he was a glover. He may
+have exercised all these crafts together, but it is more to our purpose to
+know that in his best estate he was a property holder and chief burgess of
+the town. Shakspeare's mother seems to have been of an older family.
+Neither of them could write. Shakspeare received his education at the free
+grammar-school, still a well-endowed institution in the town, where he
+learned the "small Latin and less Greek" accorded to him by Ben Jonson at
+a later day.
+
+There are guesses, rather than traditions, that he was, after the age of
+fifteen, a student in a law-office, that he was for a time at one of the
+universities, and also that he was a teacher in the grammar-school. These
+are weak inventions to account for the varied learning displayed in his
+dramas. His love of Nature and his power to delineate her charms were
+certainly fostered by the beautiful rural surroundings of Stratford;
+beyond this it is idle to seek to penetrate the obscure processes of his
+youth.
+
+
+MARRIES, AND GOES TO LONDON.--Finding himself one of a numerous and poor
+family, to the support of which his father's business was inadequate, he
+determined, to shift for himself, and to push his fortunes in the best way
+he could.
+
+Whether he regarded matrimony as one element of success we do not know,
+but the preliminary bond of marriage between himself and Anne Hathaway,
+was signed on the 28th of November, 1582, when he was eighteen years old.
+The woman was seven years older than himself; and it is a sad commentary
+on the morality of both, that his first child, Susanna, was baptized on
+the 25th of May, 1583.
+
+Strolling bands of players, in passing through England, were in the habit
+of stopping at Stratford, and setting upon wheels their rude stage with
+weather-stained curtains; and these, it should be observed, were the best
+dramatic companies of the time, such as the queen's company, and those in
+the service of noblemen like Leicester, Warwick, and others. If he did not
+see he must have heard of the great pageant in 1575, when Leicester
+entertained Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth, which is so charmingly
+described by Sir Walter Scott. Young Shakspeare became stage-struck, and
+probably joined one of these companies, with other idle young men of the
+neighborhood.
+
+Various legends, without sufficient foundation of truth, are related of
+him at this time, which indicate that he was of a frolicsome and
+mischievous turn: among these is a statement that he was arraigned for
+deer-poaching in the park of Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote. A satirical
+reference to Sir Thomas in one of his plays,[30] leads us to think that
+there is some truth in the story, although certain of his biographers have
+denied it.
+
+In February, 1584-5, he became the father of twins, Hamnet and Judith, and
+in 1586, leaving his wife and children at Stratford, he went up with a
+theatrical company to London, where for three years he led a hard and
+obscure life. He was at first a menial at the theatre; some say he held
+gentlemen's horses at the door, others that he was call-boy, prompter,
+scene-shifter, minor actor. At length he began to find his true vocation
+in altering and adapting plays for the stage. This earlier practice, in
+every capacity, was of great value to him when he began to write plays of
+his own. As an actor he never rose above mediocrity. It is said that he
+played such parts as the Ghost in Hamlet, and Adam in As You Like It; but
+off the stage he became known for a ready wit and convivial humor.
+
+His ready hand for any work caused him to prosper steadily, and so in
+1589 we find his name the twelfth on the list of sixteen shareholders in
+the Blackfriars Theatre, one of the first play-houses built in London.
+That he was steadily growing in public favor, as well as in private
+fortune, might be inferred from Spenser's mention of him in the "Tears of
+the Muses," published in 1591, if we were sure he was the person referred
+to. If he was, this is the first great commendation he had received:
+
+    The man whom nature's self had made,
+      To mock herself and truth to imitate,
+    With kindly counter under mimic shade,
+      Our pleasant Willie.
+
+There is, however, a doubt whether the reference is to him, as he had
+written very little as early as 1591.
+
+
+VENUS AND ADONIS.--In 1593 appeared his _Venus and Adonis_, which he now
+had the social position and interest to dedicate to the Earl of
+Southampton. It is a harmonious and beautiful poem, but the display of
+libidinous passion in the goddess, however in keeping with her character
+and with the broad taste of the age, is disgusting to the refined reader,
+even while he acknowledges the great power of the poet. In the same year
+was built the Globe Theatre, a hexagonal wooden structure, unroofed over
+the pit, but thatched over the stage and the galleries. In this, too,
+Shakspeare was a shareholder.
+
+
+THE RAPE OF LUCRECE.--The _Rape of Lucrece_ was published in 1594, and was
+dedicated to the same nobleman, who, after the custom of the period,
+became Shakspeare's patron, and showed the value of his patronage by the
+gift to the poet of a thousand pounds.
+
+Thus in making poetical versions of classical stories, which formed the
+imaginative pabulum of the age, and in readapting older plays, the poet
+was gaining that skill and power which were to produce his later immortal
+dramas.
+
+These, as we shall see, he began to write as early as 1589, and continued
+to produce until 1612.
+
+
+RETIREMENT AND DEATH.--A few words will complete his personal history: His
+fortune steadily increased; in 1602 he was the principal owner of the
+Globe; then, actuated by his home feeling, which had been kept alive by
+annual visits to Stratford, he determined, as soon as he could, to give up
+the stage, and to take up his residence there. He had purchased, in 1597,
+the New Place at Stratford, but he did not fully carry out his plan until
+1612, when he finally retired with ample means and in the enjoyment of an
+honorable reputation. There he exercised a generous hospitality, and led a
+quiet rural life. He planted a mulberry-tree, which became a pilgrim's
+shrine to numerous travellers; but a ruthless successor in the ownership
+of New Place, the Reverend Francis Gastrell, annoyed by the concourse of
+visitors, was Vandal enough to cut it down. Such was the anger of the
+people that he was obliged to leave the place, which he did after razing
+the mansion to the ground. His name is held in great detestation at
+Stratford now, as every traveller is told his story.
+
+Shakspeare's death occurred on his fifty-second birthday, April 23d, 1616.
+He had been ill of a fever, from which he was slowly recovering, and his
+end is said to have been the result of an over-conviviality in
+entertaining Drayton and Ben Jonson, who had paid him a visit at
+Stratford.
+
+His son Hamnet had died in 1596, at the age of twelve. In 1607, his
+daughter Susannah had married Dr. Hall; and in 1614 died Judith, who had
+married Thomas Quiney. Shakspeare's wife survived him, and died in 1623.
+
+
+LITERARY HABITUDES.--Such, in brief, is the personal history of
+Shakspeare: of his literary habitudes we know nothing. The exact dates of
+the appearance of his plays are, in most cases, doubtful. Many of these
+had been printed singly during his life, but the first complete edition
+was published in folio, in 1623. It contains _thirty-six_ plays, and is
+the basis of the later editions, which contain thirty-_seven_. Many
+questions arise which cannot be fully answered: Did he write all the plays
+contained in the volume? Are the First Part of Henry VI., Titus
+Andronicus,[31] and Pericles his work? Did he not write others not found
+among these? Had he, as was not uncommon then and later, collaboration in
+those which bear his name? Was he a Beaumont to some Fletcher, or a
+Sackville to some Norton? Upon these questions generations of Shakspearean
+scholars have expended a great amount of learned inquiry ever since his
+day, and not without results: it is known that many of his dramas are
+founded upon old plays, as to plots; and that he availed himself of the
+labor of others in casting his plays.
+
+But the real value of his plays, the insight into human nature, the
+profound philosophy, "the myriad-soul" which they display, are
+Shakspeare's only. By applying just rules of evidence, we conclude that he
+did write thirty-five of the plays attributed to him, and that he did not
+write, or was not the chief writer of others. It is certainly very strong
+testimony on these points, that seven years after his death, and _three
+years before that of Bacon_, a large folio should have been published by
+his professional friends Heminge and Condell, prefaced with ardent
+eulogies, claiming thirty-six plays as his, and that it did not meet with
+the instant and indignant cry that his claims were false. The players of
+that day were an envious and carping set, and the controversy would have
+been fierce from the very first, had there been just grounds for it.
+
+
+VARIETY OF PLAYS.--No attempt will be made to analyze any of the plays of
+Shakspeare: that is left for the private study and enjoyment of the
+student, by the use of the very numerous aids furnished by commentators
+and critics. It will be found often that in their great ardor, the
+dramatist has been treated like the Grecian poet:
+
+    [Shakspeare's] critics bring to view
+    Things which [Shakspeare] never knew.
+
+Many of the plays are based upon well-known legends and fictional tales,
+some of them already adopted in old plays: thus the story of King Lear and
+his daughters is found in Holinshed's Chronicle, and had been for years
+represented; from this Shakspeare has borrowed the story, but has used
+only a single passage. The play is intended to represent the ancient
+Celtic times in Britain, eight hundred years before Christ; and such is
+its power and pathos, that we care little for its glaring anachronisms and
+curious errors. In Holinshed are also found the stories of Cymbeline and
+Macbeth, the former supposed to have occurred during the Roman occupancy
+of Britain, and the latter during the Saxon period.
+
+With these before us, let us observe that names, chronology, geography,
+costumes, and customs are as nothing in his eyes. His aim is human
+philosophy: he places his living creations before us, dressing them, as it
+were, in any garments most conveniently at hand. These lose their
+grotesqueness as his characters speak and act. Paternal love and weakness,
+met by filial ingratitude; these are the lessons and the fearful pictures
+of Lear: sad as they are, the world needed them, and they have saved many
+a later Lear from expulsion and storm and death, and shamed many a Goneril
+and Regan, while they have strengthened the hearts of many a Cordelia
+since. Chastity and constancy shine like twin stars from the forest of
+Cymbeline. And what have we in Macbeth? Mad ambition parleying with the
+devil, in the guise of a woman lost to all virtue save a desire to
+aggrandize her husband and herself. These have a pretence of history; but
+Hamlet, with hardly that pretence, stands alone supreme in varied
+excellence. Ambition, murder, resistless fate, filial love, the love of
+woman, revenge, the power of conscience, paternal solicitude, infinite
+jest: what a volume is this!
+
+
+TABLE OF DATES AND SOURCES.--The following table, which presents the plays
+in chronological order,[32] the times when they were written, as nearly as
+can be known, and the sources whence they were derived, will be of more
+service to the student than any discursive remarks upon the several plays.
+
+Plays.                       Dates.                Sources.
+
+ 1. Henry VI., first part     1589   Denied to Shakspeare; attributed to
+                                       Marlowe or Kyd.
+ 2. Pericles                  1590   From the "Gesta Romanorum."
+ 3. Henry VI., second part    1591     "  an older play.
+ 4. Henry VI., third part     1591     "  "    "    "
+ 5. Two Gentlemen of Verona   1591     "  an old tale.
+ 6. Comedy of Errors          1592     "  a comedy of Plautus.
+ 7. Love's Labor Lost         1592     "  an Italian play.
+ 8. Richard II.               1593     "  Holinshed and other
+                                          chronicles.
+ 9. Richard III.              1593   From an old play and Sir Thomas
+                                       More's History.
+10. Midsummer Night's Dream   1594   Suggested by Palamon and Arcite,
+                                       The Knight's Tale, of Chaucer.
+11. Taming of the Shrew       1596   From an older play.
+12. Romeo and Juliet          1596     "  " old tale. Boccaccio.
+13. Merchant of Venice        1597     " Gesta Romanorum, with suggestions
+                                         from Marlowe's Jew of Malta.
+14. Henry IV., part 1         1597   From an old play.
+15. Henry IV., part 2         1598    "   "  "   "
+16. King John                 1598    "   "  "   "
+17. All's Well that Ends Well 1598    "  Boccaccio.
+18. Henry V.                  1599  From an older play.
+19. As You Like It            1600  Suggested in part by Lodge's novel,
+                                      Rosalynd.
+20. Much Ado About Nothing    1600  Source unknown.
+21. Hamlet                    1601  From the Latin History of Scandinavia,
+                                      by Saxo, called Grammaticus.
+22. Merry Wives of Windsor    1601  Said to have been suggested by
+                                      Elizabeth.
+23. Twelfth Night             1601  From an old tale.
+24. Troilus and Cressida      1602  Of classical origin, through Chaucer.
+25. Henry VIII.               1603  From the chronicles of the day.
+26. Measure for Measure       1603   "  an old tale.
+27. Othello                   1604   "  "   "   "
+28. King Lear                 1605   "  Holinshed.
+29. Macbeth                   1606   "      "
+30. Julius Cæsar              1607   "  Plutarch's Parallel Lives.
+31. Antony and Cleopatra      1608   "      "         "       "
+32. Cymbeline                 1609   "  Holinshed.
+33. Coriolanus                1610   "  Plutarch.
+34. Timon of Athens           1610   "     "      and other sources.
+35. Winter's Tale             1611   "  a novel by Greene.
+36. Tempest                   1612   "  Italian Tale.
+37. Titus Andronicus          1593  Denied to Shakspeare; probably by
+                                      Marlowe or Kyd.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, (CONTINUED.)
+
+
+   The Grounds of his Fame. Creation of Character. Imagination and Fancy.
+   Power of Expression. His Faults. Influence of Elizabeth. Sonnets.
+   Ireland and Collier. Concordance. Other Writers.
+
+
+
+THE GROUNDS OF HIS FAME.
+
+
+From what has been said, it is manifest that as to his plots and
+historical reproductions, Shakspeare has little merit but taste in
+selection; and indeed in most cases, had he invented the stories, his
+merit would not have been great: what then is the true secret of his power
+and of his fame? This question is not difficult to answer.
+
+First, these are due to his wonderful insight into human nature, and the
+philosophy of human life: he dissects the human mind in all its
+conditions, and by this vivisection he displays its workings as it lives
+and throbs; he divines the secret impulses of all ages and
+characters--childhood, boyhood, manhood, girlhood, and womanhood; men of
+peace, and men of war; clowns, nobles, and kings. His large heart was
+sympathetic with all, and even most so with the lowly and suffering; he
+shows us to ourselves, and enables us to use that knowledge for our
+profit. All the virtues are held up to our imitation and praise, and all
+the vices are scourged and rendered odious in our sight. To read
+Shakspeare aright is of the nature of honest self-examination, that most
+difficult and most necessary of duties.
+
+
+CREATION OF CHARACTER.--Second: He stands supreme in the creation of
+character, which may be considered the distinguishing mark of the highest
+literary genius. The men and women whom he has made are not stage-puppets
+moved by hidden strings; they are real. We know them as intimately as the
+friends and acquaintances who visit us, or the people whom we accost in
+our daily walks.
+
+And again, in this varied delineation of character, Shakspeare less than
+any other author either obtrudes or repeats himself. Unlike Byron, he is
+nowhere his own hero: unlike most modern novelists, he fashions men who,
+while they have the generic human resemblance, differ from each other like
+those of flesh and blood around us: he has presented a hundred phases of
+love, passion, ambition, jealousy, revenge, treachery, and cruelty, and
+each distinct from the others of its kind; but lest any character should
+degenerate into an allegorical representation of a single virtue or vice,
+he has provided it with the other lineaments necessary to produce in it a
+rare human identity.
+
+The stock company of most writers is limited, and does arduous duty in
+each new play or romance; so that we detect in the comic actor, who is now
+convulsing the pit with laughter, the same person who a little while ago
+died heroically to slow music in the tragedy. Each character in Shakspeare
+plays but one part, and plays it skilfully and well. And who has portrayed
+the character of woman like Shakspeare?--the grand sorrow of the
+repudiated Catharine, the incorruptible chastity of Isabella, the
+cleverness of Portia, the loves of Jessica and of Juliet, the innocent
+curiosity of Miranda, the broken heart and crazed brain of the fair
+Ophelia.
+
+In this connection also should be noticed his powers of grouping and
+composition; which, in the words of one of his biographers, "present to us
+pictures from the realms of spirits and from fairyland, which in deep
+reflection and in useful maxims, yield nothing to the pages of the
+philosophers, and which glow with all the poetic beauty that an
+exhaustless fancy could shower upon them."
+
+
+IMAGINATION AND FANCY.--And this brings us to notice, in the third place,
+his rare gifts of imagination and of fancy; those instruments of the
+representative faculty by which objects of sense and of mind are held up
+to view in new, varied, and vivid lights. Many of his tragedies abound in
+imaginative pictures, while there are not in the realm of Fancy's fairy
+frostwork more exquisite representations than those found in the _Tempest_
+and the _Midsummer Night's Dream_.
+
+
+POWER OF EXPRESSION.--Fourth, Shakspeare is remarkable for the power and
+felicity of his expression. He adapts his language to the persons who use
+it, and thus we pass from the pompous grandiloquence of king and herald to
+the common English and coarse conceits of clown and nurse and
+grave-digger; from the bombastic speech of Glendower and the rhapsodies of
+Hotspur to the slang and jests of Falstaff.
+
+But something more is meant by felicity of expression than this. It
+applies to the apt words which present pithy bits of household philosophy,
+and to the beautiful words which convey the higher sentiments and flights
+of fancy; to the simple words couching grand thoughts with such exquisite
+aptness that they seem made for each other, so that no other words would
+do as well, and to the dainty songs, like those of birds, which fill his
+forests and gardens with melody. Thus it is that orators and essayists
+give dignity and point to their own periods by quoting Shakspeare.
+
+Such are a few of Shakspeare's high merits, which constitute him the
+greatest poet who has ever used the English tongue--poet, moralist, and
+philosopher in one.
+
+
+HIS FAULTS.--If it be necessary to point out his faults, it should be
+observed that most of them are those of the age and of his profession. To
+both may be charged the vulgarity and lewdness of some of his
+representations; which, however, err in this respect far less than the
+writings of his contemporaries.
+
+Again: in the short time allowed for the presentation of a play, before a
+restless audience, as soon as the plot was fairly shadowed, the hearers
+were anxious for the _dénouement_. And so Shakspeare, careless of future
+fame, frequently displays a singular disparity between the parts. He has
+so much of detail in the first two acts, that in order to preserve the
+symmetry, five or six more would be necessary. Thus conclusions are
+hurried, when, as works of art, they should be the most elaborated.
+
+He has sometimes been accused of obscurity in expression, which renders
+some of his passages difficult to be understood by commentators; but this,
+in most cases, is the fault of his editors. The cases are exceptional and
+unimportant. His anachronisms and historical inaccuracies have already
+been referred to. His greatest admirers will allow that his wit and humor
+are very often forced and frequently out of place; but here, too, he
+should be leniently judged. These sallies of wit were meant rather to
+"tickle the ears of the groundlings" than as just subjects for criticism
+by later scholars. We know that old jokes, bad puns, and innuendoes are
+needed on the stage at the present day. Shakspeare used them for the same
+ephemeral purpose then; and had he sent down corrected versions to
+posterity, they would have been purged of these.
+
+
+INFLUENCE OF ELIZABETH.--Enough has been said to show in what manner
+Shakspeare represents his age, and indeed many former periods of English
+history. There are numerous passages which display the influence of
+Elizabeth. It was at her request that he wrote the _Merry Wives of
+Windsor_, in which Falstaff is depicted as a lover: the play of Henry
+VIII., criticizing the queen's father, was not produced until after her
+death. His pure women, like those of Spenser, are drawn after a queenly
+model. It is known that Elizabeth was very susceptible to admiration, but
+did not wish to be considered so; and Shakspeare paid the most delicate
+and courtly tribute to her vanity, in those exquisite lines from the
+_Midsummer Night's Dream_, showing how powerless Cupid was to touch her
+heart:
+
+            A certain aim he took
+    At a fair vestal, throned by the west;
+    And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
+    As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:
+    But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
+    Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon;
+    And _the imperial votaress passed on_,
+    In maiden meditation, fancy free.
+
+
+SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS.--Before his time, the sonnet had been but little
+used in England, the principal writers being Surrey, Sir Walter Raleigh,
+Sidney, Daniel, and Drayton. Shakspeare left one hundred and fifty-four,
+which exhibit rare poetical power, and which are most of them addressed to
+a person unknown, perhaps an ideal personage, whose initials are W. H.
+Although chiefly addressed to a man, they are of an amatory nature, and
+dwell strongly upon human frailty, infidelity, and treachery, from which
+he seems to have suffered: the mystery of these poems has never been
+penetrated. They were printed in 1609. "Our language," says one of his
+editors, "can boast no sonnets altogether worthy of being placed by the
+side of Shakspeare's, except the few which Milton poured forth--so severe
+and so majestic."
+
+It need hardly be said that Shakspeare has been translated into all modern
+languages, in whole or in part. In French, by Victor Hugo and Guizot, Leon
+de Wailly and Alfred de Vigny; in German, by Wieland, A. W. Schlegel, and
+Bürger; in Italian, by Leoni and Carcano, and in Portuguese by La Silva.
+Goethe's Apprenticeship of Wilhelm Meister is a long and profound critique
+of Hamlet; and to the Germans he is quite as familiar and intelligible as
+to the English.
+
+
+IRELAND: COLLIER.--The most celebrated forgery of Shakspeare was that by
+Samuel Ireland, the son of a Shakspearean scholar, who was an engraver and
+dealer in curiosities. He wrote two plays, called _Vortigern_ and _Henry
+the Second_, which he said he had discovered; and he forged a deed with
+Shakspeare's autograph. By these he imposed upon his father and many
+others, but eventually confessed the forgery.
+
+One word should be said concerning the Collier controversy. John Payne
+Collier was a lawyer, born in 1789, and is known as the author of an
+excellent history of _English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of Shakspeare_
+and _Annals of the Stage to the Restoration_. In the year 1849, he came
+into possession of a copy of the folio edition of Shakspeare, published in
+1632, _full of emendations_, by an early owner of the volume. In 1852 he
+published these, and at once great enthusiasm was excited, for and against
+the emendations: many thought them of great value, while others even went
+so far as to accuse Mr. Collier of having made some of them himself. The
+chief value of the work was that it led to new investigations, and has
+thus thrown additional light upon the works of Shakspeare.
+
+
+CONCORDANCE.--The student is referred to a very complete concordance of
+Shakspeare, by Mrs. Mary Cowden Clarke, the labor of many years, by which
+every line of Shakspeare may be found, and which is thus of incalculable
+utility to the Shakspearean scholar.
+
+
+
+OTHER DRAMATIC WRITERS OF THE AGE OF SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+Ben Jonson, 1573-1637: this great dramatist, who deserves a larger space,
+was born in London; his father became a Puritan preacher, but after his
+death, his mother's second husband put the boy at brick-making. His spirit
+revolted at this, and he ran away, and served as a soldier in the Low
+Countries. On his return he killed Gabriel Spencer, a fellow-actor, in a
+duel, and was for some time imprisoned. His first play was a comedy
+entitled _Every Man in his Humour_, acted in 1598. This was succeeded,
+the next year, by _Every Man out of his Humour_. He wrote a great number
+of both tragedies and comedies, among which the principal are _Cynthia's
+Revels_, _Sejanus_, _Volpone_, _Catiline's Conspiracy_, and _The
+Alchemist_. In 1616, he received a pension from the crown of one hundred
+marks, which was increased by Charles I., in 1630, to one hundred pounds.
+He was the friend of Shakspeare, and had many wit-encounters with him. In
+these, Fuller compares Jonson to a great Spanish galleon, "built far
+higher in learning, solid and slow in performance," and Shakspeare to an
+"English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn
+with all tides, tack about and take advantage of all winds, by the
+quickness of his wit and invention."
+
+Massinger, 1548-1640: born at Salisbury. Is said to have written
+thirty-eight plays, of which only eighteen remain. The chief of these is
+the _Virgin Martyr_, in which he was assisted by Dekker. The best of the
+others are _The City Madam_ and _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_, _The Fatal
+Dowry_, _The Unnatural Combat_, and _The Duke of Milan_. _A New Way to Pay
+Old Debts_ keeps its place upon the modern stage.
+
+John Ford, born 1586: author of _The Lover's Melancholy_, _Love's
+Sacrifice_, _Perkin Warbeck_, and _The Broken Heart_. He was a pathetic
+delineator of love, especially of unhappy love. Some of his plots are
+unnatural, and abhorrent to a refined taste.
+
+Webster (dates unknown): this author is remarkable for his handling of
+gloomy and terrible subjects. His best plays are _The Devil's Law Case_,
+_Appius and Virginia_, _The Duchess of Malfy_, and _The White Devil_.
+Hazlitt says "his _White Devil_ and _Duchess of Malfy_ come the nearest to
+Shakspeare of anything we have upon record."
+
+Francis Beaumont, 1586-1615, and John Fletcher, 1576-1625: joint authors
+of plays, numbering fifty-two. A prolific union, in which it is difficult
+to determine the exact authorship of each. Among the best plays are _The
+Maid's Tragedy_, _Philaster_, and _Cupid's Revenge_. Many of the plots are
+licentious, but in monologues they frequently rise to eloquence, and in
+descriptions are picturesque and graphic.
+
+Shirley, 1594-1666: delineates fashionable life with success. His best
+plays are _The Maid's Revenge_, _The Politician_, and _The Lady of
+Pleasure_. The last suggested to Van Brugh his character of Lady Townly,
+in _The Provoked Husband_. Lamb says Shirley "was the last of a great
+race, all of whom spoke the same language, and had a set of moral feelings
+and notions in common. A new language and quite a new turn of tragic and
+comic interest came in at the Restoration."
+
+Thomas Dekker, died about 1638: wrote, besides numerous tracts,
+twenty-eight plays. The principal are _Old Fortunatus_, _The Honest
+Whore_, and _Satiro-Mastix, or, The Humorous Poet Untrussed_. In the last,
+he satirized Ben Jonson, with whom he had quarrelled, and who had
+ridiculed him in _The Poetaster_. In the Honest Whore are found those
+beautiful lines so often quoted:
+
+                            ... the best of men
+    That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer;
+    A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit;
+    The first true gentleman that ever breathed.
+
+Extracts from the plays mentioned may be found in Charles Lamb's
+"Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of
+Shakspeare."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+BACON, AND THE RISE OF THE NEW PHILOSOPHY.
+
+
+   Birth and Early Life. Treatment of Essex. His Appointments. His Fall.
+   Writes Philosophy. Magna Instauratio. His Defects. His Fame. His
+   Essays.
+
+
+
+BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE OF BACON.
+
+
+Contemporary with Shakspeare, and almost equal to him in English fame at
+least, is Francis Bacon, the founder of the system of experimental
+philosophy in the Elizabethan age. The investigations of the one in the
+philosophy of human life, were emulated by those of the other in the realm
+of general nature, in order to find laws to govern further progress, and
+to evolve order and harmony out of chaos.
+
+Bacon was born in London, on the 22d of January, 1560-61, to an enviable
+social lot. His father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, was for twenty years lord
+keeper of the great seal, and was eulogized by George Buchanan as "Diu
+Britannici regni secundum columen." His mother was Anne Cook, a person of
+remarkable acquirements in language and theology. Francis Bacon was a
+delicate, attractive, and precocious child, noticed by the great, and
+kindly called by the queen "her little lord keeper." Ben Jonson refers to
+this when he writes, at a later day:
+
+    England's high chancellor, the destined heir
+    In his soft cradle to his father's chair.
+
+Thus, in his early childhood, he became accustomed to the forms and
+grandeur of political power, and the modes by which it was to be striven
+for.
+
+In his thirteenth year he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, then,
+as now, the more mathematical and scientific of the two universities. But,
+like Gibbon at Oxford, he thought little of his alma mater, under whose
+care he remained only three years. It is said that at an early age he
+disliked the Logic of Aristotle, and began to excogitate his system of
+Induction: not content with the formal recorded knowledge, he viewed the
+universe as a great storehouse of facts to be educed, investigated, and
+philosophically classified.
+
+After leaving the university, he went in the suite of Sir Amyas Paulet,
+the English ambassador, to France; and recorded the observations made
+during his travels in a treatise _On the State of Europe_, which is
+thoughtful beyond his years. The sudden death of his father, in February,
+1579-80, recalled him to England, and his desire to study led him to apply
+to the government for a sinecure, which would permit him to do so without
+concern as to his support. It is not strange--considering his youth and
+the entire ignorance of the government as to his abilities--that this was
+refused. He then applied himself to the study of the law; and whatever his
+real ability, the jealousy of the Cecils no doubt prompted the opinion of
+the queen, that he was not very profound in the branch he had chosen, an
+opinion which was fully shared by the blunt and outspoken Lord Coke, who
+was his rival in love, law, and preferment. Prompted no doubt by the
+coldness of Burleigh, he joined the opposition headed by the Earl of
+Essex, and he found in that nobleman a powerful friend and generous
+patron, who used his utmost endeavors to have Bacon appointed
+attorney-general, but without success. To compensate Bacon for his
+failure, Essex presented him with a beautiful villa at Twickenham on the
+Thames, which was worth £2,000.
+
+
+TREATMENT OF ESSEX.--Essex was of a bold, eccentric, and violent temper.
+It is not to the credit of Bacon that when Essex, through his rashness and
+eccentricities, found himself arraigned for treason, Bacon deserted him,
+and did not simply stand aloof, but was the chief agent in his
+prosecution. Nor is this all: after making a vehement and effective speech
+against him, as counsel for the prosecution--a speech which led to his
+conviction and execution--Bacon wrote an uncalled-for and malignant paper,
+entitled "A Declaration of the Treasons of Robert, Earl of Essex."
+
+A high-minded man would have aided his friend; a cautious man would have
+remained neutral; but Bacon was extravagant, fond of show, eager for
+money, and in debt: he sought only to push his own fortunes, without
+regard to justice or gratitude, and he saw that he had everything to gain
+from his servility to the queen, and nothing from standing by his friend.
+Even those who thought Essex justly punished, regarded Bacon with aversion
+and contempt, and impartial history has not reversed their opinion.
+
+
+HIS APPOINTMENTS.--He strove for place, and he obtained it. In 1590 he was
+appointed counsel extraordinary to the queen: such was his first reward
+for this conduct, and such his first lesson in the school where thrift
+followed fawning. In 1593 he was brought into parliament for Middlesex,
+and there he charmed all hearers by his eloquence, which has received the
+special eulogy of Ben Jonson. In his parliamentary career is found a
+second instance of his truckling to power: in a speech touching the rights
+of the crown, he offended the queen and her ministers; and as soon as he
+found they resented it, he made a servile and unqualified apology.
+
+At this time he began to write his _Essays_, which will be referred to
+hereafter, and published two treatises, one on _The Common Law_, and one
+on _The Alienation Office_.
+
+In 1603 he was, by his own seeking, among the crowd of gentlemen knighted
+by James I. on his accession; and in 1604 he added fortune to his new
+dignity by marrying Alice Barnham, "a handsome maiden," the daughter of a
+London alderman. He had before addressed the dowager Lady Hatton, who had
+refused him and bestowed her hand upon his rival, Coke.
+
+In 1613 he attained to the long-desired dignity of attorney-general, a
+post which he filled with power and energy, but which he disgraced by the
+torture of Peacham, an old clergyman, who was charged with having written
+treason in a sermon which he never preached nor published. As nothing
+could be extorted from him by the rack, Bacon informed the king that
+Peacham "had a dumb devil." It should be some palliation of this deed,
+however, that the government was quick and sharp in ferretting out
+treason, and that torture was still authorized.
+
+In 1616 he was sworn of the privy council, and in the next year inherited
+his father's honors, being made lord keeper of the seal, principally
+through the favor of the favorite Buckingham. His course was still upward:
+in 1618 he was made lord high chancellor, and Baron Verulam, and the next
+year he was created Viscount St. Albans. Such rapid and high promotion
+marked his great powers, but it belonged to the period of despotism. James
+had been ruling without a parliament. At length the necessities of the
+government caused the king to summon a parliament, and the struggle began
+which was to have a fatal issue twenty-five years later. Parliament met,
+began to assert popular rights, and to examine into the conduct of
+ministers and high officials; and among those who could ill bear such
+scrutiny, Bacon was prominent.
+
+
+HIS FALL.--The charges against him were varied and numerous, and easy of
+proof. He had received bribes; he had given false judgments for money; he
+had perverted justice to secure the smiles of Buckingham, the favorite;
+and when a commission was appointed to examine these charges he was
+convicted. With abject humility, he acknowledged his guilt, and implored
+the pity of his judges. The annals of biography present no sorrier picture
+than this. "Upon advised consideration of the charges," he wrote,
+"descending into my own conscience, and calling my memory to account so
+far as I am able, I do plainly and ingenuously confess that I am guilty of
+corruption, and do renounce all defence. O my lords, spare a broken reed!"
+
+It is useless for his defenders, among whom the chief are Mr. Basil
+Montagu and Mr. Hepworth Dixon, to inform us that judges in that day were
+ill paid, and that it was the custom to receive gifts. If Bacon had a
+defence to make and did not make it, he was a coward or a sycophant: if
+what he said is true, he was a dishonest man, an unjust judge. He was
+sentenced to pay a fine of £40,000, and to be imprisoned in the Tower at
+the king's pleasure; the fine was remitted, and the imprisonment lasted
+but two days, a result, no doubt foreseen, of his wretched confession.
+This was the end of his public career. In retirement, with a pension of
+£1,200, making, with his other means, an annual income of £2,500, this
+"meanest of mankind" set himself busily to work to prove to the world that
+he could also be the "wisest and brightest;"[33] a duality of fame
+approached by others, but never equalled. He was, in fact, two men in one:
+a dishonest, truckling politician, and a large-minded and truth-seeking
+philosopher.
+
+
+BEGINS HIS PHILOSOPHY.--Retired in disgrace from his places at court, the
+rest of his life was spent in developing his _Instauratio Magna_, that
+revolution in the very principles and institutes of science--that
+philosophy which, in the words of Macaulay, "began in observations, and
+ended in arts." A few words will suffice to close his personal history.
+While riding in his coach, he was struck with the idea that snow would
+arrest animal putrefaction. He alighted, bought a fowl, and stuffed it
+with snow, with his own hands. He caught cold, stopped at the Earl of
+Arundel's mansion, and slept in damp sheets; fever intervened, and on
+Easter Day, 1626, he died, leaving his great work unfinished, but in such
+condition that the plan has been sketched for the use of the philosophers
+who came after him.
+
+He is said to have made the first sketch of the _Instauratio_ when he was
+twenty-six years old, but it was much modified in later years. He fondly
+called it also _Temporis Partus Maximus_, the greatest birth of Time.
+After that he wrote his _Advancement of Learning in 1605_, which was to
+appear in his developed scheme, under the title _De Augmentis
+Scientiarum_, written in 1623. His work advanced with and was modified by
+his investigations.
+
+In 1620 he wrote the _Novum Organum_, which, when it first appeared,
+called forth from James I. the profane _bon mot_ that it was like the
+peace of God, "because it passeth all understanding." Thus he was
+preparing the component parts, and fitting them into his system, which has
+at length become quite intelligible. A clear notion of what he proposed to
+himself and what he accomplished, may be found in the subjoined meagre
+sketch, only designed to indicate the outline of that system, which it
+will require long and patient study to master thoroughly.
+
+
+THE GREAT RESTORATION, (MAGNA INSTAURATIO.)--He divided it into six parts,
+bearing a logical relation to each other, and arranged in the proper order
+of study.
+
+I. Survey and extension of the sciences, (_De Augmentis Scientiarum_.)
+"Gives the substance or general description of the knowledge which mankind
+_at present possesses_." That is, let it be observed, not according to the
+received system and divisions, but according to his own. It is a new
+presentation of the existent state of knowledge, comprehending "not only
+the things already invented and known, but also those omitted and wanted,"
+for he says the intellectual globe, as well as the terrestrial, has its
+broils and deceits.
+
+In the branch "_De Partitione Scientiarum_," he divides all human learning
+into _History_, which uses the memory; _Poetry_, which employs the
+imagination; and _Philosophy_, which requires the reason: divisions too
+vague and too few, and so overlapping each other as to be of little
+present use. Later classifications into numerous divisions have been
+necessary to the progress of scientific research.
+
+II. Precepts for the interpretation of nature, (_Novum Organum_.) This
+sets forth "the doctrine of a more perfect use of the reason, and the true
+helps of the intellectual faculties, so as to raise and enlarge the powers
+of the mind." "A kind of logic, by us called," he says, "the art of
+interpreting nature: differing from the common logic ... in three things,
+the end, the order of demonstrating, and the grounds of inquiry."
+
+Here he discusses induction; opposes the syllogism; shows the value and
+the faults of the senses--as they fail us, or deceive us--and presents in
+his _idola_ the various modes and forms of deception. These _idola_, which
+he calls the deepest fallacies of the human mind, are divided into four
+classes: Idola Tribus, Idola Specus, Idola Fori, Idola Theatri. The first
+are the errors belonging to the whole human race, or _tribe_; the
+second--_of the den_--are the peculiarities of individuals; the third--_of
+the market-place_--are social and conventional errors; and the
+fourth--_those of the theatre_--include Partisanship, Fashion, and
+Authority.
+
+III. Phenomena of the Universe, or Natural and Experimental History, on
+which to found Philosophy, (_Sylva Sylvarum_.) "Our natural history is
+not designed," he says, "so much to please by vanity, or benefit by
+gainful experiments, as to afford light to the discovery of causes, and
+hold out the breasts of philosophy." This includes his patient search for
+facts--nature _free_, as in the history of plants, minerals, animals,
+etc.--nature _put to the torture_, as in the productions of art and human
+industry.
+
+IV. Ladder of the Understanding, (_Scala Intellectûs_.) "Not illustrations
+of rules and precepts, but perfect models, which will exemplify the second
+part of this work, and represent to the eye the whole progress of the
+mind, and the continued structure and order of invention, in the most
+chosen subjects, after the same manner as globes and machines facilitate
+the more abstruse and subtle demonstrations in mathematics."
+
+V. Precursors or anticipations of the second philosophy, (_Prodromi sive
+anticipationes philosophiæ secundæ_.) "These will consist of such things
+as we have invented, experienced, or added by the same common use of the
+understanding that others employ"--a sort of scaffolding, only of use till
+the rest are finished--a set of suggestive helps to the attainment of this
+second philosophy, which is the goal and completion of his system.
+
+VI. Second Philosophy, or Active Science, (_Philosophia Secunda_.) "To
+this all the rest are subservient--_to lay down that philosophy_ which
+shall flow from the just, pure, and strict inquiry hitherto proposed." "To
+perfect this is beyond both our abilities and our hopes; yet we shall lay
+the foundations of it, and recommend the superstructure to posterity."
+
+An examination of this scheme will show a logical procession from the
+existing knowledge, and from existing defects, by right rules of reason,
+and the avoidance of deceptions, with a just scale of perfected models, to
+the _second philosophy_, or science in useful practical action, diffusing
+light and comfort throughout the world.
+
+In a philosophic instead of a literary work, these heads would require
+great expansion in order adequately to illustrate the scheme in its six
+parts. This, however, would be entirely out of our province, which is to
+present a brief outline of the works of a man who occupies a prominent
+place in the intellectual realm of England, as a profound philosopher, and
+as a writer of English prose; only as one might introduce a great man in a
+crowd: those who wish to know the extent and character of his greatness
+must study his works.
+
+They were most of them written in Latin, but they have been ably
+translated and annotated, and are within the ready reach and comprehension
+of students. The best edition in English, is that by Spedding, Ellis, and
+Heath, which has been republished in America.
+
+
+BACON'S DEFECTS.--Further than this tabular outline, neither our space nor
+the scope of our work will warrant us in going; but it is important to
+consider briefly the elements of Bacon's remarkable fame. His system and
+his knowledge are superseded entirely. Those who have studied physics and
+chemistry at the present day, know a thousand-fold more than Bacon could;
+for such knowledge did not exist in his day. But he was one of those--and
+the chief one--who, in that age of what is called the childhood of
+experimental philosophy, helped to clear away the mists of error, and
+prepare for the present sunshine of truth. "I have been laboring," says
+some writer, (quoted by Bishop Whately, Pref. to Essay XIV.,) "to render
+myself useless." Such was Bacon's task, and such the task of the greatest
+inventors, discoverers, and benefactors of the human race.
+
+Nor did Bacon rank high even as a natural philosopher or physicist in his
+own age: he seems to have refused credence to the discoveries of
+Copernicus and Galileo, which had stirred the scientific world into great
+activity before his day; and his investigations in botany and vegetable
+physiology are crude and full of errors.
+
+His mind, eminently philosophic, searched for facts only to establish
+principles and discover laws; and he was often impatient or obstinate in
+this search, feeling that it trammelled him in his haste to reach
+conclusions.
+
+In the consideration of the reason, he unduly despised the _Organon_ of
+Aristotle, which, after much indignity and misapprehension, still remains
+to elucidate the universal principle of reasoning, and published his new
+organon--_Novum Organum_--as a sort of substitute for it: Induction
+unjustly opposed to the Syllogism. In what, then, consists that wonderful
+excellence, that master-power which has made his name illustrious?
+
+
+HIS FAME.--I. He labored earnestly to introduce, in the place of fanciful
+and conjectural systems--careful, patient investigation: the principle of
+the procurement of well-known facts, in order that, by severe induction,
+philosophy might attain to general laws, and to a classification of the
+sciences. The fault of the ages before him had been hasty, careless, often
+neglected observation, inaccurate analysis, the want of patient successive
+experiment. His great motto was experiment, and again and again
+experiment; and the excellent maxims which he laid down for the proper
+conduct of experimental philosophy have outlived his own facts and system
+and peculiar beliefs. Thus he has fitly been compared to Moses. He led
+men, marshalled in strong array, to the vantage ground from which he
+showed them the land of promise, and the way to enter it; while he
+himself, after all his labors, was not permitted to enjoy it. Such men
+deserve the highest fame; and thus the most practical philosophers of
+to-day revere the memory of him who showed them from the mountain-top,
+albeit in dim vision, the land which they now occupy.
+
+II. Again, Bacon is the most notable example among natural philosophers of
+a man who worked for science and truth alone, with a singleness of purpose
+and entire unconcern as to immediate and selfish rewards. Bacon the
+philosopher was in the strongest contrast to Bacon the politician. He
+left, he said, his labors to posterity; his name and memory to foreign
+nations, and "to (his) own country, after some time is past over." His own
+time could neither appreciate nor reward them. Here is an element of
+greatness worthy of all imitation: he who works for popular applause, may
+have his reward, but it is fleeting and unsatisfying; he who works for
+truth alone, has a grand inner consequence while he works, and his name
+will be honored, if for nothing else, for this loyalty to truth. After
+what has been said of his servility and dishonesty, it is pleasing to
+contemplate this unsullied side of his escutcheon, and to give a better
+significance to the motto on his monument--_Sic sedebat_.
+
+
+HIS ESSAYS.--Bacon's _Essays_, or _Counsels Civil and Moral_, are as
+intelligible to the common mind as his philosophy is dry and difficult.
+They are short, pithy, sententious, telling us plain truths in simple
+language: he had been writing them through several years. He dedicated
+them, under the title of _Essays_, to Henry, Prince of Wales, the eldest
+son of King James I., a prince of rare gifts, and worthy such a
+dedication, who unfortunately died in 1612. They show him to be the
+greatest master of English prose in his day, and to have had a deep
+insight into human nature.
+
+Bacon is said to have been the first person who applied the word _essay_
+in English to such writings: it meant, as the French word shows, a little
+trial-sketch, a suggestion, a few loose thoughts--a brief of something to
+be filled in by the reader. Now it means something far more--a long
+composition, dissertation, disquisition. The subjects of the essays, which
+number sixty-eight, are such as are of universal interest--fame, studies,
+atheism, beauty, ambition, death, empire, sedition, honor, adversity, and
+suchlike.
+
+The Essays have been ably edited and annotated by Archbishop Whately, and
+his work has been republished in America.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE ENGLISH BIBLE.
+
+
+   Early Versions. The Septuagint. The Vulgate. Wiclif; Tyndale.
+   Coverdale; Cranmer. Geneva; Bishop's Bible. King James's Bible.
+   Language of the Bible. Revision.
+
+
+
+EARLY VERSIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES.
+
+
+When we consider the very extended circulation of the English Bible in the
+version made by direction of James I., we are warranted in saying that no
+work in the language, viewed simply as a literary production, has had a
+more powerful historic influence over the world of English-speaking
+people.
+
+Properly to understand its value as a version of the inspired writings, it
+is necessary to go back to the original history, and discover through what
+precedent forms they have come into English.
+
+All the canonical books of the Old Testament were written in Hebrew. The
+apocryphal books were produced either in a corrupted dialect, or in Greek.
+
+
+THE SEPTUAGINT.--Limiting our inquiry to the canonical books, and
+rejecting all fanciful traditions, it is known that about 286 or 285 B.C.,
+Ptolemy Philadelphus, King of Egypt, probably at the instance of his
+librarian, Demetrius Phalereus, caused seventy-two Jews, equally learned
+in Hebrew and in Greek, to be brought to Alexandria, to prepare a Greek
+version of the Hebrew Scriptures. This was for the use of the Alexandrian
+Jews. The version was called the Septuagint, or translation of the
+seventy. The various portions of the translation are of unequal merit,
+the rendering of the Pentateuch being the best; but the completed work was
+of great value, not only to the Jews dispersed in the countries where
+Greek had been adopted as the national language, but it opened the way for
+the coming of Christianity: the study of its prophecies prepared the minds
+of men for the great Advent, and the version was used by the earlier
+Christians as the historic ground of their faith.
+
+The books of the New Testament were written in Greek, with the probable
+exception of St. Matthew's Gospel, which, if written in Hebrew, or
+Aramæan, was immediately translated into Greek.
+
+Contemporary with the origin of Christianity, and the vast extension of
+the Roman Empire, the Latin had become the all-absorbing tongue; and, as
+might be expected, numerous versions of the whole and of parts of the
+Scriptures were made in that language, and one of these complete versions,
+which grew in favor, almost superseding all others, was called the _Vetus
+Itala_.
+
+
+THE VULGATE.--St. Jerome, a doctor of the Latin Church in the latter part
+of the fourth century, undertook, with the sanction of Damasus, the Bishop
+of Rome, a new Latin version upon the basis of the _Vetus Itala_, bringing
+it nearer to the Septuagint in the Old Testament, and to the original
+Greek of the New.
+
+This version of Jerome, corrected from time to time, was approved by
+Gregory I., (the Great,) and, since the seventh century, has been used by
+the Western Church, under the name of the _Vulgate_, (from _vulgatus_--for
+general or common use.) The Council of Trent, in the sixteenth century,
+declared it alone to be authentic.
+
+Throughout Western Europe this was used, and made the basis of further
+translations into the national languages. It was from the Vulgate that
+Aldhelm made his Anglo-Saxon version of the Psalter in 706; Bede, his
+entire Saxon Bible in the same period; Alfred, his portion of the Psalms;
+and other writers, fragmentary translations.
+
+As soon as the newly formed English language was strong enough, partial
+versions were attempted in it: one by an unknown hand, as early as 1290;
+and one by John de Trevisa, about one hundred years later.
+
+
+WICLIF: TYNDALE.--Wiclif's Bible was translated from the Latin Vulgate,
+and issued about 1378. If it be asked why he did not go to the original
+sources, and thus avoid the errors of successive renderings, the answer is
+plain: he was not sufficiently acquainted with Hebrew and Greek to
+translate from them. Wiclif's translation was eagerly sought, and was
+multiplied by the hands of skilful scribes. Its popularity was very great,
+as is attested by the fact that when, in the House of Lords, in the year
+1390, a bill was offered to suppress it, the measure signally failed. The
+first copy of Wiclif's Bible was not printed until the year 1731.
+
+About a century after Wiclif, the Greek language and the study of Greek
+literature came into England, and were of great effect in making the
+forthcoming translations more accurate.
+
+First among these new translators was William Tyndale, who was born about
+the year 1477. He was educated at Oxford and Cambridge, and left England
+for fear of persecution. He translated the Scriptures from the Greek, and
+printed the volume at Antwerp--the first printed translation of the
+Scriptures in English--in the year 1526. This work was largely circulated
+in England. It was very good for a first translation, and the language is
+very nearly that of King James's Bible. It met the fury of the Church, all
+the copies which could be found being burned by Tonstall, Bishop of
+London, at St. Paul's Cross. When Sir Thomas More asked how Tyndale
+subsisted abroad, he was pithily answered that Tyndale was supported by
+the Bishop of London, who sent over money to buy up his books. To the
+fame of being a translator of the Scriptures, Tyndale adds that of
+martyrdom. He was seized, at the instance of Henry VIII., in Antwerp, and
+condemned to death by the Emperor of Germany. He was strangled in the year
+1536, at Villefort, near Brussels, praying, just before his death, that
+the Lord would open the King of England's eyes.
+
+The Old Testament portion of Tyndale's Bible is principally from the
+Septuagint, and has many corruptions and errors, which have been corrected
+by more modern translators.
+
+
+MILES COVERDALE: CRANMER'S BIBLE.--In 1535, Miles Coverdale, a co-laborer
+of Tyndale, published "Biblia; The Bible, that is, the Holy Scriptures of
+the Olde and New Testament, faithfully and truly translated out of the
+Douche and Latyn into Englishe: Zurich." In the next year, 1536, Coverdale
+issued another edition, which was dedicated to Henry VIII., who ordered a
+copy to be placed in every parish church in England. This translation is
+in part that of Tyndale, and is based upon it. Another edition of this
+appeared in 1537, and was called Matthew's Bible, probably a pseudonym of
+Coverdale. Of this, from the beginning to the end of Chronicles is
+Tyndale's version. The rest of the Old Testament is Coverdale's
+translation. The entire New Testament is Tyndale's. This was published by
+royal license. Strange mutation! The same king who had caused Tyndale to
+be strangled for publishing the English Scriptures at Antwerp, was now
+spreading Tyndale's work throughout the parishes of England. Coverdale
+published many editions, among which the most noted was Cranmer's Bible,
+issued in 1539, so called because Cranmer wrote a preface to it. Coverdale
+led an eventful life, being sometimes in exile and prisoner, and at others
+in high favor. He was Bishop of Exeter, from which see he was ejected by
+Mary, in 1553. He died in 1568, at the age of eighty-one.
+
+
+THE GENEVAN: BISHOPS' BIBLE.--In the year 1557 he had aided those who were
+driven away by Mary, in publishing a version of the Bible at Geneva. It
+was much read in England, and is known as the Genevan Bible. The Great
+Bible was an edition of Coverdale issued in 1562. The Bishops' Bible was
+so called because, at the instance of Archbishop Parker, it was translated
+by a royal commission, of whom eight were bishops. And in 1571, a canon
+was passed at Canterbury, requiring a large copy of this work to be in
+every parish church, and in the possession of every bishop and dignitary
+among the clergy. Thus far every new edition and issue had been an
+improvement on what had gone before, and all tended to the production of a
+still more perfect and permanent translation. It should be mentioned that
+Luther, in Germany, after ten years of labor, from 1522 to 1532, had
+produced, unaided, his wonderful German version. This had helped the cause
+of translations everywhere.
+
+
+KING JAMES'S BIBLE.--At length, in 1603, just after the accession of James
+I., a conference was held at Hampton Court, which, among other tasks,
+undertook to consider what objections could be made to the Bishops' Bible.
+The result was that the king ordered a new version which should supersede
+all others. The number of eminent and learned divines appointed to make
+the translation was fifty-four; seven of these were prevented by
+disability of one kind or another. The remaining forty-seven were divided
+into six classes, and the labor was thus apportioned: ten, who sat at
+Westminster, translated from Genesis through Kings; eight, at Cambridge,
+undertook the other historical books and the Hagiographa, including the
+Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Ruth, Esther, and a few
+other books; seven at Oxford, the four greater Prophets, the Lamentations
+of Jeremiah, and the twelve minor Prophets; eight, also at Oxford, the
+four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Revelation of St. John;
+seven more at Westminster, the Epistles of St. Paul, and the remaining
+canonical books; and five more at Cambridge, the Apocryphal books. The
+following was the mode of translation: Each individual in one of the
+classes translated himself every book confided to that class; each class
+then met and compared these translations, and thus completed their task.
+The work thus done was sent by each class to all the other classes; after
+this, all the classes met together, and while one read the others
+criticized. The translation was commenced in the year 1607, and was
+finished in three years. The first public issue was in 1611, when the book
+was dedicated to King James, and has since been known as King James's
+Bible. It was adopted not only in the English Church, but by all the
+English people, so that the other versions have fallen into entire disuse,
+with the exception of the Psalms, which, according to the translation of
+Cranmer's Bible, were placed in the Book of Common Prayer, where they have
+since remained, constituting the Psalter. It should be observed that the
+Psalter, which is taken principally from the Vulgate, is not so near the
+original as the Psalms in King James's version: the language is, however,
+more musical and better suited to chanting in the church service.
+
+
+THE LANGUAGE OF THE BIBLE.--There have been numerous criticisms, favorable
+and adverse, to the language of King James's Bible. It is said to have
+been written in older English than that of its day, and Selden remarks
+that "it is rather translated into English words than into English
+phrase." The Hebraisms are kept, and the phraseology of that language is
+retained. This leads to the opinion of Bishop Horsley, that the adherence
+to the Hebrew idiom is supposed to have at once enriched and adorned our
+language. Bishop Middleton says "the style is simple, it is harmonious, it
+is energetic, and, which is of no small importance, use has made it
+familiar, and time has rendered it sacred." That it has lasted two
+hundred and fifty years without a rival, is the strongest testimony in
+favor of its accuracy and the beauty of its diction. Philologically
+considered, it has been of inestimable value as a strong rallying-point
+for the language, keeping it from wild progress in any and every
+direction. Many of our best words, which would otherwise have been lost,
+have been kept in current use because they are in the Bible. The peculiar
+language of the Bible expresses our most serious sentiments and our
+deepest emotions. It is associated with our holiest thoughts, and gives
+phraseology to our prayers. It is the language of heavenly things, but not
+only so: it is interwreathed in our daily discourse, kept fresh by our
+constant Christian services, and thus we are bound by ties of the same
+speech to the devout men of King James's day.
+
+
+REVISION.--There are some inaccuracies and flaws in the translation which
+have been discerned by the superior excellence of modern learning. In the
+question now mooted of a revision of the English Bible, the correction of
+these should be the chief object. A version in the language of the present
+day, in the course of time would be as archaic as the existing version is
+now; and the private attempts which have been made, have shown us the
+great danger of conflicting sectarian views.
+
+In any event, it is to be hoped that those who authorize a new translation
+will emulate the good sense and judgment of King James, by placing it in
+the hands of the highest learning, most liberal scholarship, and most
+devoted piety.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+JOHN MILTON, AND THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH.
+
+
+   Historical Facts. Charles I. Religious Extremes. Cromwell. Birth and
+   Early Works. Views of Marriage. Other Prose Works. Effects of the
+   Restoration. Estimate of his Prose.
+
+
+
+HISTORICAL FACTS.
+
+
+It is Charles Lamb who says "Milton almost requires a solemn service to be
+played before you enter upon him." Of Milton, the poet of _Paradise Lost_,
+this is true; but for Milton the statesman the politician, and polemic,
+this is neither necessary nor appropriate. John Milton and the
+Commonwealth! Until the present age, Milton has been regarded almost
+solely as a poet, and as the greatest imaginative poet England has
+produced; but the translation and publication of his prose works have
+identified him with the political history of England, and the discovery in
+1823, of his _Treatise on Christian Doctrine_, has established him as one
+of the greatest religious polemics in an age when every theological sect
+was closely allied to a political party, and thus rendered the strife of
+contending factions more bitter and relentless. Thus it is that the name
+of John Milton, as an author, is fitly coupled with the commonwealth, as a
+political condition.
+
+It remains for us to show that in all his works he was the strongest
+literary type of history in the age in which he lived. Great as he would
+have been in any age, his greatness is mainly English and historical. In
+his literary works may be traced every cardinal event in the history of
+that period: he aided in the establishment of the Commonwealth, and of
+that Commonwealth he was one of the principal characters. His pen was as
+sharp and effective as the sabres of Cromwell's Ironsides.
+
+A few words of preliminary history must introduce him to our reader. Upon
+the death of Queen Elizabeth, in 1603, James I. ascended the throne with
+the highest notions of kingly prerogative and of a church establishment;
+but the progress of the English people in education and intelligence, the
+advance in arts and letters which had been made, were vastly injurious to
+the autocratic and aristocratic system which James had received from his
+predecessor. His foolish arrogance and contempt for popular rights
+incensed the people thus enlightened as to their own position and
+importance. They soon began to feel that he was not only unjust, but
+ungrateful: he had come from a rustic throne in Scotland, where he had
+received £5,000 per annum, with occasional presents of fruits, grain, and
+poultry, to the greatest throne in Europe; and, besides, the Stuart
+family, according to Thackeray, "as regards mere lineage, were no better
+than a dozen English and Scottish houses that could be named."
+
+They resisted his illegal taxes and forced loans; they clamored against
+the unconstitutional Court of High Commission; they despised his arrogant
+favorites; and what they might have patiently borne from a gallant,
+energetic, and handsome monarch, they found it hard to bear from a
+pedantic, timid, uncouth, and rickety man, who gave them neither glory nor
+comfort. His eldest son, Prince Henry, the universal favorite of the
+nation, had died in 1612, before he was eighteen.
+
+
+CHARLES I.--When, after a series of struggles with the parliament, which
+he had reluctantly convened, James died in 1625, Charles I. came to an
+inheritance of error and misfortune. Imbued with the principles of his
+father, he, too, insisted upon "governing the people of England in the
+seventeenth century as they had been governed in the sixteenth," while in
+reality they had made a century of progress. The cloud increased in
+blackness and portent; he dissolved the parliament, and ruled without one;
+he imposed and collected illegal and doubtful taxes; he made forced loans,
+as his father had done; he was artful, capricious, winding and doubling in
+his policy; he made promises without intending to perform them; and found
+himself, finally, at direct issue with his parliament and his people.
+First at war with the political principles of the court, the nation soon
+found itself in antagonism with the religion and morals of the court.
+Before the final rupture, the two parties were well defined, as Cavaliers
+and Roundheads: each party went to extremes, through the spite and fury of
+mutual opposition. The Cavaliers affected a recklessness and dissoluteness
+greater than they really felt to be right, in order to differ most widely
+from those purists who, urged by analogous motives, decried all amusements
+as evil. Each party repelled the other to the extreme of opposition.
+
+
+RELIGIOUS EXTREMES.--Loyalty was opposed by radicalism, and the invectives
+of both were bitter in the extreme. The system and ceremonial of a
+gorgeous worship restored by Laud, and accused by its opposers of
+formalism and idolatry, were attacked by a spirit of excess, which, to
+religionize daily life, took the words of Scripture, and especially those
+of the Old Testament, as the language of common intercourse, which issued
+them from a gloomy countenance, with a nasal twang, and often with a false
+interpretation.
+
+As opposed to the genuflections of Laud and the pomp of his ritual, the
+land swarmed with unauthorized preachers; then came out from among the
+Presbyterians the Independents; the fifth-monarchy men, shouting for King
+Jesus; the Seekers, the Antinomians, who, like Trusty Tomkins, were elect
+by the fore-knowledge of God, who were not under the law but under grace,
+and who might therefore gratify every lust, and give the rein to every
+passion, because they were sealed to a certain salvation. Even in the army
+sprang up the Levellers, who wished to abolish monarchy and aristocracy,
+and to level all ranks to one. To each religious party, there was a
+political character, ranging from High Church and the divine right of
+kings, to absolute levellers in Church and State. This disintegrating
+process threatened not only civil war, with well-defined parties, but
+entire anarchy in the realm of England. It was long resisted by the
+conservative men of all opinions. At length the issue came: the king was a
+prisoner, without a shadow of power.
+
+The parliament was still firm, and would have treated with the king by a
+considerable majority; but Colonel Pride surrounded it with two regiments,
+excluded more than two hundred of the Presbyterians and moderate men; and
+the parliament, thus _purged_, appointed the High Court of Justice to try
+the king for treason.
+
+Charles I. fell before the storm. His was a losing cause from the day he
+erected his standard at Nottingham, in 1642, to that on which, after his
+noble bearing on the scaffold, the masked executioner held up his head and
+cried out, "This is the head of a traitor."
+
+With a fearful consistency the Commons voted soon after to abolish
+monarchy and the upper house, and on their new seal inscribed, "On the
+first year of freedom by God's blessing restored, 1648." The dispassionate
+historian of the present day must condemn both parties; and yet, out of
+this fierce travail of the nation, English constitutional liberty was
+born.
+
+
+CROMWELL.--The power which the parliament, under the dictation of the
+army, had so furiously wielded, passed into the hands of Cromwell, a
+mighty man, warrior, statesman, and fanatic, who mastered the crew, seized
+the helm, and guided the ship of State as she drove furiously before the
+wind. He became lord protector, a king in everything but the name. We
+need not enter into an analysis of these parties: the history is better
+known than any other part of the English annals, and almost every reader
+becomes a partisan. Cromwell, the greatest man of his age, was still a
+creature of the age, and was led by the violence of circumstances to do
+many things questionable and even wicked, but with little premeditation:
+like Rienzi and Napoleon, his sudden elevation fostered an ambition which
+robbed him of the stern purpose and pure motives of his earlier career.
+
+The establishment of the commonwealth seemed at first to assure the
+people's liberty; but it was only in seeming, and as the sequel shows,
+they liked the rule of the lord protector less than that of the
+unfortunate king; for, ten years after the beheading of Charles I., they
+restored the monarchy in the person of his son, Charles.
+
+Such, very briefly and in mere outline, was the political situation. And
+now to return to Milton: It is claimed that of all the elements of these
+troublous times, he was the literary type, and this may be demonstrated--
+
+   I. By observing his personal characteristics and political
+   appointments;
+
+   II. By the study of his prose works; and
+
+   III. By analyzing his poems.
+
+
+BIRTH AND EARLY WORKS.--John Milton was born on the 9th of December, 1608,
+in London. His grandfather, John Mylton, was a Papist, who disinherited
+his son, the poet's father, for becoming a Church-of-England man. His
+mother was a gentlewoman. Milton was born just in time to grow up with the
+civil troubles. When the outburst came in 1642, he was thirty-four years
+old, a solemn, cold, studious, thoughtful, and dogmatic Puritan. In 1624
+he entered Christ College, Cambridge, where, from his delicate and
+beautiful face and shy airs, he was called the "Lady of the College." It
+is said that he left the university on account of peculiar views in
+theology and politics; but eight years after, in 1632, he took his degree
+as master of arts. Meanwhile, in December, 1629, he had celebrated his
+twenty-first birthday, when the Star of Bethlehem was coming into the
+ascendant, with that pealing, organ-like hymn, "On the Eve of Christ's
+Nativity"--the worthiest poetic tribute ever laid by man, along with the
+gold, frankincense, and myrrh of the Eastern sages, at the feet of the
+Infant God:
+
+    See how from far upon the Eastern road,
+      The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet;
+    O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
+      And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;
+      Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,
+    And join thy voice unto the angel choir,
+    From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.
+
+Some years of travel on the Continent matured his mind, and gave full
+scope to his poetic genius. At Paris he became acquainted with Grotius,
+the illustrious writer upon public law; and in Rome, Genoa, Florence, and
+other Italian cities, he became intimate with the leading minds of the
+age. He returned to England on account of the political troubles.
+
+
+MILTON'S VIEWS OF MARRIAGE.--In the consideration of Milton's personality,
+we do not find in him much to arouse our heart-sympathy. His opinions
+concerning marriage and divorce, as set forth in several of his prose
+writings, would, if generally adopted, destroy the sacred character of
+divinely appointed wedlock. His views may be found in his essay on _The
+Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce;_ in his _Tetrachordon, or the four
+chief places in Scripture, which treat of Marriage, or Nullities in
+Marriage_; in his _Colasterion_, and in his translation of Martin Bucer's
+_Judgment Concerning Divorce_, addressed to the Parliament of England.
+Where women were concerned he was a hard man and a stern master.
+
+In 1643 he married Mary Powell, the daughter of a Cavalier; and, taking
+her from the gay life of her father's house, he brought her into a gloom
+and seclusion almost insupportable. He loved his books better than he did
+his wife. He fed and sheltered her, indeed, but he gave her no tender
+sympathy. Then was enacted in his household the drama of the rebellion in
+miniature; and no doubt his domestic troubles had led to his extended
+discussion of the question of divorce. He speaks, too, almost entirely in
+the interest of husbands. With him woman is not complementary to man, but
+his inferior, to be cherished if obedient, to minister to her husband's
+welfare, but to have her resolute spirit broken after the manner of
+Petruchio, the shrew-tamer. In all this, however, Milton was eminently a
+type of the times. It was the canon law of the established Church of
+England at which he aimed, and he endeavored to lead the parliament to
+legislation upon the most sacred ties and relations of human life.
+Happily, English morals were too strong, even in that turbulent period, to
+yield to this unholy attempt. It was a day when authority was questioned,
+a day for "extending the area of freedom," but he went too far even for
+emancipated England; and the mysterious power of the marriage tie has
+always been reverenced as one of the main bulwarks of that righteousness
+which exalteth a nation.
+
+His apology for Smectymnuus is one of his pamphlets against Episcopacy,
+and receives its title from the initial letters of the names of five
+Puritan ministers, who also engaged in controversy: they were Stephen
+Marshall, Edward Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcome, William Spenston.
+The Church of England never had a more intelligent and relentless enemy
+than John Milton.
+
+
+OTHER PROSE WORKS.--Milton's prose works are almost all of them of an
+historical character. Appointed Latin Secretary to the Council, he wrote
+foreign dispatches and treatises upon the persons and events of the day.
+In 1644 he published his _Areopagitica_, a noble paper in favor of
+_Unlicensed Printing_, and boldly directed against the Presbyterian party,
+then in power, which had continued and even increased the restraints upon
+the press. No stouter appeal for the freedom of the press was ever heard,
+even in America. But in the main, his prose pen was employed against the
+crown and the Church, while they still existed; against the king's memory,
+after the unfortunate monarch had fallen, and in favor of the parliament
+and all its acts. Milton was no trimmer; he gave forth no uncertain sound;
+he was partisan to the extreme, and left himself no loop-hole of retreat
+in the change that was to come.
+
+A famous book appeared in 1649, not long after Charles's execution,
+proclaimed to have been written by King Charles while in prison, and
+entitled _Eikon Basilike_, or _The Kingly Image_, being the portraiture of
+his majesty in his solitude and suffering. It was supposed that it might
+influence the people in favor of royalty, and so Milton was employed to
+answer it in a bitter invective, an unnecessary and heartless attack upon
+the dead king, entitled _Eikonoklastes_, or _The Image-breaker_. The Eikon
+was probably in part written by the king, and in part by Bishop Gauden,
+who indeed claimed its authorship after the Restoration.
+
+Salmasius having defended Charles in a work of dignified and moderate
+tone, Milton answered in his first _Defensio pro Populo Anglicano_; in
+which he traverses the whole ground of popular rights and kingly
+prerogative, in a masterly and eloquent manner. This was followed by a
+second _Defensio_. For the two he received £1,000, and by his own account
+accelerated the disease of the eyes which ended in complete blindness.
+
+No pen in England worked more powerfully than his in behalf of the
+parliament and the protectorate, or to stay the flood tide of loyalty,
+which bore upon its sweeping heart the restoration of the second Charles.
+He wrote the last foreign despatches of Richard Cromwell, the weak
+successor of the powerful Oliver; but nothing could now avail to check the
+return of monarchy. The people were tired of turmoil and sick of blood;
+they wanted rest, at any cost. The powerful hand of Cromwell was removed,
+and astute Monk used his army to secure his reward. The army, concurring
+with the popular sentiment, restored the Stuarts. The conduct of the
+English people in bringing Charles back stamped Cromwell as a usurper, and
+they have steadily ignored in their list of governors--called
+monarchs--the man through whose efforts much of their liberty had been
+achieved; but history asserts itself, and the benefits of the "Great
+Rebellion" are gratefully acknowledged by the people, whether the
+protectorate appears in the court list or not.
+
+
+THE EFFECT OF THE RESTORATION.--Charles II. came back to such an
+overwhelming reception, that he said, in his witty way, it must have been
+his own fault to stay away so long from a people who were so glad to see
+him when he did come. This restoration forced Milton into concealment: his
+public day was over, and yet his remaining history is particularly
+interesting. Inheriting weak eyes from his mother, he had overtasked their
+powers, especially in writing the _Defensiones_, and had become entirely
+blind. Although his person was included in the general amnesty, his
+polemical works were burned by the hangman; and the pen that had so
+powerfully battled for a party, now returned to the service of its first
+love, poetry. His loss of power and place was the world's gain. In his
+forced seclusion, he produced the greatest of English poems--religious,
+romantic, and heroic.
+
+
+ESTIMATE OF HIS PROSE.--Before considering his poems, we may briefly state
+some estimate of his prose works. They comprise much that is excellent,
+are full of learning, and contain passages of rarest rhetoric. He said
+himself, that in prose he had only "the use of his left hand;" but it was
+the left hand of a Milton. To the English scholar they are chiefly of
+historical value: many of them are written in Latin, and lose much of
+their terseness in a translation which retains classical peculiarities of
+form and phrase.
+
+His _History of England from the Earliest Times_ is not profound, nor
+philosophical; he followed standard chronicle authorities, but made few,
+if any, original investigations, and gives us little philosophy. His
+tractate on _Education_ contains peculiar views of a curriculum of study,
+but is charmingly written. He also wrote a treatise on _Logic_. Little
+known to the great world outside of his poems, there is one prose work,
+discovered only in 1823, which has been less read, but which contains the
+articles of his Christian belief. It is a tractate on Christian doctrine:
+no one now doubts its genuineness; and it proves him to have been a
+Unitarian, or High Arian, by his own confession. This was somewhat
+startling to the great orthodox world, who had taken many of their
+conceptions of supernatural things from Milton's _Paradise Lost_; and yet
+a careful study of that poem will disclose similar tendencies in the
+poet's mind. He was a Puritan whose theology was progressive until it
+issued in complete isolation: he left the Presbyterian ranks for the
+Independents, and then, startled by the rise and number of sects, he
+retired within himself and stood almost alone, too proud to be instructed,
+and dissatisfied with the doctrines and excesses of his earlier
+colleagues.
+
+In 1653 he lost his wife, Mary Powell, who left him three daughters. He
+supplied her place in 1656, by marrying Catherine Woodstock, to whom he
+was greatly attached, and who also died fifteen months after. Eight years
+afterward he married his third wife, Elizabeth Minshull, who survived him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE POETRY OF MILTON.
+
+
+   The Blind Poet. Paradise Lost. Milton and Dante. His Faults.
+   Characteristics of the Age. Paradise Regained. His Scholarship. His
+   Sonnets. His Death and Fame.
+
+
+
+THE BLIND POET.
+
+
+Milton's blindness, his loneliness, and his loss of power, threw him upon
+himself. His imagination, concentrated by these disasters and troubles,
+was to see higher things in a clear, celestial light: there was nothing to
+distract his attention, and he began that achievement which he had long
+before contemplated--a great religious epic, in which the heroes should be
+celestial beings and our sinless first parents, and the scenes Heaven,
+Hell, and the Paradise of a yet untainted Earth. His first idea was to
+write an epic on King Arthur and his knights: it is well for the world
+that he changed his intention, and took as a grander subject the loss of
+Paradise, full as it is of individual interest to mankind.
+
+In a consideration of his poetry, we must now first recur to those pieces
+which he had written at an earlier day. Before settling in London, he had,
+as we have seen, travelled fifteen months on the Continent, and had been
+particularly interested by his residence in Italy, where he visited the
+blind Galileo. The poems which most clearly show the still powerful
+influence of Italy in all European literature, and upon him especially,
+are the _Arcades, Comus, L'Allegro, Il Penseroso_, and _Lycidas_, each
+beautiful and finished, and although Italian in their taste, yet full of
+true philosophy couched in charming verse.
+
+The _Arcades_, (Arcadians,) composed in 1684, is a pastoral masque,
+enacted before the Countess Dowager of Derby at Harefield, by some noble
+persons of her family. The _Allegro_ is the song of Mirth, the nymph who
+brings with her
+
+    Jest and youthful jollity,
+    Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
+    Nods and becks and wreathèd smiles,
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
+    And Laughter holding both his sides.
+
+The poem is like the nymph whom he addresses,
+
+    Buxom, blithe, and debonaire.
+
+The _Penseroso_ is a tribute to tender melancholy, and is designed as a
+pendant to the _Allegro_:
+
+    Pensive nun devout and pure,
+    Sober, steadfast, and demure,
+    All in a robe of darkest grain,
+    Flowing with majestic train.
+
+We fall in love with each goddess in turn, and find comfort for our
+varying moods from "grave to gay."
+
+Burke said he was certain Milton composed the _Penseroso_ in the aisle of
+a cloister, or in an ivy-grown abbey.
+
+_Comus_ is a noble poem, philosophic and tender, but neither pastoral nor
+dramatic, except in form; it presents the power of chastity in disarming
+_Circe, Comus_, and all the libidinous sirens. _L'Allegro_ and _Il
+Penseroso_ were written at Horton, about 1633.
+
+_Lycidas_, written in 1637, is a tender monody on the loss of a friend
+named King, in the Irish Channel, in that year, and is a classical
+pastoral, tricked off in Italian garb. What it loses in adherence to
+classic models and Italian taste, is more than made up by exquisite lines
+and felicitous phrases. In it he calls fame "that last infirmity of noble
+mind." Perhaps he has nowhere written finer lines than these:
+
+    So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed.
+    And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
+    And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
+    _Flames in the forehead of the morning sky_.
+
+Besides these, Milton wrote Latin poems with great vigor, if not with
+remarkable grace; and several Italian sonnets and poems, which have been
+much admired even by Italian critics. The sonnet, if not of Italian
+origin, had been naturalized there when its birth was forgotten; and this
+practice in the Italian gave him that power to produce them in English
+which he afterward used with such effect.
+
+
+PARADISE LOST.--Having thus summarily disposed of his minor poems, each of
+which would have immortalized any other man, we come to that upon which
+his highest fame rests; which is familiarly known by men who have never
+read the others, and who are ignorant of his prose works; which is used as
+a parsing exercise in many schools, and which, as we have before hinted,
+has furnished Protestant pulpits with pictorial theology from that day to
+this. It occupied him several years in the composition; from 1658, when
+Cromwell died, through the years of retirement and obscurity until 1667.
+It came forth in an evil day, for the merry monarch was on the throne, and
+an irreligious court gave tone to public opinion.
+
+The hardiest critic must approach the _Paradise Lost_ with wonder and
+reverence. What an imagination, and what a compass of imagination! Now
+with the lost peers in Hell, his glowing fancy projects an empire almost
+as grand and glorious as that of God himself. Now with undazzled,
+presumptuous gaze he stands face to face with the Almighty, and records
+the words falling from His lips; words which he has dared to place in the
+mouth of the Most High--words at the utterance of which
+
+               ... ambrosial fragrance filled
+    All heaven, and in the blessed spirits elect
+    Sense of new joy ineffable diffused.
+
+Little wonder that in his further flight he does not shrink from colloquy
+with the Eternal Son--in his theology not the equal of His Father--or that
+he does not fear to describe the fearful battle between Christ with his
+angelic hosts against the kingdom of darkness:
+
+              ... At his right hand victory
+    Sat eagle-winged: beside him hung his bow
+    And quiver with three-bolted thunder stored.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+         ... Them unexpected joy surprised,
+    When the great ensign of Messiah blazed,
+    Aloft by angels borne his sign in heaven.
+
+How heart-rending his story of the fall, and of the bitter sorrow of our
+first parents, whose fatal act
+
+    Brought death into the world and all our woe,
+    With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
+    Restore us, and regain the blissful seat.
+
+How marvellous is the combat at Hell-gate, between Satan and Death; how
+terrible the power at which "Hell itself grew darker"! How we strive to
+shade our mind's eye as we enter again with him into the courts of Heaven.
+How refreshingly beautiful the perennial bloom of Eden:
+
+    Picta velut primo Vere coruscat humus.
+
+What a wonderful story of the teeming creation related to our first
+parents by the lips of Raphael:
+
+    When from the Earth appeared
+    The tawny lion, pawing to get free
+    His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds,
+    And rampant shakes his brinded mane.
+
+And withal, how compact the poem, how perfect the drama. It is Paradise,
+perfect in beauty and holiness; attacked with devilish art; in danger;
+betrayed; lost!
+
+    Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked and ate;
+    Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat,
+    Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe
+    That all was lost!
+
+Unit-like, complete, brilliant, sublime, awful, the poem dazzles
+criticism, and belittles the critic. It is the grandest poem ever written.
+It almost sets up a competition with Scripture. Milton's Adam and Eve walk
+before us instead of the Adam and Eve of Genesis. Milton's Satan usurps
+the place of that grotesque, malignant spirit of the Bible, which, instead
+of claiming our admiration, excites only our horror, as he goes about like
+a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He it is who can declare
+
+    The mind is its own place, and in itself
+    Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
+    What matter where, if I be still the same,
+    And what I should be?
+
+
+MILTON AND DANTE.--It has been usual for the literary critic to compare
+Milton and Dante; and it is certain that in the conception, at least, of
+his great themes, Milton took Dante for his guide. Without an odious
+comparison, and conceding the great value, principally historical, of the
+_Divina Commedia_, it must be said that the palm remains with the English
+poet. Take, for a single illustration, the fall of the arch-fiend. Dante's
+Lucifer falls with such force that he makes a conical hole in the earth to
+its centre, and forces out a hill on the other side--a physical
+prediction, as the antipodes had not yet been established. The cavity is
+the seat of Hell; and the mountain, that of Purgatory. So mathematical is
+his fancy, that in vignette illustrations we have right-lined drawings of
+these surfaces and their different circles. Science had indeed progressed
+in Milton's time, but his imagination scorns its aid; everything is with
+him grandly ideal, as well as rhetorically harmonious:
+
+                  ... Him the Almighty power,
+    Hurled headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky,
+    With hideous ruin and combustion down
+    To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
+    In adamantine chains and penal power,
+    Who durst defy th' Omnipotent in arms.
+
+And when a lesser spirit falls, what a sad Æolian melody describes the
+downward flight:
+
+                       ... How he fell
+    From Heaven they fabled thrown by angry Jove,
+    Sheer o'er the crystal battlements: from morn
+    To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve
+    A summer's day; and with the setting sun,
+    Dropt from the zenith like a falling star.
+
+The heavenly colloquies to which we have alluded between the Father and
+the Son, involve questions of theology, and present peculiar views--such
+as the subordination of the Son, and the relative unimportance of the
+third Person of the Blessed Trinity. They establish Milton's Arianism
+almost as completely as his Treatise on Christian Doctrine.
+
+
+HIS FAULTS.--Grand, far above all human efforts, his poems fail in these
+representations. God is a spirit; he is here presented as a body, and that
+by an uninspired pen. The poet has not been able to carry us up to those
+infinite heights, and so his attempt only ends in a humanitarian
+philosophy: he has been obliged to lower the whole heavenly hierarchy to
+bring it within the scope of our objective comprehension. He blinds our
+poor eyes by the dazzling effulgence of that light which is
+
+    ... of the Eternal co-eternal beam.
+
+And it must be asserted that in this attempt Milton has done injury to the
+cause of religion, however much he has vindicated the power of the human
+intellect and the compass of the human imagination. He has made sensuous
+that which was entirely spiritual, and has attempted with finite powers to
+realize the Infinite.
+
+The fault is not so great when he delineates created intelligences,
+ranging from the highest seraph to him who was only "less than archangel
+ruined." We gaze, unreproved by conscience, at the rapid rise of
+Pandemonium; we watch with eager interest the hellish crew as they "open
+into the hill a spacious wound, and dig out ribs of gold." We admire the
+fabric which springs
+
+       ... like an exhalation, with the sound
+    Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet.
+
+Nothing can be grander or more articulately realized than that arched
+roof, from which,
+
+    Pendent by subtle magic, many a row
+    Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed
+    With naphtha and asphaltus, yields the light
+    As from a sky.
+
+It is an illustrative criticism that while the painter's art has seized
+these scenes, not one has dared to attempt his heavenly descriptions with
+the pencil. Art is less bold or more reverent than poetry, and rebukes the
+poet.
+
+
+CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AGE.--And here it is particularly to our purpose to
+observe, that in this very boldness of entrance into the holy of
+holies--in this attempted grasp with finite hands of infinite things,
+Milton was but a sublimated type of his age, and of the Commonwealth, when
+man, struggling for political freedom, went, as in the later age of the
+French Illuminati, too far in the regions of spirit and of faith. As
+Dante, with a powerful satire, filled his poem with the personages of the
+day, assigning his enemies to the _girone_ of the Inferno, so Milton vents
+his gentler spleen by placing cowls and hood and habits in the limbo of
+vanity and paradise of fools:
+
+             ... all these upwhirled aloft
+    Fly o'er the backside of the world far off,
+    Into a limbo large and broad, since called
+    The paradise of fools.
+
+It was a setting forth of that spirit which, when the Cavaliers were many
+of them formalists, and the Puritans many of them fanatics, led to the
+rise of many sects, and caused rude soldiers to bellow their own riotous
+fancies from the pulpit. In the suddenness of change, when the earthly
+throne had been destroyed, men misconceived what was due to the heavenly;
+the fancy which had been before curbed by an awe for authority, and was
+too ignorant to move without it, now revelled unrebuked among the
+mysteries which are not revealed to angelic vision, and thus "fools rushed
+in where angels fear to tread."
+
+The book could not fail to bring him immense fame, but personally he
+received very little for it in money--less than £20.
+
+
+PARADISE REGAINED.--It was Thomas Ellwood, Milton's Quaker friend, who,
+after reading the _Paradise Lost_, suggested the _Paradise Regained_. This
+poem will bear no comparison with its great companion. It may, without
+irreverence, be called "The gospel according to John Milton." Beauties it
+does contain; but the very foundation of it is false. Milton makes man
+regain Paradise by the success of Christ in withstanding the Devil's
+temptations in the wilderness; a new presentation of his Arian theology,
+which is quite transcendental; whereas, in our opinion, the gate of
+Paradise was opened only "by His precious death and burial; His glorious
+resurrection and ascension; and by the coming of the Holy Ghost." But if
+it is immeasurably inferior in its conception and treatment, it is quite
+equal to the _Paradise Lost_ in its execution.
+
+A few words as to Milton's vocabulary and style must close our notice of
+this greatest of English poets. With regard to the first, the Latin
+element, which is so manifest in his prose works, largely predominates in
+his poems, but accords better with the poetic license. In a list of
+authors which Mr. Marsh has prepared, down to Milton's time, which
+includes an analysis of the sixth book of the _Paradise Lost_, he is found
+to employ only eighty per cent. of Anglo-Saxon words--less than any up to
+that day. But his words are chosen with a delicacy of taste and ear which
+astonishes and delights; his works are full of an adaptive harmony, the
+suiting of sound to sense. His rhythm is perfect. We have not space for
+extended illustrations, but the reader will notice this in the lady's song
+in Comus--the address to
+
+    Sweet Echo, sweeter nymph that liv'st unseen
+          Within thy airy shell,
+    By slow Meander's margent green!
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Sweet queen of parley, daughter of the sphere,
+    So may'st thou be translated to the skies,
+    And give resounding grace to all heaven's harmonies.
+
+And again, the description of Chastity, in the same poem, is inimitable in
+the language:
+
+    So dear to Heaven is saintly Chastity,
+    That when a soul is found sincerely so,
+    A thousand liveried angels lackey her.
+
+
+HIS SCHOLARSHIP.--It is unnecessary to state the well-known fact, attested
+by all his works, of his elegant and versatile scholarship. He was the
+most learned man in England in his day. If, like J. C. Scaliger, he did
+not commit Homer to memory in twenty-one days, and the whole of the Greek
+poets in three months, he had all classical learning literally at his
+fingers' ends, and his works are absolutely glistening with drops which
+show that every one has been dipped in that Castalian fountain which, it
+was fabled, changed the earthly flowers of the mind into immortal jewels.
+
+Nor need we refer to what every one concedes, that a vein of pure but
+austere morals runs through all his works; but Puritan as he was, his
+myriad fancy led him into places which Puritanism abjured: the cloisters,
+with their dim religious light, in _Il Penseroso_--and anon with mirth he
+cries:
+
+    Come and trip it as you go,
+    On the light fantastic toe.
+
+
+SONNETS.--His sonnets have been variously estimated: they are not as
+polished as his other poems, but are crystal-like and sententious, abrupt
+bursts of opinion and feeling in fourteen lines. Their masculine power it
+was which caused Wordsworth, himself a prince of sonneteers, to say:
+
+                        In his hand,
+    The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew
+    Soul-animating strains....
+
+That to his dead wife, whom he saw in a vision; that to Cyriac Skinner on
+his blindness, and that to the persecuted Waldenses, are the most known
+and appreciated. That to Skinner is a noble assertion of heart and hope:
+
+    Cyriac, this three-years-day these eyes, though clear
+      To outward view, of blemish and of spot,
+      Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot:
+    Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
+    Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,
+      Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not
+      Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot
+    Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
+      Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?
+    The conscience friend to have lost them over-plied
+      In liberty's defence, my noble task,
+    Of which all Europe talks from side to side,
+      This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask
+    Content, though blind, had I no better guide.
+
+Milton died in 1674, of gout, which had long afflicted him; and he left
+his name and works to posterity. Posterity has done large but mistaken
+justice to his fame. Men have not discriminated between his real merits
+and his faults: all parties have conceded the former, and conspired to
+conceal the latter. A just statement of both will still establish his
+great fame on the immutable foundations of truth--a fame, the honest
+pursuit of which caused him, throughout his long life,
+
+    To scorn delights, and live laborious days.
+
+No writer has ever been the subject of more uncritical, ignorant, and
+senseless panegyric: like Bacon, he is lauded by men who never read his
+works, and are entirely ignorant of the true foundation of his fame. Nay,
+more; partisanship becomes very warlike, and we are reminded in this
+controversy of the Italian gentleman, who fought three duels in
+maintaining that Ariosto was a better poet than Tasso: in the third he was
+mortally wounded, and he confessed before dying that he had never read a
+line of either. A similar logomachy has marked the course of Milton's
+champions; words like sharp swords have been wielded by ignorance, and
+have injured the poet's true fame.
+
+He now stands before the world, not only as the greatest English poet,
+except Shakspeare, but also as the most remarkable example and
+illustration of the theory we have adopted, that literature is a very
+vivid and permanent interpreter of contemporary history. To those who ask
+for a philosophic summary of the age of Charles I. and Cromwell, the
+answer may be justly given: "Study the works of John Milton, and you will
+find it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+COWLEY, BUTLER, AND WALTON.
+
+
+   Cowley and Milton. Cowley's Life and Works. His Fame. Butler's Career.
+   Hudibras. His Poverty and Death. Izaak Walton. The Angler; and Lives.
+   Other Writers.
+
+
+
+COWLEY AND MILTON.
+
+
+In contrast with Milton, in his own age, both in political tenets and in
+the character of his poetry, stood Cowley, the poetical champion of the
+party of king and cavaliers during the civil war. Historically he belongs
+to two periods--antecedent and consequent--that of the rebellion itself,
+and that of the Restoration: the latter was a reaction from the former, in
+which the masses changed their opinions, in which the Puritan leaders were
+silenced, and in which the constant and consistent Cavaliers had their day
+of triumph. Both parties, however, modified their views somewhat after the
+whirlwind of excitement had swept by, and both deprecated the extreme
+violence of their former actions. This is cleverly set forth in a charming
+paper of Lord Macaulay, entitled _Cowley and Milton_. It purports to be
+the report of a pleasant colloquy between the two in the spring of 1665,
+"set down by a gentleman of the Middle Temple." Their principles are
+courteously expressed, in a retrospective view of the great rebellion.
+
+
+COWLEY'S LIFE AND WORKS.--Abraham Cowley, the posthumous son of a grocer,
+was born in London, in the year 1618. He is said to have been so
+precocious that he read Spenser with pleasure when he was twelve years
+old; and he published a volume of poems, entitled "Poetical Blossoms,"
+before he was fifteen. After a preliminary education at Westminster
+school, he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1636, and while
+there he published, in 1638, two comedies, one in English, entitled
+_Love's Riddle_, and one in Latin, _Naufragium Joculare, or, The Merry
+Shipwreck_.
+
+When the troubles which culminated in the civil war began to convulse
+England, Cowley, who was a strong adherent of the king, was compelled to
+leave Cambridge; and we find him, when the war had fairly opened, at
+Oxford, where he was well received by the Royal party, in 1643. He
+vindicated the justice of this reception by publishing in that year a
+satire called _Puritan and Papist_. Upon the retirement of the queen to
+Paris, he was one of her suite, and as secretary to Viscount St. Albans he
+conducted the correspondence in cipher between the queen and her
+unfortunate husband.
+
+He remained abroad during the civil war and the protectorate, returning
+with Charles II. in 1660. "The Blessed Restoration" he celebrated in an
+ode with that title, and would seem to have thus established a claim to
+the king's gratitude and bounty. But he was mistaken. Perhaps this led him
+to write a comedy, entitled _The Cutter of Coleman Street_, in which he
+severely censured the license and debaucheries of the court: this made the
+arch-debauchee, the king himself, cold toward the poet, who at once issued
+_A Complaint_; but neither satire nor complaint helped him to the desired
+preferment. He quitted London a disappointed man, and retired to the
+country, where he died on the 28th of July, 1667.
+
+His poems bear the impress of the age in a remarkable degree. His
+_Mistress, or, Love Verses_, and his other Anacreontics or paraphrases of
+Anacreon's odes, were eminently to the taste of the luxurious and immoral
+court of Charles II. His _Davideis_ is an heroic poem on the troubles of
+King David.
+
+His _Poem on the Late Civil War_, which was not published until 1679,
+twelve years after his death, is written in the interests of the monarchy.
+
+His varied learning gave a wide range to his pen. In 1661 appeared his
+_Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy_, which was
+followed in the next year by _Two Books of Plants_, which he increased to
+six books afterward--devoting two to herbs, two to flowers, and two to
+trees. If he does not appear in them to be profound in botanical
+researches, it was justly said by Dr. Johnson that in his mind "botany
+turned into poetry."
+
+His prose pen was as ready, versatile, and charming as his poetic pencil.
+He produced discourses or essays on commonplace topics of general
+interest, such as _myself; the shortness of life; the uncertainty of
+riches; the danger of procrastination_, etc. These are well written, in
+easy-flowing language, evincing his poetic nature, and many of them are
+more truly poetic than his metrical pieces.
+
+
+HIS FAME.--Cowley had all his good things in his lifetime; he was the most
+popular poet in England, and is the best illustration of the literary
+taste of his age. His poetry is like water rippling in the sunlight,
+brilliant but dazzling and painful: it bewilders with far-fetched and
+witty conceits: varied but full of art, there is little of nature or real
+passion to be found even in his amatory verses. He suited the taste of a
+court which preferred an epigram to a proverb, and a repartee to an
+apothegm; and, as a consequence, with the growth of a better culture and a
+better taste, he has steadily declined in favor, so that at the present
+day he is scarcely read at all. Two authoritative opinions mark the
+history of this decline: Milton, in his own day, placed him with Spenser
+and Shakspeare as one of the three greatest English poets; while Pope, not
+much more than half a century later, asks:
+
+    Who now reads Cowley? If he pleases yet,
+    His moral pleases, not his pointed wit.
+
+Still later, Dr. Johnson gives him the credit of having been the first to
+master the Pindaric ode in English; while Cowper expresses, in his Task,
+regret that his "splendid wit" should have been
+
+    Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools.
+
+But if he is neglected in the present day as a household poet, he stands
+prominently forth to the literary student as an historic personage of no
+mean rank, a type and representative of his age, country, and social
+conditions.
+
+
+
+SAMUEL BUTLER.
+
+
+BUTLER'S CAREER.--The author of Hudibras, a satirical poem which may as
+justly be called a comic history of England as any of those written in
+prose in more modern times, was born in Worcestershire, on the 8th of
+February, 1612. The son of poor parents, he received his education at a
+grammar school. Some, who have desired to magnify his learning, have said
+that he was for a time a student at Cambridge; but the chronicler Aubrey,
+who knew him well, denies this. He was learned, but this was due to the
+ardor with which he pursued his studies, when he was clerk to Mr.
+Jeffreys, an eminent justice of the peace, and as an inmate of the mansion
+of the Countess of Kent, in whose fine library he was associated with the
+accomplished Selden.
+
+We next find him domiciled with Sir Samuel Luke, a Presbyterian and a
+parliamentary soldier, in whose household he saw and noted those
+characteristics of the Puritans which he afterward ridiculed so severely
+in his great poem, a poem which he was quietly engaged in writing during
+the protectorate of Cromwell, in hope of the coming of a day when it could
+be issued to the world.
+
+This hope was fulfilled by the Restoration. In the new order he was
+appointed secretary to the Earl of Carbery, and steward of Ludlow Castle;
+and he also increased his frugal fortunes by marrying a widow, Mrs.
+Herbert, whose means, however, were soon lost by bad investments.
+
+
+HUDIBRAS.--The only work of merit which Butler produced was _Hudibras_.
+This was published in three parts: the first appeared in 1663, the second
+in 1664, and the third not until 1678. Even then it was left unfinished;
+but as the interest in the third part seems to flag, it is probable that
+the author did not intend to complete it. His death, two years later,
+however, settled the question.
+
+The general idea of the poem is taken from Don Quixote. As in that
+immortal work, there are two heroes. Sir Hudibras, corresponding to the
+Don, is a Presbyterian justice of the peace, whose features are said to
+have been copied from those of the poet's former employer, Sir Samuel
+Luke. For this, Butler has been accused of ingratitude, but the nature of
+their connection does not seem to have been such as to warrant the charge.
+Ralph the squire, the humble Sancho of the poem, is a cross-grained
+dogmatic Independent.
+
+These two the poet sends forth, as a knight-errant with a squire, to
+correct existing abuses of all kinds--political, religious, and
+scientific. The plot is rambling and disconnected, but the author
+contrives to go over the whole ground of English history in his inimitable
+burlesque. Unlike Cervantes, who makes his reader always sympathize with
+his foolish heroes, Butler brings his knight and squire into supreme
+contempt; he lashes the two hundred religious sects of the day, and
+attacks with matchless ridicule all the Puritan positions. The poem is
+directly historical in its statement of events, tenets, and factions, and
+in its protracted religious discussions: it is indirectly historical in
+that it shows how this ridicule of the Puritans, only four years after the
+death of Cromwell, delighted the merry monarch and his vicious court, and
+was greatly acceptable to the large majority of the English people. This
+fact marks the suddenness of the historic change from the influence of
+Puritanism to that of the restored Stuarts.
+
+Hudibras is written in octosyllabic verse, frequently not rising above
+doggerel: it is full of verbal "quips and cranks and wanton wiles:" in
+parts it is eminently epigrammatic, and many of its happiest couplets seem
+to have been dashed off without effort. Walpole calls Butler "the Hogarth
+of poetry;" and we know that Hogarth illustrated Hudibras. The comparison
+is not inapt, but the pictorial element in Hudibras is not its best claim
+to our praise. This is found in its string of proverbs and maxims
+elucidating human nature, and set forth in such terse language that we are
+inclined to use them thus in preference to any other form of expression.
+
+Hudibras is the very prince of _burlesques_; it stands alone of its kind,
+and still retains its popularity. Although there is much that belongs to
+the age, and much that is of only local interest, it is still read to find
+apt quotations, of which not a few have become hackneyed by constant use.
+With these, pages might be filled; all readers will recognize the
+following:
+
+He speaks of the knight thus:
+
+    On either side he would dispute,
+    Confute, change hands, and still confute:
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    For rhetoric, he could not ope
+    His mouth but out there flew a trope.
+
+Again: he refers, in speaking of religious characters, to
+
+    Such as do build their faith upon
+    The holy text of pike and gun,
+    And prove their doctrine orthodox,
+    By apostolic blows and knocks;
+    Compound for sins they are inclined to
+    By damning those they have no mind to.
+
+Few persons of the present generation have patience to read Hudibras
+through. Allibone says "it is a work to be studied once and gleaned
+occasionally." Most are content to glean frequently, and not to study at
+all.
+
+
+HIS POVERTY AND DEATH.--Butler lived in great poverty, being neglected by
+a monarch and a court for whose amusement he had done so much. They
+laughed at the jester, and let him starve. Indeed, he seems to have had
+few friends; and this is accounted for quaintly by Aubrey, who says:
+"Satirical wits disoblige whom they converse with, and consequently make
+to themselves many enemies, and few friends; and this was his manner and
+case."
+
+The best known of his works, after Hudibras, is the _Elephant in the
+Moon_, a satire on the Royal Society.
+
+It is significant of the popularity of Hudibras, that numerous imitations
+of it have been written from his day to ours.
+
+Butler died on the 25th of September, 1680. Sixty years after, the hand of
+private friendship erected a monument to him in Westminster Abbey. The
+friend was John Barber, Lord Mayor of London, whose object is thus stated:
+"That he who was destitute of all things when alive, might not want a
+monument when he was dead." Upon the occasion of erecting this, Samuel
+Wesley wrote:
+
+    While Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive,
+    No generous patron would a dinner give;
+    See him, when starved to death and turned to dust,
+    Presented with a monumental bust.
+    The poet's fate is here in emblem shown,
+    He asked for bread, and he received a stone.
+
+To his own age he was the prince of jesters; to English literature he has
+given its best illustration of the burlesque in rhetoric. To the reader of
+the present day he presents rare historical pictures of his day, of far
+greater value than his wit or his burlesque.
+
+
+
+IZAAK WALTON.
+
+
+If men are to be measured by their permanent popularity, Walton deserves
+an enthusiastic mention in literary annals, not for the greatness of his
+achievements, but for his having touched a chord in the human heart which
+still vibrates without hint of cessation wherever English is spoken.
+
+Izaak Walton was born at Stafford, on the 9th of August, 1593. In his
+earlier life he was a linen-draper, but he had made enough for his frugal
+wants by his shop to enable him to retire from business in 1643, and then
+he quietly assumed a position as _pontifex piscatorum_. His fishing-rod
+was a sceptre which he swayed unrivalled for forty years. He gathered
+about him in his house and on the borders of fishing streams an admiring
+and congenial circle, principally of the clergy, who felt it a privilege
+to honor the retired linen-draper. There must have been a peculiar charm,
+a personal magnetism about him, which has also imbued his works. His first
+wife was Rachel Floud, a descendant of the ill-fated Cranmer; and his
+second was Anne Ken, the half-sister of the saintly Bishop Ken. Whatever
+may have been his deficiencies of early education, he was so constant and
+varied a reader that he made amends for these.
+
+
+THE COMPLETE ANGLER.--His first and most popular work was _The Complete
+Angler, or, The Contemplative Man's Recreation_. It has been the delight
+of all sorts of people since, and has gone through more than forty
+respectable editions in England, besides many in America. Many of these
+editions are splendidly illustrated and sumptuous. The dialogues are
+pleasant and natural, and his enthusiasm for the art of angling is quite
+contagious.
+
+
+HIS LIVES.--Nor is Walton less esteemed by a smaller but more appreciative
+circle for his beautiful and finished biographies or _Lives_ of Dr.
+Donne, Wotton, Richard Hooker, George Herbert, and Bishop Robert
+Sanderson.
+
+Here Walton has bestowed and received fame: the simple but exquisite
+portraitures of these holy and worthy men have made them familiar to
+posterity; and they, in turn, by the virtues which Walton's pen has made
+manifest, have given distinction to the hand which portrayed them.
+Walton's good life was lengthened out to fourscore and ten. He died at the
+residence of his son-in-law, the Reverend William Hawkins, prebendary of
+Winchester Cathedral, in 1683. Bishop Jebb has judiciously said of his
+_Lives_: "They not only do ample justice to individual piety and learning,
+but throw a mild and cheerful light upon the manners of an interesting
+age, as well as upon the venerable features of our mother Church." Less,
+however, than any of his contemporaries can Walton be appreciated by a
+sketch of the man: his works must be read, and their spirit imbibed, in
+order to know his worth.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE AGE.
+
+
+George Wither, born in Hampshire, June 11, 1588, died May 2, 1667: he was
+a voluminous and versatile writer. His chief work is _The Shepherd's
+Hunting_, which, with beautiful descriptions of rural life, abounds in
+those strained efforts at wit and curious conceits, which were acceptable
+to the age, but which have lost their charm in a more sensible and
+philosophic age. Wither was a Parliament man, and was imprisoned and
+ill-treated after the Restoration. He, and most of those who follow, were
+classed by Dr. Johnson as _metaphysical poets_.
+
+Francis Quarles, 1592-1644: he was a Royalist, but belongs to the literary
+school of Withers. He is best known by his collection of moral and
+religious poems, called _Divine Emblems_, which were accompanied with
+quaint engraved illustrations. These allegories are full of unnatural
+conceits, and are many of them borrowed from an older source. He was
+immensely popular as a poet in his own day, and there was truth in the
+statement of Horace Walpole, that "Milton was forced to wait till the
+world had done admiring Quarles."
+
+George Herbert, 1593-1632: a man of birth and station, Herbert entered the
+Church, and as the incumbent of the living at Bemerton, he illustrated in
+his own piety and devotion "the beauty of holiness." Conscientious and
+self-denying in his parish work, he found time to give forth those devout
+breathings which in harmony of expression, fervor of piety, and simplicity
+of thought, have been a goodly heritage to the Church ever since, while
+they still retain some of those "poetical surprises" which mark the
+literary taste of the age. His principal work is _The Temple, or, Sacred
+Poems and Private Ejaculations_. The short lyrics which form the stones of
+this temple are upon the rites and ceremonies of the Church and other
+sacred subjects: many of them are still in great favor, and will always
+be. In his portraiture of the _Good Parson_, he paints himself. He
+magnifies the office, and he fulfilled all the requirements he has laid
+down.
+
+Robert Herrick, 1591-1674: like Herbert, Herrick was a clergyman, but,
+unlike Herbert, he was not a holy man. He wrote Anacreontic poems, full of
+wine and love, and appears to us like a reveller masking in a surplice.
+Being a cavalier in sentiment, he was ejected from his vicarage in 1648,
+and went to London, where he assumed the lay habit. In 1647 he published
+_Hesperides_, a collection of small poems of great lyric beauty,
+Anacreontic, pastoral, and amatory, but containing much that is coarse and
+indelicate. In 1648 he in part atoned for these by publishing his _Noble
+Numbers_, a collection of pious pieces, in the beginning of which he asks
+God's forgiveness for his "unbaptized rhymes," "writ in my wild,
+unhallowed times." The best comment upon his works may be found in the
+words of a reviewer: "Herrick trifled in this way solely in compliment to
+the age; whenever he wrote to please himself, he wrote from the heart to
+the heart." His _Litanie_ is a noble and beautiful penitential petition.
+
+Sir John Suckling, 1609-1641: a writer of love songs. That by which he is
+most favorably known is his exquisite _Ballad upon a Wedding_. He was a
+man of versatile talents; an officer in the army of Gustavus Adolphus, and
+a captain of horse in the army of Charles I. He wrote several plays, of
+which the best are _Aglaura_ and _The Discontented Colonel_. While
+evidently tinctured by the spirit of the age, he exceeded his
+contemporaries in the purity of his style and manliness of his expression.
+His wit is not so forced as theirs.
+
+Edmund Waller, 1605-1687: he was a cousin of John Hampden. By great care
+and adroitness he seems to have trimmed between the two parties in the
+civil war, but was suspected by both. His poetry was like himself,
+artificial and designed to please, but has little depth of sentiment. Like
+other poets, he praised Cromwell in 1654 in _A Panegyric_, and welcomed
+Charles II. in 1660, upon _His Majesty's Happy Return_. His greatest
+benefaction to English poetry was in refining its language and harmonizing
+its versification. He has all the conceits and strained wit of the
+metaphysical school.
+
+Sir William Davenant, 1605-1668: he was the son of a vintner, but
+sometimes claimed to be the natural son of Shakspeare, who was intimate
+with his father and mother. An ardent Loyalist, he was imprisoned at the
+beginning of the civil war, but escaped to France. He is best known by his
+heroic poem _Gondibert_, founded upon the reign of King Aribert of
+Lombardy, in the seventh century. The French taste which he brought back
+from his exile, is shown in his own dramas, and in his efforts to restore
+the theatre at the Restoration. His best plays are the _Cruel Brother_ and
+_The Law against Lovers_. He was knighted by Charles I., and succeeded Ben
+Jonson as poet laureate. On his monument in Westminster Abbey are these
+words: "O rare Sir William Davenant."
+
+Charles Cotton, 1630-1687: he was a wit and a poet, and is best known as
+the friend of Izaak Walton. He made an addition to _Walton's Complete
+Angler_, which is found in all the later editions. The companion of Walton
+in his fishing excursions on the river Dove, Cotton addressed many of his
+poems to his "Adopted Father." He made travesties upon Virgil and Lucian,
+which are characterized by great licentiousness; and wrote a gossiping and
+humorous _Voyage to Ireland_.
+
+Henry Vaughan, 1614-1695: he was called the _Silurist_, from his residence
+in Wales, the country of the Silures. He is favorably known by the _Silex
+Scintillans, or, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations_. With a rigid
+religious tone, he has all the attempt at rhetorical effect which mark the
+metaphysical school, but his language is harsher and more rugged. He has
+more heart than most of his colleagues, and extracts of great terseness
+and beauty are still made from his poems. He reproves the corruptions of
+the age, and while acknowledging an indebtedness, he gives us a clue to
+his inspiration: "The first, that with any effectual success attempted a
+diversion of this foul and overflowing stream, was that blessed man, Mr.
+George Herbert, whose holy life and verse gained many pious converts, of
+whom I am the least."
+
+The Earl of Clarendon, 1608-1674: Edward Hyde, afterward the Earl of
+Clarendon, played a conspicuous part in the history of England during his
+life, and also wrote a history of that period, which, although in the
+interests of the king's party, is an invaluable key to a knowledge of
+English life during the rebellion and just after the Restoration. A
+member of parliament in 1640, he rose rapidly in favor with the king, and
+was knighted in 1643. He left England in charge of the Prince of Wales in
+1646, and at once began his History of the Great Rebellion, which was to
+occupy him for many years before its completion. After the death of
+Charles I., he was the companion of his son's exile, and often without
+means for himself and his royal master, he was chancellor of the
+exchequer. At the Restoration in 1660, Sir Edward Hyde was created Earl of
+Clarendon, and entered upon the real duties of his office. He retained his
+place for seven years, but became disagreeable to Charles as a troublesome
+monitor, and at the same time incurred the hatred of the people. In 1667
+he was accused of high treason, and made his escape to France. Neglected
+by his master, ignored by the French monarch, he wandered about in France,
+from time to time petitioning his king to permit him to return and die in
+England, but without success. Seven years of exile, which he reminded the
+king "was a time prescribed and limited by God himself for the expiation
+of some of his greatest judgments," passed by, and the ex-chancellor died
+at Rouen. He had begun his history in exile as the faithful servant of a
+dethroned prince; he ended it in exile, as the cast-off servant of an
+ungrateful monarch. As a writer of contemporary history, Clarendon has
+given us the form and color of the time. The book is in title and handling
+a Royalist history. Its faults are manifest: first those of partisanship;
+and secondly, those which spring from his absence, so that much of the
+work was written without an observant knowledge. His delineation of
+character is wonderful: the men of the times are more pictorially
+displayed than in the portraits of Van Dyk. The style is somewhat too
+pompous, being more that of the orator than of the historian, and
+containing long and parenthetic periods. Sir Walter Scott says: "His
+characters may match those of the ancient historians, and one thinks he
+would know the very men if he were to meet them in society." Macaulay
+concedes to him a strong sense of moral and religious obligation, a
+sincere reverence for the laws of his country, and a conscientious regard
+for the honor and interests of the crown; but adds that "his temper was
+sour, arrogant, and impatient of opposition." No one can rightly
+understand the great rebellion without reading Clarendon's history of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+DRYDEN, AND THE RESTORED STUARTS.
+
+
+   The Court of Charles II. Dryden's Early Life. The Death of Cromwell.
+   The Restoration. Dryden's Tribute. Annus Mirabilis. Absalom and
+   Achitophel. The Death of Charles. Dryden's Conversion. Dryden's Fall.
+   His Odes.
+
+
+
+THE COURT OF CHARLES II.
+
+
+The antithetic literature which takes its coloring from the great
+rebellion, was now to give place to new forms not immediately connected
+with it, but incident to the Restoration. Puritanism was now to be
+oppressed, and the country was to be governed, under a show of
+constitutional right, more arbitrarily than ever before. The moral
+rebound, too, was tremendous; the debaucheries of the cavaliers of Charles
+I. were as nothing in comparison with the lewdness and filth of the court
+of Charles II. To say that he brought in French fashions and customs, is
+to do injustice to the French: there never was a viler court in Europe
+than his own. It is but in accordance with our historical theory that the
+literature should partake of and represent the new condition of things;
+and the most remarkable illustrations of this are to be found in the works
+of Dryden.
+
+It may indeed with truth be said that we have now reached the most
+absolute of the literary types of English history. There was no great
+event, political or social, which is not mirrored in his poems; no
+sentiment or caprice of the age which does not there find expression; no
+kingly whim which he did not prostitute his great powers to gratify; no
+change of creed, political or religious, of which he was not the
+recorder--few indeed, where royal favor was concerned, to which he was not
+the convert. To review the life of Dryden himself, is therefore to enter
+into the chronicle and philosophy of the times in which he lived. With
+this view, we shall dwell at some length upon his character and works.
+
+
+EARLY LIFE.--Dryden was born on the 10th of August, 1631, and died on the
+1st of May, 1700. He lived, therefore, during the reign of Charles I., the
+interregnum of Parliament, the protectorate of Cromwell, the restoration
+and reign of Charles II., and the reign of James II.; he saw and suffered
+from the accession of William and Mary--a wonderful and varied volume in
+English history. And of all these Dryden was, more than any other man, the
+literary type. He was of a good family, and was educated at Westminster
+and Cambridge, where he gave early proofs of his literary talents.
+
+His father, a zealous Presbyterian, had reared his children in his own
+tenets; we are not therefore astonished to find that his earliest poetical
+efforts are in accordance with the political conditions of the day. He
+settled in London, under the protection of his kinsman, Sir Gilbert
+Pickering, who was afterward one of the king's judges in 1649, and one of
+the council of eight who controlled the kingdom after Charles lost his
+head. As secretary to Sir Gilbert, young Dryden learned to scan the
+political horizon, and to aspire to preferment.
+
+
+CROMWELL'S DEATH, AND DRYDEN'S MONODY.--But those who had depended upon
+Cromwell, forgot that he was not England, and that his breath was in his
+nostrils. The time of his departure was at hand. He had been offered the
+crown (April 9, 1656,) by a subservient parliament, and wanted it; but his
+friends and family opposed his taking it; and the officers of the army,
+influenced by Pride, sent such a petition against it, that he felt obliged
+to refuse it. After months of mental anxiety and nervous torture--fearing
+assassination, keeping arms under his pillow, never sleeping above three
+nights together in the same chamber, disappointed that even after all his
+achievements, and with all his cunning efforts, he had been unable to put
+on the crown, and to be numbered among the English sovereigns--Cromwell
+died in 1658, leaving his title as Lord Protector to his son Richard, a
+weak and indolent man, who, after seven months' rule, fled the kingdom at
+the Restoration, to return after a generation had passed away, a very old
+man, to die in his native land. The people of Hertfordshire knew Richard
+Cromwell as the excellent and benevolent Mr. Clarke.
+
+Very soon after the death of Oliver Cromwell, Dryden, not yet foreseeing
+the Restoration, presented his tribute to the Commonwealth, in the shape
+of "Heroic Stanzas on the Death of Oliver Cromwell; written after his
+funeral." A few stanzas will show his political principles, and are in
+strange contrast with what was soon to follow:
+
+    How shall I then begin, or where conclude,
+      To draw a fame so truly circular?
+    For, in a round, what order can be showed,
+      Where all the parts so equal perfect are?
+
+    He made us freemen of the continent,
+      Whom nature did like captives treat before;
+    To nobler preys the English lion sent,
+      And taught him first in Belgian walks to roar.
+
+    His ashes in a peaceful urn shall rest;
+      His name a great example stands, to show
+    How strangely high endeavors may be blest,
+      Where piety and valor jointly go.
+
+
+THE RESTORATION.--Cromwell died in September: early in the next year these
+stanzas were written. One year later was the witness of a great event,
+which stirred England to its very depths, because it gave vent to
+sentiments for some time past cherished but concealed. The Long Parliament
+was dissolved on the 10th of March, 1660. The new parliament meets April
+25th; it is almost entirely of Royalist opinions; it receives Sir John
+Granville, the king's messenger, with loud acclamations; the old lords
+come forth once more in velvet, ermine, and lawn. It is proclaimed that
+General Monk, the representative of the army, soon to be Duke of
+Albemarle, has gone from St. Albans to Dover,
+
+    To welcome home again discarded faith.
+
+The strong are as tow, and the maker as a spark. From the house of every
+citizen, lately vocal with the praises of the Protector, issues a subject
+ready to welcome his king with the most enthusiastic loyalty.
+
+Royal proclamations follow each other in rapid succession: at length the
+eventful day has come--the 29th of May, 1660. All the bells of London are
+ringing their merriest chimes; the streets are thronged with citizens in
+holiday attire; the guilds of work and trade are out in their uniforms;
+the army, late the organ of Cromwell, is drawn up on Black Heath, and is
+cracking its myriad throat with cheers. In the words of Master Roger
+Wildrake, "There were bonfires flaming, music playing, rumps roasting,
+healths drinking; London in a blaze of light from the Strand to
+Rotherhithe." At length the sound of herald trumpets is heard; the king is
+coming; a cry bursts forth which the London echoes have almost forgotten:
+"God save the king! The king enjoys his own again!"
+
+It seems to the dispassionate reader almost incredible that the English
+people, who shed his father's blood, who rallied round the Parliament, and
+were fulsome in their praises of the Protector, should thus suddenly
+change; but, allowing for "the madness of the people," we look for
+strength and consistency to the men of learning and letters. We feel sure
+that he who sang his eulogy of Cromwell dead, can have now no lyric burst
+for the returning Stuart. We are disappointed.
+
+
+DRYDEN'S TRIBUTE.--The first poetic garland thrown at the feet of the
+restored king was Dryden's _Astræa Redux_, a poem on _The happy
+restoration of his sacred majesty Charles II._ To give it classic force,
+he quotes from the Pollio as a text.
+
+    Jam redit et virgo, redeunt saturnia regna;
+
+thus hailing the saturnian times of James I. and Charles I. A few lines of
+the poem complete the curious contrast:
+
+    While our cross stars deny us Charles his bed,
+    Whom our first flames and virgin love did wed,
+    For his long absence church and state did groan;
+    Madness the pulpit, faction seized the throne.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    How great were then our Charles his woes, who thus
+    Was forced to suffer for himself and us.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Oh happy prince whom Heaven hath taught the way,
+    By paying vows to have more vows to pay:
+    Oh happy age! oh, times like those alone
+    By Fate reserved for great Augustus' throne,
+    When the joint growth of arts and arms foreshow
+    The world a monarch, and that monarch you!
+
+The contrast assumes a clearer significance, if we remember that the real
+time which elapsed between the publications of these two poems was less
+than two years.
+
+This is greatly to Dryden's shame, as it is to Waller's, who did the same
+thing; but it must be clearly pointed out that in this the poets were
+really a type of all England, for whose suffrages they wrote thus. From
+this time the career of Dryden was intimately associated with that of the
+restored king. He wrote an ode for the coronation in 1661, and a poetical
+tribute to Clarendon, the Lord High Chancellor, the king's better self.
+
+To Dryden, as a writer of plays, we shall recur in a later chapter, when
+the other dramatists of the age will be considered.
+
+A concurrence of unusual events in 1665, brought forth the next year the
+"Annus Mirabilis," or _Wonderful Year_, in which these events are recorded
+with the minuteness of a chronicle. This is indeed its chief value; for,
+praised as it was at the time, it does not so well bear the analysis of
+modern criticism.
+
+
+ANNUS MIRABILIS.--It describes the great naval battle with the Dutch; the
+fire of London; and the ravages of the plague. The detail with which these
+are described, and the frequent felicity of expression, are the chief
+charm of the poem. In the refreshingly simple diary of Pepy's, we find
+this jotting under date of 3d February, 1666-7: "_Annus Mirabilis_. I am
+very well pleased this night with reading a poem I brought home with me
+last night from Westminster Hall, of Dryden's, upon the present war: a
+very good poem."
+
+Dryden's subserviency, aided by the power of his pen, gained its reward.
+In 1668, on the death of Sir William Davenant, he was appointed Laureate,
+and historiographer to the king, with an annual salary of £200. He soon
+became the most famous literary man in England. Milton, the Puritan, was
+producing his wonderful visions in darkened retirement, while at court, or
+in the seat of honor on the stage, or in his sacred chair at Will's
+Coffee-house in Covent Garden (near the fire-place in winter, and carried
+into the balcony in summer), "Glorious John" was the observed of all
+observers. Of Will's Coffee-house, Congreve says, in _Love for Love_, "Oh,
+confound that Will's Coffee-house; it has ruined more young men than the
+Royal Oak Lottery:" this speaks at once of the fashion and social license
+of the time.
+
+Charles II. was happy to have so fluent a pen, to lampoon or satirize his
+enemies, or to make indecent comedies for his amusement; while Dryden's
+aim seems to have been scarcely higher than preferment at court and
+honored contemporary notoriety for his genius. But if the great majority
+lauded and flattered him, he was not without his share in those quarrels
+of authors, which were carried on at that day not only with goose-quills,
+but with swords and bludgeons. It is recorded that he was once waylaid by
+the hired ruffians of the Earl of Rochester, and beaten almost to death:
+these broils generally had a political as well as a social significance.
+In his quarrels with the literary men, he used the shafts of satire. His
+contest with Thomas Shadwell has been preserved in his satire called
+McFlecknoe. Flecknoe was an Irish priest who wrote dull plays; and in this
+poem Dryden proposes Shadwell as his successor on the throne of dulness.
+It was the model or suggester of Pope's _Dunciad_; but the model is by no
+means equal to the copy.
+
+
+ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.--Nothing which he had yet written is so true an
+index to the political history as his "Absalom and Achitophel," which he
+published in 1681. The history may be given in few words. Charles II. had
+a natural son by an obscure woman named Lucy Walters. This boy had been
+created Duke of Monmouth. He was put forward by the designing Earl of
+Shaftesbury as the head of a faction, and as a rival to the Duke of York.
+To ruin the Duke was their first object; and this they attempted by
+inflaming the people against his religion, which was Roman Catholic. If
+they could thus have him and his heirs put out of the succession to the
+throne, Monmouth might be named heir apparent; and Shaftesbury hoped to be
+the power behind the throne.
+
+Monmouth was weak, handsome, and vain, and was in truth a puppet in wicked
+hands; he was engaged in the Rye-house plot, and schemed not only against
+his uncle, but against the person of his father himself. To satirize and
+expose these plots and plotters, Dryden (at the instance of the king, it
+is said,) wrote _Absalom and Achitophel_, in which are introduced, under
+Scripture names, many of the principal political characters of the day,
+from the king down to Titus Oates. The number of the names is 61. Charles
+is, of course, David, and Monmouth, the wayward son, is Absalom.
+Shaftesbury is Achitophel, and Dr. Oates figures as Corah. The Ethnic plot
+is the popish plot, and Gath is that land of exile where Charles so long
+resided. Strong in his praise of David, the poet is discreet and delicate
+in his handling of Absalom; his instinct is as acute as that of Falstaff:
+"Beware! instinct, the lion will not touch a true prince," or touch him so
+gently that the lion at least will not suffer. Thus, Monmouth is
+represented as
+
+    Half loath, and half consenting to the ill,
+    For royal blood within him struggled still;
+    He thus replied: "And what pretence have I
+    To take up arms for public liberty?
+    My father governs with unquestioned right,
+    The faith's defender and mankind's delight;
+    Good, gracious, just, observant of the laws,
+    And heaven by wonders has espoused his cause."
+
+But he may, and does, roundly rate Achitophel, who tempts with satanic
+seductions, and proves to the youth, from the Bible, his right to the
+succession, peaceably or forcibly obtained. Among those who conspired with
+Monmouth were honest hearts seeking for the welfare of the realm. Chief of
+these were Lord Russel and Sidney, of whom the latter was in favor of a
+commonwealth; and the former, only sought the exclusion of the Roman
+Catholic Duke of York, and the redress of grievances, but not the
+assassination or deposition of the king. Both fell on the scaffold; but
+they have both been considered martyrs in the cause of civil liberty.
+
+And here we must pause to say that in the literary structure, language,
+and rhythm of the poem, Dryden had made a great step toward that mastery
+of the rhymed pentameter couplet, which is one of his greatest claims to
+distinction.
+
+
+DEATH OF CHARLES.--At length, in 1685, Charles II., after a sudden and
+short illness, was gathered to his fathers. His life had been such that
+England could not mourn: he had prostituted female honor, and almost
+destroyed political virtue; sold English territory and influence to France
+for beautiful strumpets; and at the last had been received, on his
+death-bed, into, the Roman Catholic Church, while nominally the supreme
+head of the Anglican communion. England cannot mourn, but Dryden tortures
+language into crocodile tears in his _Threnodia Augustalis, sacred to the
+happy memory of King Charles II_. A few lines will exhibit at once the
+false statements and the absolute want of a spark of sorrow--dead,
+inanimate words, words, words!
+
+    Thus long my grief has kept me drunk:
+    Sure there 's a lethargy in mighty woe;
+    Tears stand congealed, and cannot flow.
+    ........
+    Tears for a stroke foreseen, afford relief;
+      But unprovided for a sudden blow,
+      Like Niobe, we marble grow,
+    And petrify with grief!
+
+
+DRYDEN'S CONVERSION.--The Duke of York succeeded as James II.: he was an
+open and bigoted Roman Catholic, who at once blazoned forth the death-bed
+conversion of his brother; and who from the first only limited his hopes
+to the complete restoration of the realm to popery. Dryden's course was at
+once taken; but his instinct was at fault, as but three short years were
+to show. He gave in his adhesion to the new king's creed; he who had been
+Puritan with the commonwealth, and churchman with the Restoration, became
+Roman Catholic with the accession of a popish king. He had written the
+_Religio Laici_ to defend the tenets of the Church of England against the
+attacks of papists and dissenters; and he now, to leave the world in no
+doubt as to his reasons and his honesty, published a poem entitled the
+_Hind and Panther_, which might in his earlier phraseology have been
+justly styled "The Christian experience of pious John Dryden." It seems a
+shameless act, but it is one exponent of the loyalty of that day. There
+are some critics who believe him to have been sincere, and who insist that
+such a man "is not to be sullied by suspicion that rests on what after all
+might prove a fortuitous coincidence." But such frequent changes with the
+government--with a reward for each change--tax too far even that charity
+which "thinketh no evil." Dryden's pen was eagerly welcomed by the Roman
+Catholics. He began to write at once in their interest, and thus to
+further his own. Dr. Johnson says: "That conversion will always be
+suspected which apparently concerns with interest. He that never finds his
+error till it hinders his progress toward wealth or honor, will not be
+thought to love truth only for herself."
+
+In this long poem of 2,000 lines, we have the arguments which conducted
+the poet to this change. The different beasts represent the different
+churches and sects. The Church of Rome is thus represented:
+
+    A milk-white hind, immortal and unchanged,
+    Fed on the lawns, and in the forest ranged;
+    Without unspotted, innocent within,
+    She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.
+
+The other beasts were united to destroy her; but she could "venture to
+drink with them at the common watering-place under the protection of her
+friend the kingly lion."
+
+The Panther is the Church of England:
+
+    The Panther, sure the noblest, next the hind,
+    And fairest creature of the spotted kind;
+    Oh, could her inborn stains be washed away,
+    She were too good to be a beast of prey!
+
+Then he Introduces.--
+
+   The _Bloody Bear_, an _Independent_ beast; the _Quaking Hare_, for the
+   _Quakers_; the _Bristled Baptist Boar_.
+
+In this fable, quite in the style of Æsop, we find the Dame, _i.e._, the
+Hind, entering into the subtle points of theology, and trying to prove her
+position. The poem, as might be supposed; was well received, and perhaps
+converted a few to the monarch's faith; for who were able yet to foresee
+that the monarch would so abuse his power, as to be driven away from his
+throne amid the execrations of his subjects.
+
+The harmony of Dryden and the power of James could control progressive
+England no longer. Like one man, the nation rose and uttered a mighty cry
+to William of Orange. James, trembling, flies hither and thither, and at
+length, fearing the fate of his father, he deserts his throne; the commons
+call this desertion abdication, and they give the throne to his nephew
+William and his daughter Mary. Such was the end of the restored Stuarts;
+and we can have no regret that it is: whatever sympathy we may have had
+with the sufferings of Charles I.,--and the English nation shared it, as
+is proved by the restoration of his son,--we can have none with his
+successors: they threw away their chances; they dissipated the most
+enthusiastic loyalty; they squandered opportunities; and had no enemies,
+even the bitterest, who were more fatal than themselves. And now it was
+manifest that Dryden's day was over. Nor does he shrink from his fate. He
+neither sings a Godspeeding ode to the runaway king, nor a salutatory to
+the new comers.
+
+
+DRYDEN'S FALL.--Stripped of his laureate-wreath and all his emoluments, he
+does not sit down to fold his hands and repine. Sixty years of age, he
+girds up his loins to work manfully for his living. He translates from the
+classics; he renders Chaucer into modern English: in 1690 he produced a
+play entitled Don Sebastian, which has been considered his dramatic
+master-piece, and, as if to inform the world that age had not dimmed the
+fire of his genius, he takes as his caption,--
+
+    ... nec tarda senectus
+    Debilitat vires animi, mutat que vigorem.
+
+This latter part of his life claims a true sympathy, because he is every
+inch a man.
+
+It must not be forgotten that Dryden presented Chaucer to England anew,
+after centuries of neglect, almost oblivion; for which the world owes him
+a debt of gratitude. This he did by modernizing several of the Canterbury
+Tales, and thus leading English scholars to seek the beauties and
+instructions of the original. The versions themselves are by no means well
+executed, it must be said. He has lost the musical words and fresh diction
+of the original, as a single comparison between the two will clearly show.
+Perhaps there is no finer description of morning than is contained in
+these lines of Chaucer:
+
+    The besy lark, the messager of day,
+    Saleweth in hir song the morwe gray;
+    And firy Phebus riseth up so bright
+    That all the orient laugheth of the sight.
+
+How expressive the words: the _busy_ lark; the sun rising like a strong
+man; _all the orient_ laughing. The following version by Dryden, loses at
+once the freshness of idea and the felicity of phrase:
+
+    The morning lark, the messenger of day,
+    Saluted in her song the morning gray;
+    And soon the sun arose with beams so bright
+    That all the horizon laughed to see the joyous sight.
+
+The student will find this only one of many illustrations of the manner
+in which Dryden has belittled Chaucer in his versions.
+
+
+ODES.--Dryden has been regarded as the first who used the heroic couplet
+with entire mastery. In his hands it is bold and sometimes rugged, but
+always powerful and handled with great ease: he fashioned it for Pope to
+polish. Of this, his larger poems are full of proof. But there is another
+verse, of irregular rhythm, in which he was even more successful,--lyric
+poetry as found in the irregular ode, varying from the short line to the
+"Alexandrine dragging its slow length along;" the staccato of a harp
+ending in a lengthened flow of melody.
+
+    Thus long ago,
+    Ere heaving billows learned to blow,
+    While organs yet were mute;
+    Timotheus to his breathing flute
+    And sounding lyre
+    Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
+
+When he became a Roman Catholic, St. Cecilia, "inventress of the vocal
+frame," became his chief devotion; and the _Song on St. Cecilia's Day_ and
+_An Ode to St. Cecilia_, are the principal illustrations of this new
+power.
+
+Gray, who was remarkable for his own lyric power, told Dr. Beattie that if
+there were any excellence in his own numbers, he had learned it wholly
+from Dryden.
+
+The _Ode on St. Cecilia's Day_, also entitled "_Alexander's Feast_," in
+which he portrays the power of music in inspiring that famous monarch to
+love, pity, and war, has to the scholar the perfect excellence of the best
+Greek lyric. It ends with a tribute to St. Cecilia.
+
+    At last divine Cecilia came,
+    Inventress of the vocal frame:
+    Now let Timotheus yield the prize,
+    Or both divide the crown.
+    He raised a mortal to the skies;
+    She drew an angel down,
+
+Dryden's prose, principally in the form of prefaces and dedications, has
+been admired by all critics; and one of the greatest has said, that if he
+had turned his attention entirely in that direction, he would have been
+_facile princeps_ among the prose writers of his day. He has, in general
+terms, the merit of being the greatest refiner of the English language,
+and of having given system and strength to English poetry above any writer
+up to his day; but more than all, his works are a transcript of English
+history--political, religious, and social--as valuable as those of any
+professed historian. Dryden married Lady Elizabeth Howard, the daughter of
+an earl, who, it is said, was not a congenial companion, and who
+afterwards became insane. He died from a gangrene in the foot. He declared
+that he died in the profession of the Roman Catholic faith; which raises a
+new doubt as to his sincerity in the change. Near the monument of old
+father Chaucer, in Westminster, is one erected, by the Duke of Buckingham,
+to Dryden. It merely bears name and date, as his life and works were
+supposed to need no eulogy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF THE GREAT REBELLION AND OF THE RESTORATION.
+
+
+   The English Divines. Hall. Chillingworth. Taylor. Fuller. Sir T.
+   Browne. Baxter. Fox. Bunyan. South. Other Writers.
+
+
+
+THE ENGLISH DIVINES.
+
+
+Having come down, in the course of English Literature, to the reign of
+William and Mary, we must look back for a brief space to consider the
+religious polemics which grew out of the national troubles and
+vicissitudes. We shall endeavor to classify the principal authors under
+this head from the days of Milton to the time when the Protestant
+succession was established on the English throne.
+
+The Established Church had its learned doctors before the civil war, many
+of whom contributed to the literature; but when the contest between king
+and parliament became imminent, and during the progress of the quarrel,
+these became controversialists,--most of them on the side of the
+unfortunate but misguided monarch,--and suffered with his declining
+fortunes.
+
+To go over the whole range of theological literature in this extended
+period, would be to study the history of the times from a theological
+point of view. Our space will only permit a brief notice of the principal
+writers.
+
+
+HALL.--First among these was Joseph Hall, who was born in 1574. He was
+educated at Cambridge, and was appointed to the See of Exeter in 1624,
+and transferred to that of Norwich in 1641, the year before Charles I.
+ascended the throne. The scope of his writings was quite extensive. As a
+theological writer, he is known by his numerous sermons, his _Episcopacy
+by Divine Right Asserted_, his _Christian Meditations_, and
+various commentaries and _Contemplations_ upon the Scriptures.
+He was also a poet and a satirist, and excelled in this field. His
+_Satires--Virgidemiarium_--were published at the early age of
+twenty-three; but they are highly praised by the critics, who rank him
+also, for eloquence and learning, with Jeremy Taylor. He suffered for his
+attachment to the king's cause, was driven from his see, and spent the
+last portion of his life in retirement and poverty. He died in 1656.
+
+
+CHILLINGWORTH.--The next in chronological order is William Chillingworth,
+who was born in 1602, and is principally known as the champion of
+Protestantism against Rome and Roman innovations. While a student at
+Oxford, he had been won over to the Roman Catholic Church by John Perse, a
+famous Jesuit; and he went at once to pursue his studies in the Jesuit
+college at Douay. He was so notable for his acuteness and industry, that
+every effort was made to bring him back. Archbishop Laud, his god-father,
+was able to convince him of his errors, and in two months he returned to
+England. A short time after this he left the Roman Catholics, and became
+tenfold more a Protestant than before. He entered into controversies with
+his former friends the Jesuits, and in answer to one of their treatises
+entitled, _Mercy and Truth, or Charity maintained by the Roman Catholics_,
+he wrote his most famous work, _The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to
+Salvation_. Chillingworth was a warm adherent of Charles I.; and was
+captured by the parliamentary forces in 1643. He died the next year. His
+double change of faith gave him the full range of the controversial field;
+and, in addition to this knowledge, the clearness of his language and the
+perspicuity of his logic gave great effect to his writings. Tillotson
+calls him "the glory of this age and nation."
+
+
+TAYLOR.--One of the greatest names in the annals of the English Church and
+of English literature is that of Jeremy Taylor. He was the son of a
+barber, and was born at Cambridge in 1613. A remarkably clever youth, he
+was educated at Cambridge, and soon owed his preferment to his talents,
+eloquence, and learning. An adherent of the king, he was appointed
+chaplain in the royal army, and was several times imprisoned. When the
+king's cause went down, and during the protectorate of Cromwell, he
+retired to Wales, where he kept a school, and was also chaplain to the
+Earl of Carberry. The vicissitudes of fortune compelled him to leave for a
+while this retreat, and he became a teacher in Ireland. The restoration of
+Charles II. gave him rest and preferment: he was made Bishop of Down and
+Connor. Taylor is now principally known for his learned, quaint, and
+eloquent discourses, which are still read. A man of liberal feelings and
+opinions, he wrote on "The liberty of prophesying, showing the
+unreasonableness of prescribing to other men's faith, and the iniquity of
+persecuting different opinions:" the title itself being a very liberal
+discourse. He upholds the Ritual in _An Apology for fixed and set Forms of
+Worship_. In this he considers the divine precepts to be contained within
+narrow limits, and that beyond this everything is a matter of dispute, so
+that we cannot unconditionally condemn the opinions of others.
+
+His _Great Exemplar of Sanctity and Holy Life_, his _Rule and Exercises of
+Holy Living and of Holy Dying_, and his _Golden Grove_, are devotional
+works, well known to modern Christians of all denominations. He has been
+praised alike by Roman Catholic divines and many Protestant Christians not
+of the Anglican Church. There is in all his writings a splendor of
+imagery, combined with harmony of style, and wonderful variety,
+readiness, and accuracy of scholarship. His quotations from the whole
+range of classic authors would furnish the Greek and Latin armory of any
+modern writer. What Shakspeare is in the Drama, Spenser in the Allegory,
+and Milton in the religious Epic, Taylor may claim to be in the field of
+purely religious literature. He died at Lisburn, in 1667.
+
+
+FULLER.--More quaint and eccentric than the writers just mentioned, but a
+rare representative of his age, stands Thomas Fuller. He was born in 1608;
+at the early age of twelve, he entered Cambridge, and, after completing
+his education, took orders. In 1631, he was appointed prebendary of
+Salisbury. Thence he removed to London in 1641, when the civil war was
+about to open. When the king left London, in 1642, Fuller preached a
+sermon in his favor, to the great indignation of the opposite party. Soon
+after, he was appointed to a chaplaincy in the royal army, and not only
+preached to the soldiers, but urged them forward in battle. In 1646 he
+returned to London, where he was permitted to preach, under
+_surveillance_, however. He seems to have succeeded in keeping out of
+trouble until the Restoration, when he was restored to his prebend. He did
+not enjoy it long, as he died in the next year, 1661. His writings are
+very numerous, and some of them are still read. Among these are _Good
+Thoughts in Bad Times, Good Thoughts in Worse Times_, and _Mixt
+Contemplations in Better Times_. The _bad_ and _worse_ times mark the
+progress of the civil war: the _better_ times he finds in the Restoration.
+
+One of his most valuable works is _The Church History of Britain, from the
+birth of Christ to 1648_, in 11 books. Criticized as it has been for its
+puns and quibbles and its occasional caricatures, it contains rare
+descriptions and very vivid stories of the important ecclesiastical eras
+in England.
+
+Another book containing important information is his _History of the
+Worthies of England_, a posthumous work, published by his son the year
+after his death. It contains accounts of eminent Englishmen in different
+countries; and while there are many errors which he would perhaps have
+corrected, it is full of odd and interesting information not to be found
+collated in any other book.
+
+Representing and chronicling the age as he does, he has perhaps more
+individuality than any writer of his time, and this gives a special
+interest to his works.
+
+
+SIR THOMAS BROWNE.--Classed among theological writers, but not a
+clergyman, Sir Thomas Browne is noted for the peculiarity of his subjects,
+and his diction. He was born in 1605, and was educated at Oxford. He
+studied medicine, and became a practising physician. He travelled on the
+continent, and returning to England in 1633, he began to write his most
+important work, _Religio Medici_, at once a transcript of his own life and
+a manifesto of what the religion of a physician should be. It was kept in
+manuscript for some time, but was published without his knowledge in 1642.
+He then revised the work, and published several editions himself. No
+description of the treatise can give the reader a just idea of it; it
+requires perusal. The criticism of Dr. Johnson is terse and just: it is
+remarkable, he says, for "the novelty of paradoxes, the dignity of
+sentiment, the quick succession of images, the multitude of abstruse
+allusions, the subtilty of disquisition, and the strength of language." As
+the portraiture of an inner life, it is admirable; and the accusation of
+heterodoxy brought against him on account of a few careless passages is
+unjust.
+
+Among his other works are _Essays on Vulgar Errors_ (_Pseudoxia
+Epidemica_), and _Hydriotaphica_ or _Urne burial_; the latter suggested by
+the exhumation of some sepulchral remains in Norfolk, which led him to
+treat with great learning of the funeral rites of all nations. To this he
+afterwards added _The Garden of Cyrus, or The Quincunxial Lozenge_, in
+which, in the language of Coleridge, he finds quincunxes "in heaven above,
+in the earth below, in the mind of man, in tones, optic nerves, in the
+roots of trees, in leaves, in everything." He died in 1682.
+
+Numerous sects, all finding doctrine and forms in the Bible, were the
+issue of the religious and political controversies of the day. Without
+entering into a consideration or even an enumeration of these, we now
+mention a few of the principal names among them.
+
+
+RICHARD BAXTER.--Among the most devout, independent, and popular of the
+religious writers of the day, Richard Baxter occupies a high rank. He was
+born in 1615, and was ordained a clergyman in 1638. In the civil troubles
+he desired to remain neutral, and he opposed Cromwell when he was made
+Protector. In 1662 he left the Church, and was soon the subject of
+persecution: he was always the champion of toleration. In prison, poor,
+hunted about from place to place, he was a martyr in spirit. During his
+great earthly troubles he was solaced by a vision, which he embodied in
+his popular work, _The Saints' Everlasting Rest_; and he wrote with great
+fervor _A Call to the Unconverted_. He was a very voluminous writer; the
+brutal Judge Jeffries, before whom he appeared for trial, called him "an
+old knave, who had written books enough to load a cart." He wrote a
+paraphrase of the New Testament, and numerous discourses. Dr. Johnson
+advised Boswell, when speaking of Baxter's works: "Read any of them; they
+are all good." He continued preaching until the close of his life, and
+died peacefully in 1691.
+
+
+GEORGE FOX.--The founder of the Society of Friends was born in 1624, in an
+humble condition of life, and at an early age was apprenticed to a
+shoemaker and grazier. Uneducated and unknown, he considered himself as
+the subject of special religious providence, and at length as
+supernaturally called of God. Suddenly abandoning his servile occupation,
+he came out in 1647, at the age of twenty-three, as the founder of a new
+sect; an itinerant preacher, he rebuked the multitudes which he assembled
+by his fervent words. Much of his success was due to his earnestness and
+self-abnegation. He preached in all parts of England, and visited the
+American colonies. The name Quaker is said to have been applied to this
+sect in 1650, when Fox, arraigned before Judge Bennet, told him to
+"tremble at the word of the Lord." The establishment of this sect by such
+a man is one of the strongest illustrations of the eager religious inquiry
+of the age.
+
+The works of Fox are a very valuable _Journal of his Life and Travels_;
+_Letters and Testimonies_; _Gospel Truth Demonstrated_,--all of which form
+the best statement of the origin and tenets of his sect. Fox was a solemn,
+reverent, absorbed man; a great reader and fluent expounder of the
+Scriptures, but fanatical and superstitious; a believer in witchcraft, and
+in his power to detect witches. The sect which he founded, and which has
+played so respectable a part in later history, is far more important than
+the founder himself. He died in London in 1690.
+
+
+WILLIAM PENN.--The fame of Fox in America has been eclipsed by that of his
+chief convert William Penn. In an historical or biographical work, the
+life of Penn would demand extended mention; but his name is introduced
+here only as one of the theological writers of the day. He was born in
+1644, and while a student at Oxford was converted to the Friends' doctrine
+by the preaching of Thomas Loe, a colleague of George Fox. The son of
+Admiral Sir William Penn, he was the ward of James II., and afterwards
+Lord Proprietary and founder of Pennsylvania. Persecuted for his tenets,
+he was frequently imprisoned for his preaching and writings. In 1668 he
+wrote _Truth Exalted_ and _The Sandy Foundation_, and when imprisoned for
+these, he wrote in jail his most famous work, _No Cross, no Crown_.
+
+After the expulsion of James II., Penn was repeatedly tried and acquitted
+for alleged attempts to aid the king in recovering his throne. The
+malignity of Lord Macaulay has reproduced the charges, but reversed, most
+unjustly, the acquittals. His record occupies a large space in American
+history, and he is reverenced for having established a great colony on the
+basis of brotherly love. Poor and infirm, he died in 1718.
+
+
+ROBERT BARCLAY, who was born in 1648, is only mentioned in this connection
+on account of his Latin apology for the Quakers, written in 1676, and
+translated since into English.
+
+
+JOHN BUNYAN.--Among the curious religious outcroppings of the civil war,
+none is more striking and singular than John Bunyan. He produced a work of
+a decidedly polemical character, setting forth his peculiar doctrines,
+and--a remarkable feature in the course of English literature--a story so
+interesting and vivid that it has met with universal perusal and
+admiration. It is at the same time an allegory which has not its equal in
+the language. Rhetoricians must always mention the Pilgrim's Progress as
+the most splendid example of the allegory.
+
+Bunyan was born in Elston, Bedfordshire, in 1628. The son of a tinker, his
+childhood and early manhood were idle and vicious. A sudden and sharp
+rebuke from a woman not much better than himself, for his blasphemy, set
+him to thinking, and he soon became a changed man. In 1653 he joined the
+Baptists, and soon, without preparation, began to preach. For this he was
+thrown into jail, where he remained for more than twelve years. It was
+during this period that, with no other books than the Bible and Fox's Book
+of Martyrs, he excogitated his allegory. In 1672 he was released through
+the influence of Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln. He immediately began to
+preach, and continued to do so until 1688, when he died from a fever
+brought on by exposure.
+
+In his first work, _Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners_, he gives us
+his own experience,--fearful dreams of early childhood, his sins and
+warnings in the parliamentary army, with divers temptations, falls, and
+struggles.
+
+Of his great work, _The Pilgrim's Progress_, it is hardly necessary to
+speak at length. The story of the Pilgrim, Christian, is known to all
+English readers, large and little; how he left the City of Destruction,
+and journeyed towards the Celestial City; of his thrilling adventures; of
+the men and things that retarded his progress, and of those who helped him
+forward. No one has ever discoursed with such vivid description and
+touching pathos of the Land of Beulah, the Delectable Mountains, the
+Christian's inward rapture at the glimpse of the Celestial City, and his
+faith-sustaining descent into the Valley of the Shadow of Death! As a work
+of art, it is inimitable; as a book of religious instruction, it is more
+to be admired for sentiment than for logic; its influence upon children is
+rather that of a high-wrought romance than of godly precept. It is a
+curious reproduction, with a slight difference in cast, of the morality
+play of an earlier time. Mercy, Piety, Christian, Hopeful, Greatheart,
+Faithful, are representatives of Christian graces; and, as in the
+morality, the Prince of Darkness figures as Apollyon.
+
+Bunyan also wrote _The Holy War_, an allegory, which describes the contest
+between Immanuel and Diabolus for the conquest of the city of Mansoul.
+This does not by any means share the popularity of _The Pilgrim's
+Progress_. The language of all his works is common and idiomatic, but
+precise and strong: it is the vigorous English of an unpretending man,
+without the graces of the schools, but expressing his meaning with
+remarkable clearness. Like Milton's Paradise Lost, Bunyan's allegory has
+been improperly placed by many persons on a par with the Bible as a body
+of Christian doctrine, and for instruction in righteousness.
+
+
+ROBERT SOUTH.--This eccentric clergyman was born in 1633. While king's
+scholar at Dr. Busby's school in London, he led the devotions on the day
+of King Charles' execution, and prayed for his majesty by name. At first a
+Puritan, he became a churchman, and took orders. He was learned and
+eloquent; but his sermons, which were greatly admired at the time, contain
+many oddities, forced conceits, and singular anti-climaxes, which gained
+for him the appellation of the witty churchman.
+
+He is accused of having been too subservient to Charles II.; and he also
+is considered as displaying not a little vindictiveness in his attacks on
+his former colleagues the Puritans. He is only known to this age by his
+sermons, which are still published and read.
+
+
+
+OTHER THEOLOGICAL WRITERS.
+
+
+_Isaac Barrow_, 1630-1677: a man of varied learning, a traveller in the
+East, and an oriental scholar. He was appointed Professor of Greek at
+Cambridge, and also lectured on Mathematics. He was a profound thinker and
+a weighty writer, principally known by his courses of sermons on the
+Decalogue, the Creed, and the Sacraments.
+
+_Edward Stillingfleet_, 1635-1699: a clergyman of the Church of England,
+he was appointed Bishop of Worcester. Many of his sermons have been
+published. Among his treatises is one entitled, _Irenicum, a Weapon-Salve
+for the Churches Wounds, or the Divine Right of Particular Forms of Church
+Government Discussed and Examined_. "The argument," says Bishop Burnet,
+"was managed with so much learning and skill that none of either side ever
+undertook to answer it." He also wrote _Origines Sacræ, or a Rational
+Account of the Christian Faith_, and various treatises in favor of
+Protestantism and against the Church of Rome.
+
+_William Sherlock_, 1678-1761: he was Dean of St. Paul's, and a writer of
+numerous doctrinal discourses, among which are those on _The Trinity_, and
+on _Death and the Future Judgment_. His son, Thomas Sherlock, D.D., born
+1678, was also a distinguished theological writer.
+
+_Gilbert Burnet_, 1643-1715: he was very much of a politician, and played
+a prominent part in the Revolution. He was made Bishop of Salisbury in
+1689. He is principally known by his _History of the Reformation_, written
+in the Protestant interest, and by his greater work, the _History of my
+Own Times_. Not without a decided bias, this latter work is specially
+valuable as the narration of an eye-witness. The history has been
+variously criticized for prejudice and inaccuracy; but it fills what would
+otherwise have been a great vacuum in English historical literature.
+
+_John Locke_, 1632-1704. In a history of philosophy, the name of this
+distinguished philosopher would occupy a prominent place, and his works
+would require extended notice. But it is not amiss to introduce him
+briefly in this connection, because his works all have an ethical
+significance. He was educated as a physician, and occupied several
+official positions, in which he suffered from the vicissitudes of
+political fortune, being once obliged to retreat from persecution to
+Holland. His _Letters on Toleration_ is a noble effort to secure the
+freedom of conscience: his _Treatises on Civil Government_ were specially
+designed to refute Sir John Filmer's _Patriarcha_, and to overthrow the
+principle of the _Jus Divinum_. His greatest work is an _Essay on the
+Human Understanding_. This marks an era in English thought, and has done
+much to invite attention to the subject of intellectual philosophy. He
+derives our ideas from the two sources, _sensation_ and _reflection_; and
+although many of his views have been superseded by the investigations of
+later philosophers, it is due to him in some degree that their inquiries
+have been possible.
+
+
+
+DIARISTS AND ANTIQUARIANS.
+
+
+_John Evelyn_, 1620-1705. Among the unintentional historians of England,
+none are of more value than those who have left detailed and gossiping
+diaries of the times in which they lived: among these Evelyn occupies a
+prominent place. He was a gentleman of education and position, who, after
+the study of law, travelled extensively, and resided several years in
+France. He had varied accomplishments. His _Sylva_ is a discourse on
+forest trees and on the propagation of timber in his majesty's dominions.
+To this he afterwards added _Pomona_, or a treatise on fruit trees. He was
+also the author of an essay on _A Parallel of the Ancient Architecture
+with the Modern_. But the work by which he is now best known is his
+_Diary_ from 1641 to 1705; it is a necessary companion to the study of
+the history of that period; and has been largely consulted by modern
+writers in making up the historic record of the time.
+
+_Samuel Pepys_, 1637-1703. This famous diarist was the son of a London
+tailor. He received a collegiate education, and became a connoisseur in
+literature and art. Of a prying disposition, he saw all that he could of
+the varied political, literary, and social life of England; and has
+recorded what he saw in a diary so quaint, simple, and amusing, that it
+has retained its popularity to the present day, and has greatly aided the
+historian both in facts and philosophy. He held an official position as
+secretary in the admiralty, the duties of which he discharged with great
+system and skill. In addition to this _Diary_, we have also his
+_Correspondence_, published after his death, which is historically of
+great importance. In both diary and correspondence he has the charm of
+great _naïveté_,--as of a curious and gossiping observer, who never
+dreamed that his writings would be made public. Men and women of social
+station are painted in pre-Raphaelite style, and figure before us with
+great truth and vividness.
+
+_Elias Ashmole_, 1617-1693. This antiquarian and virtuoso is principally
+known as the founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. He studied law,
+chemistry, and natural philosophy. Besides an edition of the manuscript
+works of certain English chemists, he wrote _Bennevennu_,--the description
+of a Roman road mentioned in the Itinerary of Antoninus,--and a _History
+of the Order of the Garter_. His _Diary_ was published nearly a century
+after his death, but is by no means equal in value to those of Evelyn and
+Pepys.
+
+_John Aubrey_, 1627-1697: a man of curious mind, Aubrey investigated the
+supernatural topics of the day, and presented them to the world in his
+_Miscellanies_. Among these subjects it is interesting to notice "blows
+invisible," and "knockings," which have been resuscitated in the present
+day. He was a "perambulator," and, in the words of one of his critics,
+"picked up information on the highway, and scattered it everywhere as
+authentic." His most valuable contribution to history is found in his
+_Letters Written by Eminent Persons in the 17th and 18th Centuries, with
+Lives of Eminent Men_. The searcher for authentic material must carefully
+scrutinize Aubrey's _facts_; but, with much that is doubtful, valuable
+information may be obtained from his pages.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE DRAMA OF THE RESTORATION.
+
+
+   The License of the Age. Dryden. Wycherley. Congreve. Vanbrugh.
+   Farquhar. Etherege. Tragedy. Otway. Rowe. Lee. Southern.
+
+
+
+THE LICENSE OF THE AGE.
+
+
+There is no portion of the literature of this period which so fully
+represents and explains the social history of the age as the drama. With
+the restoration of Charles it returned to England, after a time in which
+the chief faults had been too great rigor in morals. The theatres had been
+closed, all amusements checked, and even poetry and the fine arts placed
+under a ban. In the reign of Charles I., Prynne had written his _Histrio
+Mastix_, or Scourge of the Stage, in which he not only denounced all stage
+plays, but music and dancing; and also declaimed against hunting, festival
+days, the celebration of Christmas, and Maypoles. For this he was indicted
+in the Star Chamber for libel, and was sentenced to stand in the pillory,
+to lose his ears, to pay the king a fine of £5000, and to be imprisoned
+for life. For his attack there was much excuse in the license of the
+former period; but when puritanism, in its turn, was brought under the
+three spears, the drama was to come back tenfold more injurious and more
+immoral than before.
+
+From the stern and gloomy morals of the Commonwealth we now turn to the
+debaucheries of the court,--from cropped heads and dark cloaks to plumes
+and velvet, gold lace and embroidery,--to the varied fashions of every
+kind for which Paris has always been renowned, and which Charles brought
+back with him from his exile;--from prudish morals to indiscriminate
+debauchery; from the exercisings of brewers' clerks, the expounding of
+tailors, the catechizing of watermen, to the stage, which was now loudly
+petitioned to supply amusement and novelty. Macaulay justly says: "The
+restraints of that gloomy time were such as would have been impatiently
+borne, if imposed by men who were universally believed to be saints; these
+restraints became altogether insupportable when they were known to be kept
+up for the profit of hypocrites! It is quite certain that if the royal
+family had never returned, there would have been a great relaxation of
+manners." It is equally certain, let us add, that morals would not have
+been correspondingly relaxed. The revulsion was terrible. In no period of
+English history was society ever so grossly immoral; and the drama, which
+we now come to consider, displays this immorality and license with a
+perfect delineation.
+
+The English people had always been fond of the drama in all its forms, and
+were ready to receive it even contaminated as it was by the licentious
+spirit of the time. An illiterate and ignorant people cannot think for
+themselves; they act upon the precepts and example of those above them in
+knowledge and social station: thus it is that a dissolute monarch and a
+subservient aristocracy corrupt the masses.
+
+
+DRYDEN'S PLAYS.--Although Dryden's reputation is based on his other poems,
+and although his dramas have conduced scarcely at all to his fame, he did
+play a principal part in this department of literary work. Dryden made
+haste to answer the call, and his venal muse wrote to please the town. The
+names of many of his plays and personages are foreign; but their vitality
+is purely English. Of his first play, _The Duke of Guise_, which was
+unsuccessful, he tells us: "I undertook this as the fairest way which the
+Act of Indemnity had left us, as setting forth the rise of the great
+rebellion, and of exposing the villanies of it upon the stage, to
+precaution posterity against the like errors;"--a rebellion the
+master-spirit of which he had eulogized upon his bier!
+
+His second play, _The Wild Gallant_, may be judged by the fact that it won
+for him the favor of Charles II. and of his mistress, the Duchess of
+Cleveland. Pepys saw it "well acted;" but says, "It hath little good in
+it." It is not our purpose to give a list of Dryden's plays; besides their
+occasional lewdness, they are very far inferior to his poems, and are now
+rarely read except by the historical student. They paid him in ready
+money, and he cannot ask payment from posterity in fame.
+
+On the 13th of January, 1667-8, (we are told by Pepys,) the ladies and the
+Duke of Monmouth acted _The Indian Emperour_ at court.
+
+The same chronicler says: _The Maiden Queene_ was "mightily commended for
+the regularity of it, and the strain and wit;" but of the _Ladys à la
+Mode_ he says it was "so mean a thing" that, when it was announced for the
+next night, the pit "fell a laughing, because the house was not a quarter
+full."
+
+But Dryden, as a playwright, does not enjoy the infamous honor of a high
+rank among his fellow-dramatists. The proper representations of the drama
+in that age were, in Comedy, Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar;
+and, in Tragedy, Otway, Rowe, and Lee.
+
+
+WYCHERLEY.--Of the comedists of this period, where all were evil, William
+Wycherley was the worst. In his four plays, _Love in a Wood_, _The
+Gentleman Dancing-Master_, _The Country Wife_, and _The Plain Dealer_, he
+outrages all decency, ridicules honesty and virtue, and makes vice always
+triumphant. As a young man, profligate with pen and in his life, he was a
+wicked old man; for, when sixty-four years of age, he published a
+miscellany of verses of which Macaulay says: "The style and versification
+are beneath criticism: the morals are those of Rochester." And yet it is
+sad to be obliged to say that his characters pleased the age, because such
+men and women really lived then, and acted just as he describes them. He
+depicted vice to applaud and not to punish it. Wycherley was born in 1640,
+and died in 1715.
+
+
+CONGREVE.--William Congreve, who is of the same school of morals, is far
+superior as a writer; indeed, were one name to be selected in illustration
+of our subject, it would be his. He was born in 1666, and, after being
+educated at Trinity College, Dublin, was a student at the Middle Temple.
+His first play, _The Old Bachelor_, produced in his twenty-first year, was
+a great success, and won for him the patronage of Lord Halifax. His next,
+_The Double Dealer_, caused Dryden to proclaim him the equal of
+Shakspeare! Perhaps his most famous comedy is _Love for Love_, which is
+besides an excellent index to the morality of the age. The author was
+quoted and caressed; Pope dedicated to him his Translation of the Iliad;
+and Voltaire considered him the most successful English writer of comedy.
+His merit consists in some degree of originality, and in the liveliness of
+his colloquies. His wit is brilliant and flashing, but, in the words of
+Thackeray, the world to him "seems to have had no moral at all."
+
+How much he owed to the French school, and especially to Molière, may be
+judged from the fact that a whole scene in _Love for Love_ is borrowed
+from the _Don Juan_ of Molière. It is that in which Trapland comes to
+collect his debt from Valentine Legend. Readers of Molière will recall the
+scene between Don Juan, Sganarelle and M. Dimanche, which is here, with
+change of names, taken almost word for word. His men are gallants neither
+from love or passion, but from the custom of the age, of which it is said,
+"it would break Mr. Tattle's heart to think anybody else should be
+beforehand with him;" and Mr. Tattle was the type of a thousand fine
+gentlemen in the best English society of that day.
+
+His only tragedy, _The Mourning Bride_, although far below those of
+Shakspeare, is the best of that age; and Dr. Johnson says he would go to
+it to find the most poetical paragraph in the range of English poetry.
+Congreve died in 1729, leaving his gains to the Duchess of Marlborough,
+who cherished his memory in a very original fashion. She had a statue of
+him in ivory, which went by clockwork, and was daily seated at her table;
+and another wax-doll imitation, whose feet she caused to be blistered and
+anointed by physicians, as the poet's gouty extremities had been.
+
+Congreve was not ashamed to vindicate the drama, licentious as it was. In
+the year 1698, Jeremy Collier, a distinguished nonjuring clergyman,
+published _A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English
+Stage_; a very vigorous and severe criticism, containing a great deal of
+wholesome but bitter truth. Congreve came to the defence of the stage, and
+his example was followed by his brother dramatists. But Collier was too
+strong for his enemies, and the defences were very weak. There yet existed
+in England that leaven of purity which has steadily since been making its
+influence felt.
+
+
+VANBRUGH.--Sir John Vanbrugh (born in 1666, died in 1726) was an architect
+as well as a dramatist, but not great in either rôle. His principal dramas
+are _The Provoked Wife_, _The City Wives' Confederacy_, and _The Journey
+to London_ (finished by Colley Cibber). His personages are vicious and
+lewd, but quite real; and his wit is constant and flowing. _The Provoked
+Wife_ is so licentious a play that it is supposed Vanbrugh afterwards
+conceived and began his _Provoked Husband_ to make some amends for it.
+This latter play, however, he did not complete: it was finished after his
+death by Cibber, who says in the Prologue:
+
+    This play took birth from principles of truth,
+    To make amends for errors past of youth.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Though vice is natural, 't was never meant
+    The stage should show it but for punishment.
+    Warm with such thoughts, his muse once more took flame,
+    Resolved to bring licentious life to shame.
+
+If Vanbrugh was not born in France, it is certain that he spent many years
+there, and there acquired the taste and handling of the comic drama, which
+then had its halcyon days under Molière. His dialogue is very spirited,
+and his humor is greater than that of Congreve, who, however, excelled him
+in wit.
+
+The principal architectural efforts of Vanbrugh were the design for Castle
+Howard, and the palace of Blenheim, built for Marlborough by the English
+nation, both of which are greater titles to enduring reputation than any
+of his plays.
+
+
+FARQUHAR.--George Farquhar was born in Londonderry, in 1678, and began his
+studies at Trinity College, Dublin, but was soon stage-struck, and became
+an actor. Not long after, he was commissioned in the army, and began to
+write plays in the style and moral tone of the age. Among his nine
+comedies, those which present that tone best are his _Love in a Bottle_,
+_The Constant Couple_, _The Recruiting Officer_, and _The Beaux'
+Stratagem_. All his productions were hastily written, but met with great
+success from their gayety and clever plots, especially the last two
+mentioned, which are not, besides, so immoral as the others, and which are
+yet acted upon the British stage.
+
+
+ETHEREGE.--Sir George Etherege, a coxcomb and a diplomatist, was born in
+1636, and died in 1694. His plays are, equally with the others mentioned,
+marked by the licentiousness of the age, which is rendered more insidious
+by their elegance. Among them are _The Comical Revenge, or Love in a
+Tub_, and _The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter_.
+
+
+
+TRAGEDY.
+
+
+The domain of tragedy, although perhaps not so attractive to the English
+people as comedy, was still sufficiently so to invite the attention of the
+literati. The excitement which is produced by exaggerated scenes of
+distress and death has always had a charm for the multitude; and although
+the principal tragedies of this period are based upon heroic stories, many
+of them of classic origin, the genius of the writer displayed itself in
+applying these to his own times, and in introducing that "touch of nature"
+which "makes the whole world kin." Human sympathy is based upon a
+community of suffering, and the sorrows of one age are similar to those of
+another. Besides, tragedy served, in the period of which we are speaking,
+to give variety and contrast to what would otherwise have been the gay
+monotony of the comic muse.
+
+
+OTWAY.--The first writer to be mentioned in this field, is Thomas Otway
+(born in 1651, died in 1685). He led an irregular and wretched life, and
+died, it is said, from being choked by a roll of bread which, after great
+want, he was eating too ravenously.
+
+His style is extravagant, his pathos too exacting, and his delineation of
+the passions sensational and overwrought. He produced in his earlier
+career _Alcibiades_ and _Don Carlos_, and, later, _The Orphan_, and _The
+Soldier's Fortune_. But the piece by which his fame was secured is _Venice
+Preserved_, which, based upon history, is fictional in its details. The
+original story is found in the Abbé de St. Real's _Histoire de la
+Conjuration du Marquis de Bedamar_, or the account of a Spanish conspiracy
+in which the marquis, who was ambassador, took part. It is still put upon
+the stage, with the omission, however, of the licentious comic portions
+found in the original play.
+
+
+NICHOLAS ROWE, who was born in 1673, a man of fortune and a government
+official, produced seven tragedies, of which _The Fair Penitent_, _Lady
+Jane Grey_, and _Jane Shore_ are the best. His description of the lover,
+in the first, has become a current phrase: "That haughty, gallant, gay
+Lothario,"--the prototype of false lovers since. The plots are too broad,
+but the moral of these tragedies is in most cases good.
+
+In _Jane Shore_, he has followed the history of the royal mistress, and
+has given a moral lesson of great efficacy.
+
+
+NATHANIEL LEE, 1657-1692: was a man of dissolute life, for some time
+insane, and met his death in a drunken brawl. Of his ten tragedies, the
+best are _The Rival Queens_, and _Theodosius, or The Force of Love_. The
+rival queens of Alexander the Great--Roxana and Statira--figure in the
+first, which is still presented upon the stage. It has been called, with
+just critical point, "A great and glorious flight of a bold but frenzied
+imagination, having as much absurdity as sublimity, and as much
+extravagance as passion; the poet, the genius, the scholar are everywhere
+visible."
+
+
+THOMAS SOUTHERN, 1659-1746: wrote _Isabella, or The Fatal Marriage_, and
+_Oronooko_. In the latter, although yielding to the corrupt taste of the
+time in his comic parts, he causes his captive Indian prince to teach that
+period a lesson by his pure and noble love for Imoinda. Oronooko is a
+prince taken by the English at Surinam and carried captive to England.
+
+These writers are the best representatives of those who in tragedy and
+comedy form the staple of that age. Their models were copied in succeeding
+years; but, with the expulsion of the Stuarts, morals were somewhat
+mended; and while light, gay, and witty productions for the stage were
+still in demand, the extreme licentiousness was repudiated by the public;
+and the plays of Cibber, Cumberland, Colman, and Sheridan, reflecting
+these better tastes, are free from much of the pollution to which we have
+referred.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+POPE, AND THE ARTIFICIAL SCHOOL.
+
+
+   Contemporary History. Birth and Early Life. Essay on Criticism. Rape of
+   the Lock. The Messiah. The Iliad. Value of the Translation. The
+   Odyssey. Essay on Man. The Artificial School. Estimate of Pope. Other
+   Writers.
+
+
+
+Alexander Pope is at once one of the greatest names in English literature
+and one of the most remarkable illustrations of the fact that the
+literature is the interpreter of English history. He was also a man of
+singular individuality, and may, in some respects, be considered a _lusus
+naturæ_ among the literary men of his day.
+
+
+CONTEMPORARY HISTORY.--He was born in London on the 21st of May, 1688, the
+year which witnessed the second and final expulsion of the Stuarts, in
+direct line, and the accession of a younger branch in the persons of Mary
+and her husband, William of Orange. Pope comes upon the literary scene
+with the new order of political affairs. A dynasty had been overthrown,
+and the power of the parliament had been established; new charters of
+right had secured the people from kingly oppression; but there was still a
+strong element of opposition and sedition in the Jacobite party, which had
+by no means abandoned the hope of restoring the former rule. They were
+kept in check, indeed, during the reign of William and Mary, but they
+became bolder upon the accession of Queen Anne. They hoped to find their
+efforts facilitated by the fact that she was childless; and they even
+asserted that upon her death-bed she had favored the succession of the
+pretender, whom they called James III.
+
+In 1715, the year after the accession of George I., the electoral prince
+of Hanover,--whose grandmother was the daughter of James I.,--they broke
+out into open rebellion. The pretender landed in Scotland, and made an
+abortive attempt to recover the throne. The nation was kept in a state of
+excitement and turmoil until the disaster of Culloden, and the final
+defeat of Charles Edward, the young pretender, in 1745, one year after the
+death of Pope.
+
+These historical facts had a direct influence upon English society: the
+country was divided into factions; and political conflicts sharpened the
+wits and gave vigor to the conduct of men in all ranks. Pope was an
+interpreter of his age, in politics, in general culture, and in social
+manners and morals. Thus he was a politician among the statesmen
+Bolingbroke, Buckingham, Oxford, Sunderland, Halifax, Harley, and
+Marlborough. His _Essay on Criticism_ presents to us the artificial taste
+and technical rules which were established as a standard in literature.
+His _Essay on Man_, his _Moral Epistles_, and his _Universal Prayer_ are
+an index to the semi-Christian, semi-Grecian ethics of an age too selfish
+to be orthodox, and too progressive to be intolerant. His _Rape of the
+Lock_ is a striking picture of social life, sketched by the hand of a
+gentle satire. His translations of Homer, and their great success, are
+significant of a more extended taste for scholarship; not attended,
+however, with many incentives to originality of production. The nobles
+were still the patrons of literature, and they fancied old things which
+were grand, in new and gaudy English dresses. The age was also marked by
+rapid and uniform progress in the English language. The sonorous, but
+cumbrous English of Milton had been greatly improved by Dryden; and we
+have seen, also, that the terse and somewhat crude diction of Dryden's
+earlier works had been polished and rendered more harmonious in his later
+poems.
+
+This harmony of language seemed to Pope and to his patrons the chief aim
+of the poet, and to make it still more tuneful and melodious was the
+purpose of his life.
+
+
+BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE.--Pope was the son of a respectable linen-draper, who
+had achieved a competency and retired to enjoy it. The mother of the poet
+must have been a good one, to have retained the ardent and eulogistic
+affection of her son to the close of her life, as she did. This attachment
+is a marked feature in his biography, and at last finds vent in her
+epitaph, in which he calls her "_mater optima, mulierum amantissima_."
+
+Pope was a sickly, dwarfed, precocious child. His early studies in Latin
+and Greek were conducted by priests of the Roman Catholic Church, to which
+his parents belonged; but he soon took his education into his own hands.
+Alone and unaided he pursued his classical studies, and made good progress
+in French and German.
+
+Of his early rhyming powers he says:
+
+    "I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came."
+
+At the age of twelve, he was taken to Will's Coffee-house, to see the
+great Dryden, upon whom, as a model, he had already determined to fashion
+himself.
+
+His first efforts were translations. He made English versions of the first
+book of the _Thebais_ of Statius; several of the stories of Chaucer, and
+one of Ovid's Epistles, all of which were produced before he was fifteen.
+
+
+ESSAY ON CRITICISM.--He was not quite twenty-one when he wrote his _Essay
+on Criticism_, in which he lays down the canons of just criticism, and the
+causes which prevent it. In illustration, he attacks the multitude of
+critics of that day, and is particularly harsh in his handling of a few
+among them. He gained a name by this excellent poem, but he made many
+enemies, and among them one John Dennis, whom he had satirized under the
+name of Appius. Dennis was his life-long foe.
+
+Perhaps there is no better proof of the lasting and deserved popularity of
+this Essay, than the numerous quotations from it, not only in works on
+rhetoric and literary criticism, but in our ordinary intercourse with men.
+Couplets and lines have become household words wherever the English
+language is spoken. How often do we hear the sciolist condemned in these
+words:
+
+    A little learning is a dangerous thing;
+    Drink deep, or touch not the Pierian spring?
+
+Irreverence and rash speculation are satirized thus:
+
+    Nay, fly to altars; there they'll talk you dead,
+    For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
+
+We may waive a special notice of his _Pastorals_, which, like those of
+Dryden, are but clever imitations of Theocritus and anachronisms of the
+Alexandrian period. Of their merits, we may judge from his own words. "If
+they have any merit, it is to be attributed to some good old authors,
+whose works as I had leisure to study, so I hope I have not wanted care to
+imitate."
+
+
+RAPE OF THE LOCK.--The poem which displays most originality of invention
+is the _Rape of the Lock_. It is, perhaps, the best and most charming
+specimen of the mock-heroic to be found in English; and it is specially
+deserving of attention, because it depicts the social life of the period
+in one of its principal phases. Miss Arabella Fermor, one of the reigning
+beauties of London society, while on a pleasure party on the Thames, had a
+lock of her hair surreptitiously cut off by Lord Petre. Although it was
+designed as a joke, the belle was very angry; and Pope, who was a friend
+of both persons, wrote this poem to assuage her wrath and to reconcile
+them. It has all the system and construction of an epic. The poet
+describes, with becoming delicacy, the toilet of the lady, at which she is
+attended by obsequious sylphs.
+
+The party embark upon the river, and the fair lady is described in the
+splendor of her charms:
+
+    This nymph, to the destruction of mankind,
+    Nourished two locks, which graceful hung behind
+    In equal curls, and well conspired to deck,
+    With shining ringlets, the smooth, ivory neck.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare.
+    And beauty draws us by a single hair.
+
+Surrounding sylphs protect the beauty; and one to whom the lock has been
+given in charge, flutters unfortunately too near, and is clipped in two by
+the scissors that cut the lock. It is a rather extravagant conclusion,
+even in a mock-heroic poem, that when the strife was greatest to restore
+the lock, it flew upward:
+
+    A sudden star, it shot through liquid air,
+    And drew behind a radiant trail of hair,
+
+and thus, and always, it
+
+    Adds new glory to the shining sphere.
+
+With these simple and meagre materials, Pope has constructed an harmonious
+poem in which the sylphs, gnomes, and other sprites of the Rosicrucian
+philosophy find appropriate place and service. It failed in its principal
+purpose of reconciliation, but it has given us the best mock-heroic poem
+in the language. As might have been expected, it called forth bitter
+criticisms from Dennis; and there were not wanting those who saw in it a
+political significance. Pope's pleasantry was aroused at this, and he
+published _A Key to the Lock_, in which he further mystifies these sage
+readers: Belinda becomes Great Britain; the Baron is the Earl of Oxford;
+and Thalestris is the Duchess of Marlborough.
+
+
+THE MESSIAH.--In 1712 there appeared in one of the numbers of _The
+Spectator_, his _Messiah, a Sacred Eclogue_, written with the purpose of
+harmonizing the prophecy of Isaiah and the singular oracles of the Pollio,
+or Fourth Eclogue of Virgil. Elevated in thought and grand in diction, the
+Messiah has kept its hold upon public favor ever since, and portions of it
+are used as hymns in general worship. Among these will be recognized that
+of which the opening lines are:
+
+    Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise;
+    Exalt thy towering head and lift thine eyes.
+
+In 1713 he published a poem on _Windsor Forest_, and an _Ode on St.
+Cecilia's Day_, in imitation of Dryden. He also furnished the beautiful
+prologue to Addison's Cato.
+
+
+TRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD.--He now proposed to himself a task which was to
+give him more reputation and far greater emolument than anything he had
+yet accomplished--a translation of the Iliad of Homer. This was a great
+desideratum, and men of all parties conspired to encourage and reward him.
+Chapman's Homer, excellent as it was, was not in a popular measure, and
+was known only to scholars.
+
+In the execution of this project, Pope labored for six years--writing by
+day and dreaming of his work at night; translating thirty or forty lines
+before rising in the morning, and jotting down portions even while on a
+journey. Pope's polished pentameters, when read, are very unlike the
+full-voiced hexameters of Homer; but the errors in the translation are
+comparatively few and unimportant, and his own poetry is in his best vein.
+The poem was published by subscription, and was a great pecuniary success.
+This was in part due to the blunt importunity of Dean Swift, who said:
+"The author shall not begin to print until I have a thousand guineas for
+him." Parnell, one of the most accomplished Greek scholars of the day,
+wrote a life of Homer, to be prefixed to the work; and many of the
+critical notes were written by Broome, who had translated the Iliad into
+English prose. Pope was not without poetical rivals. Tickell produced a
+translation of the first book of the Iliad, which was certainly revised,
+and many thought partly written, by Addison. A coolness already existing
+between Pope and Addison was increased by this circumstance, which soon
+led to an open rupture between them. The public, however, favored Pope's
+version, while a few of the _dilettanti_ joined Addison in preferring
+Tickell's.
+
+The pecuniary results of Pope's labors were particularly gratifying. The
+work was published in six quarto volumes, and had more than six hundred
+subscribers, at six guineas a copy: the amount realized by Pope on the
+first and subsequent issues was upwards of five thousand pounds--an
+unprecedented payment of bookseller to author in that day.
+
+
+VALUE OF THE TRANSLATION.--This work, in spite of the criticism of exact
+scholars, has retained its popularity to the present time. Chapman's Homer
+has been already referred to. Since the days of Pope numerous authors have
+tried their hands upon Homer, translating the whole or a part. Among these
+is a very fine poem by Cowper, in blank verse, which is praised by the
+critics, but little read. Lord Derby's translation is distinguished for
+its prosaic accuracy. The recent version of our venerable poet, Wm. C.
+Bryant, is acknowledged to be at once scholarly, accurate, and harmonious,
+and will be of permanent value and reputation. But the exquisite tinkling
+of Pope's lines, the pleasant refrain they leave in the memory, like the
+chiming of silver bells, will cause them to last, with undiminished favor,
+unaffected by more correct rivals, as long as the language itself. "A very
+pretty poem, Mr. Pope," said the great Bentley; "but pray do not call it
+Homer." Despite this criticism of the Greek scholar, the world has taken
+it for Homer, and knows Homer almost solely through this charming medium.
+
+The Iliad was issued in successive years, the last two volumes appearing
+in 1720. Of course it was savagely attacked by Dennis; but Pope had won
+more than he had hoped for, and might laugh at his enemies.
+
+With the means he had inherited, increased by the sale of his poem, Pope
+leased a villa on the Thames, at Twickenham, which he fitted up as a
+residence for life. He laid out the grounds, built a grotto, and made his
+villa a famous spot.
+
+Here he was smitten by the masculine charms of the gifted Lady Mary
+Wortley Montagu, who figures in many of his verses, and particularly in
+the closing lines of the _Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard_. It was a singular
+alliance, destined to a speedy rupture. On her return from Turkey, in
+1718, where her husband had been the English ambassador, she took a home
+near Pope's villa, and, at his request, sat for her portrait. When, later,
+they became estranged, she laughed at the poet, and his coldness turned
+into hatred.
+
+
+THE ODYSSEY.--The success of his version of the Iliad led to his
+translation of the Odyssey; but this he did with the collaboration of
+Fenton and Broome, the former writing four and the latter six books. The
+volumes appeared successively in 1725-6, and there was an appendix
+containing the _Batrachomiomachia_, or Battle of the Frogs and Mice,
+translated by Parnell. For this work Pope received the lion's share of
+profits, his co-laborers being paid only £800.
+
+Among his miscellaneous works must be mentioned portions of _Martinus
+Scriblerus_. One of these, _Peri Bathous_, or _Art of Sinking in Poetry_,
+was the germ of The Dunciad.
+
+Like Dryden, he was attacked by the _soi-disant_ poets of the day, and
+retorted in similar style and taste. In imitation of Dryden's
+_MacFlecknoe_, he wrote _The Dunciad_, or epic of the Dunces, in the first
+edition of which Theobald was promoted to the vacant throne. It roused a
+great storm. Authors besieged the publisher to hinder him from publishing
+it, while booksellers and agents were doing all in their power to procure
+it. In a later edition a new book was added, deposing Theobald and
+elevating Colley Cibber to the throne of Dulness. This was ill-advised, as
+the ridicule, which was justly applied to Theobald, is not applicable to
+Cibber.
+
+
+ESSAY ON MAN.--The intercourse of the poet with the gifted but sceptical
+Lord Bolingbroke is apparent in his _Essay on Man_, in which, with much
+that is orthodox and excellent, the principles and influence of his
+lordship are readily discerned. The first part appeared in 1732, and the
+second some years later. The opinion is no longer held that Bolingbroke
+wrote any part of the poem; he has only infected it. It is one of Pope's
+best poems in versification and diction, and abounds with pithy proverbial
+sayings, which the English world has been using ever since as current
+money in conversational barter. Among many that might be selected, the
+following are well known:
+
+    All are but parts of one stupendous whole
+    Whose body nature is, and God the soul.
+
+    Know thou thyself, presume not God to scan;
+    The proper study of mankind is man.
+
+    A wit's a feather, and a chief's a rod;
+    An honest man's the noblest work of God.
+
+Among the historical teachings of Pope's works and career, and also among
+the curiosities of literature, must be noticed the publication of Pope's
+letters, by Curll the bookseller, without the poet's permission. They were
+principally letters to Henry Cromwell, Wycherley, Congreve, Steele,
+Addison, and Swift. There were not wanting those who believed that it was
+a trick of the poet himself to increase his notoriety; but such an
+opinion is hardly warranted. These letters form a valuable chapter in the
+social and literary history of the period.
+
+
+POPE'S DEATH AND CHARACTER.--On the 30th of May, 1744, Pope passed away,
+after a long illness, during which he said he was "dying of a hundred good
+symptoms." Indeed, so frail and weak had he always been, that it was a
+wonder he lived so long. His weakness of body seems to have acted upon his
+strong mind, which must account for much that is satirical and splenetic
+in his writings. Very short, thin, and ill-shaped, his person wanted the
+compactness necessary to stand alone, until it was encased in stays. He
+needed a high chair at table, such as children use; but he was an epicure,
+and a fastidious one; and despite his infirmities, his bright,
+intellectual eye and his courtly manners caused him to be noted quite as
+much as his defects.
+
+
+THE ARTIFICIAL SCHOOL.--Pope has been set forth as the head of the
+_Artificial School_. This is, perhaps, rather a convenient than an exact
+designation. He had little of original genius, but was an apt imitator and
+reproducer--what in painting would be an excellent copyist. His greatest
+praise, however, is that he reduced to system what had gone before him;
+his poems present in themselves an art of poetry, with technical canons
+and illustrations, which were long after servilely obeyed, and the
+influence of which is still felt to-day.
+
+And this artificial school was in the main due to the artificial character
+of the age. Nature seemed to have lost her charms; pastorals were little
+more than private theatricals, enacted with straw hats and shepherd's
+crook in drawing-rooms or on close-clipped lawns. Culture was confined to
+court and town, and poets found little inducement to consult the heart or
+to woo nature, but wrote what would please the town or court. This taste
+gave character to the technical standards, to which Pope, more than any
+other writer, gave system and coherence. Most of the literati were men of
+the town; many were fine gentlemen with a political bias; and thus it is
+that the school of poets of which Pope is the unchallenged head, has been
+known as the Artificial School.
+
+In the passage of time, and with the increase of literature, the real
+merits of Pope were for some time neglected, or misrepresented. The world
+is beginning to discern and recognize these again. Learned, industrious,
+self-reliant, controversial, and, above all, harmonious, instead of giving
+vent to the highest fancies in simple language, he has treated the
+common-place--that which is of universal interest--in melodious and
+splendid diction. But, above all, he stands as the representative of his
+age: a wit among the comic dramatists who were going out and the essayists
+who were coming in; a man of the world with Lady Mary and the gay parties
+on the Thames; a polemic, who dealt keen thrusts and who liked to see them
+rankle, and who yet writhed in agony when the _riposte_ came; a Roman
+Catholic in faith and a latitudinarian in speech;--such was Pope as a type
+of that world in which he lived.
+
+A poet of the first rank he was not; he invented nothing; but he
+established the canons of poetry, attuned to exquisite harmony the rhymed
+couplet which Dryden had made so powerful an instrument, improved the
+language, discerned and reconnected the discordant parts of literature;
+and thus it is that he towers above all the poets of his age, and has sent
+his influence through those that followed, even to the present day.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE PERIOD.
+
+
+_Matthew Prior_, 1664-1721: in his early youth he was a waiter in his
+uncle's tap-room, but, surmounting all difficulties, he rose to be a
+distinguished poet and diplomatist. He was an envoy to France, where he
+was noted for his wit and ready repartee. His love songs are somewhat
+immoral, but exquisitely melodious. His chief poems are: _Alma_, a
+philosophic piece in the vein of Hudibras; _Solomon_, a Scripture poem;
+and, the best of all, _The City and Country Mouse_, a parody on Dryden's
+_Hind and Panther_, which he wrote in conjunction with Mr. Montague. He
+was imprisoned by the Whigs in 1715, and lost all his fortune. He was
+distinguished by having Dr. Johnson as his biographer, in the _Lives of
+the Poets_.
+
+_John Arbuthnot_, 1667-1735: born in Scotland. He was learned, witty, and
+amiable. Eminent in medicine, he was physician to the court of Queen Anne.
+He is chiefly known in literature as the companion of Pope and Swift, and
+as the writer with them of papers in the Martinus Scriblerus Club, which
+was founded in 1714, and of which Pope, Gay, Swift, Arbuthnot, Harvey,
+Atterbury, and others, were the principal members. Arbuthnot wrote a
+_History of John Bull_, which was designed to render the war then carried
+on by Marlborough unpopular, and certainly conduced to that end.
+
+_John Gay_, 1688-1732: he was of humble origin, but rose by his talents,
+and figured at court. He wrote several dramas in a mock-tragic vein. Among
+these are _What D'ye Call It?_ and _Three Hours after Marriage_; but that
+which gave him permanent reputation is his _Beggar's Opera_, of which the
+hero is a highwayman, and the characters are prostitutes and Newgate
+gentry. It is interspersed with gay and lyrical songs, and was rendered
+particularly effective by the fine acting of Miss Elizabeth Fenton, in the
+part of _Polly_. The _Shepherd's Week_, a pastoral, contains more real
+delineations of rural life than any other poem of the period. Another
+curious piece is entitled, _Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of
+London_.
+
+_Thomas Parnell_, 1679-1718: he was the author of numerous poems, among
+which the only one which has retained popular favor is _The Hermit_, a
+touching poem founded upon an older story. He wrote the life of Homer
+prefixed to Pope's translation; but it was very much altered by Pope.
+
+_Thomas Tickell_, 1686-1740: particularly known as the friend of Addison.
+He wrote a translation of the First Book of Homer's Iliad, which was
+corrected by Addison, and contributed several papers to _The Spectator_.
+But he is best known by his _Elegy_ upon Addison, which Dr. Johnson calls
+a very "elegant funeral poem."
+
+_Isaac Watts_, 1674-1765: this great writer of hymns was born at
+Southampton, and became one of the most eminent of the dissenting
+ministers of England. He is principally known by his metrical versions of
+the Psalms, and by a great number of original hymns, which have been
+generally used by all denominations of Christians since. He also produced
+many hymns for children, which have become familiar as household words. He
+had a lyrical ear, and an easy, flowing diction, but is sometimes careless
+in his versification and incorrect in his theology. During the greater
+part of his life the honored guest of Sir Thomas Abney, he devoted himself
+to literature. Besides many sermons, he produced a treatise on _The First
+Principles of Geology and Astronomy_; a work on _Logic, or the Right Use
+of the Reason in the Inquiry after Truth_; and _A Supplement on the
+Improvement of the Mind_. These latter have been superseded as text-books
+by later and more correct inquiry.
+
+_Edward Young_, 1681-1765: in his younger days he sought preferment at
+court, but being disappointed in his aspirations, he took orders in the
+Church, and led a retired life. He published a satire entitled, _The Love
+of Fame, the Universal Passion_, which was quite successful. But his chief
+work, which for a long time was classed with the highest poetic efforts,
+is the _Night Thoughts_, a series of meditations, during nine nights, on
+Life, Death, and Immortality. The style is somewhat pompous, the imagery
+striking, but frequently unnatural; the occasional descriptions majestic
+and vivid; and the effect of the whole is grand, gloomy, and peculiar. It
+is full of apothegms, which have been much quoted; and some of his lines
+and phrases are very familiar to all.
+
+He wrote papers on many topics, and among his tragedies the best known is
+that entitled _The Revenge_. Very popular in his own day, Young has been
+steadily declining in public favor, partly on account of the superior
+claims of modern writers, and partly because of the morbid and gloomy
+views he has taken of human nature. His solemn admonitions throng upon the
+reader like phantoms, and cause him to desire more cheerful company. A
+sketch of the life of Young may be found in Dr. Johnson's _Lives of the
+Poets_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+ADDISON, AND THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE.
+
+
+   The Character of the Age. Queen Anne. Whigs and Tories. George I.
+   Addison--The Campaign. Sir Roger de Coverley. The Club. Addison's
+   Hymns. Person and Literary Character.
+
+
+
+THE CHARACTER OF THE AGE.
+
+
+To cater further to the Artificial Age, the literary cravings of which far
+exceeded those of any former period, there sprang up a school of
+Essayists, most of whom were also poets, dramatists, and politicians.
+Among these Addison, Steele, and Swift stand pre-eminent. Each of them was
+a man of distinct and interesting personality. Two of them--Addison and
+Swift--presented such a remarkable contrast, that it has been usual for
+writers on this period of English Literature to bring them together as
+foils to each other. This has led to injustice towards Swift; they should
+be placed in juxtaposition because they are of the same period, and
+because of their joint efforts in the literary development of the age. The
+period is distinctly marked. We speak as currently of the wits and the
+essayists of Queen Anne's reign as we do of the authors of the Elizabethan
+age.
+
+A glance at contemporary history will give us an intelligent clue to our
+literary inquiries, and cause us to observe the historical character of
+the literature.
+
+To a casual observer, the reign of Queen Anne seems particularly
+untroubled and prosperous. English history calls it the time of "Good
+Queen Anne;" and it is referred to with great unction by the _laudator
+temporis acti_, in unjust comparison with the period which has since
+intervened, as well as with that which preceded it.
+
+
+QUEEN ANNE.--The queen was a Protestant, as opposed to the Romanists and
+Jacobites; a faithful wife, and a tender mother in her memory of several
+children who died young. She was merciful, pure, and gracious to her
+subjects. Her reign was tolerant. There was plenty at home; rebellion and
+civil war were at least latent. Abroad, England was greatly distinguished
+by the victories of Marlborough and Eugene. But to one who looks through
+this veil of prosperity, a curious history is unfolded. The fires of
+faction were scarcely smouldering. It was the transition period between
+the expiring dynasty of the direct line of Stuarts and the coming of the
+Hanoverian house. Women took part in politics; sermons like that of
+Sacheverell against the dissenters and the government were thundered from
+the pulpit. Volcanic fires were at work; the low rumblings of an
+earthquake were heard from time to time, and gave constant cause of
+concern to the queen and her statesmen. Men of rank conspired against each
+other; the moral license of former reigns seems to have been forgotten in
+political intrigue. When James II. had been driven out in 1688, the
+English conscience compromised on the score of the divine right of kings,
+by taking his daughter Mary and her husband as joint monarchs. To do this,
+they affected to call the king's son by his second wife, born in that
+year, a pretender. It was said that he was the child of another woman, and
+had been brought to the queen's bedside in a warming-pan, that James might
+be able to present, thus fraudulently, a Roman Catholic heir to the
+throne. In this they did the king injustice, and greater injustice to the
+queen, Maria de Modena, a pleasing and innocent woman, who had, by her
+virtues and personal popularity alone, kept the king on his throne, in
+spite of his pernicious measures.
+
+When the dynasty was overthrown, the parliament had presented to William
+and Mary _A Bill of Rights_, in which the people's grievances were set
+forth, and their rights enumerated and insisted upon; and this was
+accepted by the monarchs as a condition of their tenure.
+
+Mary died in 1695, and when William followed her, in 1702, Anne, the
+second daughter of James, ascended the throne. Had she refused the
+succession, there would have been a furious war between the Jacobites and
+the Hanoverians. In 1714, Anne died childless, but her reign had bridged
+the chasm between the experiment of William and Mary and the house of
+Hanover. In default of direct heirs to Queen Anne, the succession was in
+this Hanoverian house; represented in the person of the Electress Sophia,
+the granddaughter of James I., through his daughter, Elizabeth of Bohemia.
+But this lineage of blood had lost all English affinities and sympathies.
+
+Meanwhile, the child born to James II., in 1688, had grown to be a man,
+and stood ready, on the death of Queen Anne, to re-affirm his claim to the
+throne. It was said that, although, on account of the plottings of the
+Jacobites, a price had been put upon his head, the queen herself wished
+him to succeed, and had expressed scruples about her own right to reign.
+She greatly disliked the family of Hanover, and while she was on her
+death-bed, the pretender had been brought to England, in the hope that she
+would declare him her successor. The elements of discord asserted
+themselves still more strongly. Whigs and Tories in politics, Romanists
+and Protestants in creed, Jacobite and Hanoverian in loyalty, opposed each
+other, harassing the feeble queen, and keeping the realm in continual
+ferment.
+
+
+WHIGS AND TORIES.--The Whigs were those who declared that kingly power was
+solely for the good of the subject; that the reformed creed was the
+religion of the realm; that James had forfeited the throne, and that his
+son was a pretender; and that the power justly passed to the house of
+Hanover. The Tories asserted that monarchs ruled by _divine right_; and
+that if, when religion was at stake, the king might be deposed, this could
+not affect the succession.
+
+Anne escaped her troubles by dying, in 1714. Sophia, the Electress of
+Hanover, who had only wished to live, she said, long enough to have
+engraved upon her tombstone: "Here lies Sophia, Queen of England," died,
+in spite of this desire, only a few weeks before the queen; and the new
+heir to the throne was her son, George Louis of Brunswick-Luneburg,
+electoral prince of Hanover.
+
+He came cautiously and selfishly to the throne of England; he felt his
+way, and left a line of retreat open; he brought not a spice of honest
+English sentiment, but he introduced the filth of the electoral court. As
+gross in his conduct as Charles II., he had indeed a prosperous reign,
+because it was based upon a just and tolerant Constitution; because the
+English were in reality not governed by a king, but by well-enacted laws.
+
+The effect of all this political turmoil upon the leading men in England
+had been manifest; both parties had been expectant, and many of the
+statesmen had been upon the fence, ready to get down on one side or the
+other, according to circumstances. Marlborough left the Tories and joined
+the Whigs; Swift, who had been a Whig, joined the Tories. The queen's
+first ministry had consisted of Whigs and the more moderate Tories; but as
+she fell away from the Marlboroughs, she threw herself into the hands of
+the Tories, who had determined, and now achieved, the downfall of
+Marlborough.
+
+Such was the reign of good Queen Anne. With this brief sketch as a
+preliminary, we return to the literature, which, like her coin, bore her
+image and carried it into succeeding reigns. In literature, the age of
+Queen Anne extends far beyond her lifetime.
+
+
+ADDISON.--The principal name of this period is that of Joseph Addison. He
+was the son of the rector of Milston, in Wiltshire, and was born in 1672.
+Old enough in 1688 to appreciate the revolution, as early as he could
+wield his pen, he used it in the cause of the new monarchs. At the age of
+fifteen he was sent from the Charter-House to Oxford; and there he wrote
+some Latin verses, for which he was rewarded by a university scholarship.
+After pursuing his studies at Oxford, he began his literary career. In his
+twenty-second year he wrote a poetical address to Dryden; but he chiefly
+sought preferment through political poetry. In 1695 he wrote a poem to the
+king, which was well received; and in 1699 he received a pension of £300.
+In 1701 he went upon the Continent, and travelled principally in France
+and Italy. On his return, he published his travels, and a _Poetical
+Epistle from Italy_, which are interesting as delineating continental
+scenes and manners in that day. Of the travels, Dr. Johnson said, "they
+might have been written at home;" but he praised the poetical epistle as
+the finest of Addison's poetical works.
+
+Upon the accession of Queen Anne, he continued to pay his court in verse.
+When the great battle of Blenheim was fought, in 1704, he at once
+published an artificial poem called _The Campaign_, which has received the
+fitting name of the _Rhymed Despatch_. Eulogistic of Marlborough and
+descriptive of his army manœuvres, its chief value is to be found in
+its historical character, and not in any poetic merit. It was a political
+paper, and he was rewarded for it by the appointment of Commissioner of
+Appeals, in which post he succeeded the philosopher Locke.
+
+The spirit of this poem is found in the following lines:
+
+    Fiction may deck the truth with spurious rays,
+    And round the hero cast a borrowed blaze;
+    Marlboro's exploits appear divinely bright,
+    And proudly shine in their own native light.
+
+If we look for a contrast to this poem, indicating with it the two
+political sides of the question, it may be found in Swift's tract on _The
+Conduct of the Allies_, which asserts that the war had been maintained to
+gratify the ambition and greed of Marlborough, and also for the benefit of
+the Allies. Addison was appointed, as a reward for his poem,
+Under-Secretary of State.
+
+To this extent Addison was the historian by purpose. A moderate partisan,
+he eulogized King William, Marlborough, Lord Somers, Lord Halifax, and
+others, and thus commended himself to the crown; and in several elegant
+articles in _The Spectator_, he sought to mitigate the fierce party spirit
+of the time.
+
+
+SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY.--But it is the unconscious historian with whom we
+are most charmed, and by whom we are best instructed. It is in this
+character that Addison presents himself in his numerous contributions to
+_The Spectator_, _The Tatler_, and _The Guardian_. Amid much that is now
+considered pedantic and artificial, and which, in those faults, marks the
+age, are to be found as striking and truthful delineations of English life
+and society in that day as Chaucer has given us of an earlier period.
+
+Those who no longer read _The Spectator_ as a model of style and learning,
+must continue to prize it for these rare historic teachings. The men and
+women walk before us as in some antique representation in a social
+festival, when grandmothers' brocades are taken out, when curious fashions
+are displayed, when Honoria and Flavia, Fidelia and Gloriana dress and
+speak and ogle and flirt just as Addison saw and photographed them. We
+have their subjects of interest, their forms of gossip, the existing
+abuses of the day, their taste in letters, their opinions upon the works
+of literature, in all their freshness.
+
+The fullest and most systematic of these social delineations is found in
+the sketch of _The Club_ and _Sir Roger de Coverley_. The creation of
+character is excellent. Each member, individual and distinct, is also the
+type of a class.
+
+
+THE CLUB.--There is Will Honeycomb, the old beau, "a gentleman who,
+according to his years, should be in the decline of his life, but having
+ever been careful of his person, and always had an easy fortune, time has
+made but very little impression, either by wrinkles on his forehead or
+traces on his brain." He knew from what French woman this manner of
+curling the hair came, who invented hoops, and whose vanity to show her
+foot brought in short dresses. He is a woman-killer, sceptical about
+marriage; and at length he gives the fair sex ample satisfaction for his
+cruelty and egotism by marrying, unknown to his friends, a farmer's
+daughter, whose face and virtues are her only fortune.
+
+Captain Sentry, the nephew of Sir Roger, is, it may be supposed, the
+essayist's ideal of what an English officer should be--a courageous
+soldier and a modest gentleman.
+
+Sir Andrew Freeport is the retired merchant, drawn to the life. He is
+moderate in politics, as expediency in that age would suggest. Thoroughly
+satisfied of the naval supremacy of England, he calls the sea, "the
+British Common." He is the founder of his own fortune, and is satisfied to
+transmit to posterity an unsullied name, a goodly store of wealth, and the
+title he has so honorably won.
+
+In _The Templar_, we have a satire upon a certain class of lawyers. It is
+indicative of that classical age, that he understands Aristotle and
+Longinus better than Littleton and Coke, and is happy in anything but
+law--a briefless barrister, but a gentleman of consideration.
+
+But the most charming, the most living portrait is that of Sir Roger de
+Coverley, an English country gentleman, as he ought to be, and as not a
+few really were. What a generous humanity for all wells forth from his
+simple and loving heart! He has such a mirthful cast in his behavior that
+he is rather loved than esteemed. Repulsed by a fair widow, several years
+before, he keeps his sentiment alive by wearing a coat and doublet of the
+same cut that was in fashion at the time, which, he tells us, has been out
+and in twelve times since he first wore it. All the young women profess to
+love him, and all the young men are glad of his company.
+
+Last of all is the clergyman, whose piety is all reverence, and who talks
+and acts "as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and
+conceives hope from his decays and infirmities."
+
+It is said that Addison, warned by the fate of Cervantes,--whose noble
+hero, Don Quixote, was killed by another pen,--determined to conduct Sir
+Roger to the tomb himself; and the knight makes a fitting end. He
+congratulates his nephew, Captain Sentry, upon his succession to the
+inheritance; he is thoughtful of old friends and old servants. In a word,
+so excellent was his life, and so touching the story of his death, that we
+feel like mourners at a real grave. Indeed he did live, and still
+lives,--one type of the English country gentleman one hundred and fifty
+years ago. Other types there were, not so pleasant to contemplate; but
+Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley and Fielding's Squire Allworthy vindicate
+their class in that age.
+
+
+ADDISON'S HYMNS.--Addison appears to us also as the writer of beautiful
+hymns, and has paraphrased some of the Psalms. In this, like Watts, he
+catered to a decided religious craving of that day. In a Protestant realm,
+and by reason of religious controversy, the fine old hymns of the Latin
+church, which are now renewing their youth in an English dress, had fallen
+into disrepute: hymnody had, to some extent, superseded the plain chant.
+Hymns were in demand. Poets like Addison and Watts provided for this new
+want; and from the beauty of his few contributions, our great regret is
+that Addison wrote so few. Every one he did write is a gem in many
+collections. Among them we have that admirable paraphrase of the
+_Twenty-third Psalm_:
+
+    The Lord my pasture shall prepare,
+    And feed me with a shepherd's care;
+
+and the hymn
+
+    When all Thy mercies, O my God,
+      My rising soul surveys.
+
+None, however, is so beautiful, stately, and polished as the Divine Ode,
+so pleasant to all people, little and large,--
+
+    The spacious firmament on high.
+
+
+HIS PERSON AND CHARACTER.--In closing this brief sketch of Addison, a few
+words are necessary as to his personality, and an estimate of his powers.
+In 1716 he married the Countess-Dowager of Warwick, and parted with
+independence to live with a coronet. His married life was not happy. The
+lady was cold and exacting; and, it must be confessed, the poet loved a
+bottle at the club-room or tavern better than the luxuries of Holland
+House; and not infrequently this conviviality led him to excess. He died
+in 1719, in his forty-eighth year, and made a truly pious end. He wished,
+he said, to atone for any injuries he had done to others, and sent for his
+sceptical and dissolute step-son, Lord Warwick, to show him how a
+Christian could die. A monument has been erected to his memory in the
+Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey, and the closing words of the
+inscription upon it calls him "the honor and delight of the English
+nation."
+
+As a man, he was grave and retiring: he had a high opinion of his own
+powers; in company he was extremely diffident; in the main, he was moral,
+just, and consistent. His intemperance was in part the custom of the age
+and in part a physical failing, and it must have been excessive to be
+distinguished in that age. In the Latin-English of Dr. Johnson, "It is not
+unlikely that Addison was first seduced to excess by the manumission which
+he obtained from the servile timidity of his sober hours." This failing
+must be regarded as a blot on his fame.
+
+He was the most accomplished writer of his own age, and in elegance of
+style superior to all who had gone before him.
+
+In the words of his epitaph, his prose papers "encouraged the good and
+reformed the improvident, tamed the wicked, and in some degree made them
+in love with virtue." His poetry is chiefly of historical value, in that
+it represents so distinctly the Artificial School; but it is now very
+little read. His drama entitled _Cato_ was modelled upon the French drama
+of the classical school, with its singular preservation of the unities.
+But his contributions to _The Spectator_ and other periodicals are
+historically of great value. Here he abandons the artificial school;
+nothing in his delineations of character is simply statuesque or
+pictorial. He has done for us what the historians have left undone. They
+present processions of automata moving to the sound of trumpet and drum,
+ushered by Black Rod or Garter King-at-arms; but in Addison we find that
+Promethean heat which relumes their life; the galvanic motion becomes a
+living stride; the puppet eyes emit fire; the automata are men. Thus it
+is, that, although _The Spectator_, once read as a model of taste and
+style, has become antiquated and has been superseded, it must still be
+resorted to for its life-like portraiture of men and women, manners and
+customs, and will be found truer and more valuable for these than history
+itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+STEELE AND SWIFT.
+
+
+   Sir Richard Steele. Periodicals. The Crisis. His Last Days. Jonathan
+   Swift--Poems. The Tale of a Tub. Battle of the Books. Pamphlets. M. B.
+   Drapier. Gulliver's Travels. Stella and Vanessa. His Character and
+   Death.
+
+
+
+Contemporary with Addison, and forming with him a literary fraternity,
+Steele and Swift were besides men of distinct prominence, and clearly
+represent the age in which they lived.
+
+
+SIR RICHARD STEELE.--If Addison were chosen as the principal literary
+figure of the period, a sketch of his life would be incomplete without a
+large mention of his lifelong friend and collaborator, Steele. If to Bacon
+belongs the honor of being the first writer and the namer of the English
+_essay_, Steele may claim that of being the first periodical essayist.
+
+He was born in Dublin, in 1671, of English parents; his father being at
+the time secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He received his
+early education at the Charter-House school, in London, an institution
+which has numbered among its pupils many who have gained distinguished
+names in literature. Here he met and formed a permanent friendship with
+Addison. He was afterwards entered as a student at Merton College, Oxford;
+but he led there a wild and reckless life, and leaving without a degree,
+he enlisted as a private in the Horse Guards. Through the influence of his
+friends, he was made a cornet, and afterwards a captain, in the
+Fusileers; but this only gave him opportunity for continued dissipation.
+His principles were better than his conduct; and, haunted by conscience,
+he made an effort to reform himself by writing a devotional work called
+_The Christian Hero_; but there was such a contrast between his precepts
+and his life, that he was laughed at by the town. Between 1701 and 1704 he
+produced his three comedies. _The Funeral, or Grief à la Mode_; _The
+Tender Husband_, and _The Lying Lover_. The first two were successful upon
+the stage, but the last was a complete failure. Disgusted for the time
+with the drama, he was led to find his true place as the writer of those
+light, brilliant, periodical essays which form a prominent literary
+feature of the reign of Queen Anne. These _Essays_ were comments,
+suggestions, strictures, and satires upon the age. They were of immediate
+and local interest then, and have now a value which the writers did not
+foresee: they are unconscious history.
+
+
+PERIODICALS.--The first of these periodicals was _The Tatler_, a penny
+sheet, issued tri-weekly, on post-days. The first number appeared on the
+12th of April, 1709, and asserted the very laudable purpose "to expose the
+deceits, sins, and vanities of the former age, and to make virtue,
+simplicity, and plain-dealing the law of social life." "For this purpose,"
+in the words of Dr. Johnson,[34] "nothing is so proper as the frequent
+publication of short papers, which we read not as study, but amusement. If
+the subject be slight, the treatise is short. The busy may find time, and
+the idle may find patience." One _nom de plume_ of Steele was _Isaac
+Bickerstaff_, which he borrowed from Swift, who had issued party-pamphlets
+under that name.
+
+_The Tatler_ was a success. The fluent pen of Addison gave it valuable
+assistance; and in January, 1711, it was merged into, rather than
+superseded by, _The Spectator_, which was issued six days in the week.
+
+In this new periodical, Steele wrote the paper containing the original
+sketch of Sir Roger de Coverley and The Club; but, as has been already
+said, Addison adopted, elaborated, and finished this in several later
+papers. Steele had been by far the larger contributor to _The Tatler_. Of
+all the articles in _The Spectator_, Steele wrote two hundred and forty,
+and Addison two hundred and seventy-four; the rest were by various hands.
+In March, 1713, when _The Spectator_ was commencing its seventh volume,
+_The Guardian_ made its appearance. For the first volume of _The
+Guardian_, Addison wrote but one paper; but for the second he wrote more
+than Steele. Of the one hundred and seventy-six numbers of that
+periodical, eighty-two of the papers were by Steele and fifty-three by
+Addison. If the writings of Addison were more scholarly and elegant, those
+of Steele were more vivacious and brilliant; and together they have
+produced a series of essays which have not been surpassed in later times,
+and which are vividly delineative of their own.
+
+
+THE CRISIS.--The career of Steele was varied and erratic. He held several
+public offices, was a justice of the peace, and a member of parliament. He
+wrote numerous political tracts, which are not without historical value.
+For one pamphlet of a political character, entitled _The Crisis_, he was
+expelled from parliament for libel; but upon the death of Queen Anne, he
+again found himself in favor. He was knighted in 1715, and received
+several lucrative appointments.
+
+He was an eloquent orator, and as a writer rapid and brilliant, but not
+profound. Even thus, however, he catered to an age at once artificial and
+superficial. Very observant of what he saw, he rushed to his closet and
+jotted down his views in electrical words, which made themselves
+immediately and distinctly felt.
+
+
+HIS LAST DAYS.--Near the close of his life he produced a very successful
+comedy, entitled _The Conscious Lover_, which would have been of pecuniary
+value to him, were it not that he was already overwhelmed with debt. His
+end was a sad one; but he reaped what his extravagance and recklessness
+had sown. Shattered in health and ruined in fortune, he retreated from the
+great world into homely retirement in Wales, where he lived, poor and
+hidden, in a humble cottage at Llangunnor. His end was heralded by an
+attack of paralysis, and he died in 1729.
+
+After his death, his letters were published; and in the private history
+which they unfold, he appears, notwithstanding all his follies, in the
+light of a tender husband and of an amiable and unselfish man. He had
+principle, but he lacked resolution; and the wild, vacillating character
+of his life is mirrored in his writings, where _The Christian Hero_ stands
+in singular contrast to the comic personages of his dramas. He was a
+genial critic. His exuberant wit and humor reproved without wounding; he
+was not severe enough to be a public censor, nor pedantic enough to be the
+pedagogue of an age which often needed the lash rather than the gentle
+reproof, and upon which a merciful clemency lost its end if not its
+praises. He deserves credit for an attempt, however feeble, to reward
+virtue upon the stage, after the wholesale rewards which vice had reaped
+in the age of Charles II.
+
+Steele has been overshadowed, in his connection with Addison, by the more
+dignified and consistent career, the greater social respectability, and
+the more elegant and scholarly style of his friend; and yet in much that
+they jointly accomplished, the merit of Steele is really as great, and
+conduces much to the reputation of Addison. The one husbanded and
+cherished his fame; the other flung it away or lavished it upon his
+colleagues. As contributors to history, they claim an equal share of our
+gratitude and praise.
+
+
+JONATHAN SWIFT.--The grandfather of Swift was vicar of Goodrich, in
+Herefordshire. His father and mother were both English, but he was born in
+Dublin, in the year 1667. A posthumous child, he came into the world seven
+months after his father's death. From his earliest youth, he deplored the
+circumstances among which his lot had been cast. He was dependent upon his
+uncle, Godwin Swift, himself a poor man; but was not grateful for his
+assistance, always saying that his uncle had given him the education of a
+dog. At the University of Dublin, where he was entered, he did not bear a
+good character: he was frequently absent from his duties and negligent of
+his studies; and although he read history and poetry, he was considered
+stupid as well as idle. He was more than once admonished and suspended,
+but at length received his degree, _Speciali gratia_; which special act of
+grace implied that he had not fairly earned it. Piqued by this, he set to
+work in real earnest, and is said to have studied eight hours a day for
+eight years. Thus, from an idle and unsuccessful collegian, he became a
+man of considerable learning and a powerful writer.
+
+He was a distant connection of Sir William Temple, through Lady Temple;
+and he went, by his mother's advice, to live with that distinguished man
+at his seat, Shene, in Moor Park, as private secretary.
+
+In this position Swift seems to have led an uncomfortable life, ranking
+somewhere between the family and the upper servants. Sir William Temple
+was disposed to be kind, but found it difficult to converse with him on
+account of his moroseness and other peculiarities. At Shene he met King
+William III., who talked with him, and offered him a captaincy in the
+army. This Swift declined, knowing his unfitness for the post, and
+doubtless feeling the promptings of a higher ambition. It was also at
+Shene that he met a young girl, whose history was thenceforth to be
+mingled with his in sadness and sorrow, during their lives. This was
+Esther Johnson, the daughter of Temple's housekeeper, and surmised, at a
+later day, to be the natural daughter of Temple himself. When the young
+secretary first met her, she was fourteen years of age, very clever and
+beautiful; and they fell in love with each other.
+
+We cannot dwell at length upon the events of his life. His versatile pen
+was prolific of poetry, sentimental and satirical; of political allegories
+of great potency, of fiction erected of impossible materials, and yet so
+creating and peopling a world of fancy as to illude the reader into
+temporary belief in its truth.
+
+
+POEMS.--His poems are rather sententious than harmonious. His power,
+however, was great; he managed verse as an engine, and had an entire
+mastery over rhyme, which masters so many would-be poets. His _Odes_ are
+classically constructed, but massive and cumbrous. His satirical poems are
+eminently historical, ranging over and attacking almost every topic,
+political, religious, and social. Among the most characteristic of his
+miscellaneous verses are _Epigrams and Epistles, Clever Tom Pinch Going to
+be Hanged, Advice to Grub Street Writers, Helter-Skelter, The Puppet
+Show_, and similar odd pieces, frequently scurrilous, bitter, and lewd in
+expression. The writer of English history consults these as he does the
+penny ballads, lampoons, and caricatures of the day,--to discern the
+_animus_ of parties and the methods of hostile factions.
+
+But it is in his inimitable prose writings that Swift is of most value to
+the historical student. Against all comers he stood the Goliath of
+pamphleteers in the reign of Queen Anne, and there arose no David who
+could slay him.
+
+
+THE TALE OF A TUB.--While an unappreciated student at the university, he
+had sketched a satirical piece, which he finished and published in 1704,
+under the title of _The Tale of a Tub_. As a tub is thrown overboard at
+sea to divert a whale, so this is supposed to be a sop cast out to the
+_Leviathan_ of Hobbes, to prevent it from injuring the vessel of state.
+The story is a satire aimed against the Roman Catholics on the one hand,
+and the Presbyterians on the other, in order that he may exalt the Church
+of England as, in his judgment, free from the errors of both, and a just
+and happy medium between the two extremes. His own opinion of its merits
+is well known: in one of his later years, when his hand had lost its
+cunning, he is said to have exclaimed, as he picked it up, "What a genius
+I had when I wrote that book!" The characters of the story are _Peter_
+(representing St. Peter, or the Roman Catholic Church), _Martin_ (Luther,
+or the Church of England), and _Jack_ (John Calvin, or the Presbyterians).
+By their father's will each had been left a suit of clothes, made in the
+fashion of his day. To this Peter added laces and fringes; Martin took off
+some of the ornaments of doubtful taste; but Jack ripped and tore off the
+trimmings of his dress to such an extent that he was in clanger of
+exposing his nakedness. It is said that the invective was so strong and
+the satire so bitter, that they presented a bar to that preferment which
+Swift might otherwise have obtained. He appears at this time to have cared
+little for public opinion, except that it should fear his trenchant wit
+and do homage to his genius.
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS.--In the same year, 1704, he also published _The
+Battle of the Books_, the idea of which was taken from a French work of
+Courtraye, entitled "_Histoire de la guerre nouvellement déclarée entre
+les Anciens et les Modernes_." Swift's work was written in furtherance of
+the views of his patron, Temple, who had some time before engaged in the
+controversy as to the relative merits of ancient and modern learning, and
+who, in the words of Macaulay, "was so absurd as to set up his own
+authority against that of Bentley on questions of Greek history and
+philology."
+
+_The Battle of the Books_ is of present value, as it affords information
+upon the opinions then held on a question which, in various forms, has
+been agitating the literary world ever since. In it Swift compares Dryden,
+Wotten, and Bentley with the old authors in St. James's Library, where the
+battle of the books is said to have taken place.
+
+Upon the death of Sir William Temple, in 1699, Swift had gone to London.
+He was ambitious of power and money, and when he found little chance of
+preferment among the Whigs, he became a Tory. It must be said, in
+explanation of this change, that, although he had called himself a Whig,
+he had disliked many of their opinions, and had never heartily espoused
+their cause. Like others already referred to, he watched the political
+horizon, and was ready for a change when circumstances should warrant it.
+This change and its causes are set forth in his _Bickerstaff's Ridicule of
+Astrology_ and _Sacramental Test_.
+
+The Whigs tried hard to retain him; the Tories were rejoiced to receive
+him, and modes of preferment for him were openly canvassed. One of these
+was to make him Bishop of Virginia, with metropolitan powers in America;
+but it failed. He was also recommended for the See of Hereford; but
+persons near the queen advised her "to be sure that the man she was going
+to make a bishop was a Christian." Thus far he had only been made rector
+of Agher and vicar of Laracor and Rathbeggin.
+
+
+VARIOUS PAMPHLETS.--His _Argument Against the Abolition of Christianity_,
+Dr. Johnson calls "a very happy and judicious irony." In 1710 he wrote a
+paper, at the request of the Irish primate, petitioning the queen to remit
+the first-fruits and twentieth parts to the Irish clergy. In 1712, ten
+days before the meeting of parliament, he published his _Conduct of the
+Allies_, which, exposing the greed of Marlborough, persuaded the nation to
+make peace. A supplement to this is found in _Reflections on the Barrier
+Treaty_, in which he shows how little English interests had been consulted
+in that negotiation.
+
+His pamphlet on _The Public Spirit of the Whigs_, in answer to Steele's
+_Crisis_, was so terrible a bomb-shell thrown into the camp of his former
+friends, and so insulting to the Scotch, that £300 were offered by the
+queen, at the instance of the Scotch lords, for the discovery of the
+author; but without success.
+
+At last his versatile and powerful pen obtained some measure of reward: in
+1713 he was made Dean of St. Patrick's, in Dublin, with a stipend of £700
+per annum. This was his greatest and last preferment.
+
+On the accession of George I., in the following year, he paid his court,
+but was received with something more than coldness. He withdrew to his
+deanery in Dublin, and, in the words of Johnson, "commenced Irishman for
+life, and was to contrive how he might be best accommodated in a country
+where he considered himself as in a state of exile." After some
+misunderstanding between himself and his Irish fellow-citizens, he
+espoused their cause so warmly that he became the most popular man in
+Ireland. In 1721 he could write to Pope, "I neither know the names nor the
+number of the family which now reigneth, further than the prayer-book
+informeth me." His letters, signed _M. B. Drapier_, on Irish manufactures,
+and especially those in opposition to Wood's monopoly of copper coinage,
+in 1724, wrought upon the people, producing such a spirit of resistance
+that the project of a debased coinage failed; and so influential did Swift
+become, that he was able to say to the Archbishop of Dublin, "Had I raised
+my finger, the mob would have torn you to pieces." This popularity was
+increased by the fact that a reward of £300 was offered by Lord Carteret
+and the privy council for the discovery of the authorship of the fourth
+letter; but although it was commonly known that Swift was the author,
+proof could not be obtained. Carteret, the Lord Lieutenant, afterwards
+said, "When people ask me how I governed Ireland, I said that I pleased
+Doctor Swift."
+
+Thus far Swift's literary labors are manifest history: we come now to
+consider that great work, _Gulliver's Travels_,--the most successful of
+its kind ever written,--in which, with all the charm of fiction in plot,
+incident, and description, he pictures the great men and the political
+parties of the day.
+
+
+GULLIVER'S TRAVELS.--Lemuel Gulliver, a surgeon's mate, finds himself
+shipwrecked on the shore of the country of Lilliput, the people of which
+are only six inches in height. His adventures are so vividly described
+that our charmed fancy places us among them as we read, and we, for a
+time, abandon ourselves to a belief in their reality. It was, however,
+begun as a political satire; in the insignificance of the court of
+pigmies, he attacks the feebleness and folly of the new reign. _Flimnap_,
+the prime minister of Lilliput, is a caricature of Walpole; the _Big
+Indians_ and _Little Indians_ represent the Protestants and Roman
+Catholics; the _High Heels_ and _Low Heels_ stand for the Whigs and
+Tories; and the heir-apparent, who wears one heel high and the other low,
+is the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II., who favored both parties in
+order to gain both to his purpose.
+
+In his second voyage, that to Brobdignag, his satirical imagination took a
+wider range--European politics as they appear to a superior intelligence,
+illustrated by a man of _sixty_ feet in comparison with one of _six_. As
+Gulliver had looked with curious contempt upon the united efforts of the
+Lilliputians, he now found himself in great jeopardy and fear when in the
+hands of a giant of Brobdignag. As the pigmy metropolis, five hundred
+yards square, was to London, so were London and other European capitals to
+the giants' city, two thousand miles in circumference. And what are the
+armies of Europe, when compared with that magnificent cavalry
+manœuvring on a parade-ground twenty miles square, each mounted
+trooper ninety feet high, and all, as they draw their swords at command,
+representing ten thousand flashes of lightning?
+
+The third part contains the voyage of Gulliver--no less improbable than
+the former ones--to _Laputa_, the flying island of projectors and
+visionaries. This is a varied satire upon the Royal Society, the
+eccentricities of the savans, empirics of all kinds, mathematical magic,
+and the like. In this, political schemes to restore the pretender are
+aimed at. The Mississippi Scheme and the South Sea bubble are denounced.
+Here, too, in his journey to Luggnagg, he introduces the sad and revolting
+picture of the Struldbrugs, those human beings who live on, losing all
+their power and becoming hideously old.
+
+In his last voyage--to the land of the _Houyhnhnms_--his misanthropy is
+painfully manifest. This is the country where horses are masters, and men
+a servile and degraded race; and he has painted the men so brutish and
+filthy that the satire loses its point. The power of satire lies in
+contrast; we must compare the evil in men with the good: when the whole
+race is included in one sweeping condemnation, and an inferior being
+exalted, in opposition to all possibility, the standard is absurd, and the
+satirist loses his pains.
+
+The horses are the _Houyhnhnms_, (the name is an attempt to imitate a
+neigh,) a noble race, who are amazed and disgusted at the Yahoos,--the
+degraded men,--upon whom Swift, in his sweeping misanthropy, has exhausted
+his bitterness and his filth.
+
+
+STELLA AND VANESSA.--While Swift's mysterious associations with Stella and
+Vanessa have but little to do with the course of English Literature, they
+largely affect his personality, and no sketch of him would be complete
+without introducing them to the reader. We cannot conjure up the tall,
+burly form, the heavy-browed, scowling, contemptuous face, the sharp blue
+eye, and the bushy black hair of the dean, without seeing on one side and
+the other the two pale, meek-eyed, devoted women, who watch his every
+look, shrink from his sudden bursts of wrath, receive for their
+infatuation a few fair words without sentiment, and earnestly crave a
+little love as a return for their whole hearts. It is a wonderful,
+touching, baffling story.
+
+Stella he had known and taught in her young maidenhood at Sir William
+Temple's. As has been said, she was called the daughter of his steward and
+housekeeper, but conjectures are rife that she was Sir William's own
+child. When Swift removed to Ireland, she came, at Swift's request, with a
+matron friend, Mrs. Dingley, to live near him. Why he did not at once
+marry her, and why, at last, he married her secretly, in 1716, are
+questions over which curious readers have puzzled themselves in vain, and
+upon which, in default of evidence, some perhaps uncharitable conclusions
+have been reached. The story of their association may be found in the
+_Journal to Stella_.
+
+With Miss Hester Vanhomrigh (Vanessa) he became acquainted in London, in
+1712: he was also her instructor; and when with her he seems to have
+forgotten his allegiance to Stella. Cadenus, as he calls himself, was too
+tender and fond: Vanessa became infatuated; and when she heard of Swift's
+private marriage with Stella, she died of chagrin or of a broken heart.
+She had cancelled the will which she had made in Swift's favor, and left
+it in charge to her executors to publish their correspondence. Both sides
+of the history of this connection are fully displayed in the poem of
+_Cadenus and Vanessa_, and in the _Correspondence of Swift and Vanessa_.
+
+
+CHARACTER AND DEATH.--Pride overbearing and uncontrollable, misanthropy,
+excessive dogmatism, a singular pleasure in giving others pain, were among
+his personal faults or misfortunes. He abused his companions and servants;
+he never forgave his sister for marrying a tradesman; he could attract
+with winning words and repel with furious invective; and he was always
+anxiously desiring the day of his death, and cursing that of his birth.
+His common farewell was "Good-bye; I hope we may never meet again." There
+is a painful levity in his verses _On the Death of Doctor Swift_, in which
+he gives an epitome of his life:
+
+    From Dublin soon to London spread,
+    'Tis told at court the dean is dead!
+    And Lady Suffolk, in the spleen,
+    Runs laughing up to tell the queen:
+    The queen, so gracious, mild, and good,
+    Cries, "Is he gone? it's time he should."
+
+At last the end came. While a young man, he had suffered from a painful
+attack of vertigo, brought on by a surfeit of fruit; "eating," he says, in
+a letter to Mrs. Howard, "an hundred golden pippins at a time." This had
+occasioned a deafness; and both giddiness and deafness had recurred at
+intervals, and at last manifestly affected his mind. Once, when walking
+with some friends, he had pointed to an elm-tree, blasted by lightning,
+and had said, "I shall be like that tree: I shall die first at the top."
+And thus at last the doom fell. Struck on the brain, he lingered for nine
+years in that valley of spectral horrors, of whose only gates idiocy and
+madness are the hideous wardens. From this bondage he was released by
+death on the 19th of October, 1745.
+
+Many have called it a fearful retribution for his sins, and especially for
+his treatment of Stella and Vanessa. A far more reasonable and charitable
+verdict is that the evil in his conduct through life had its origin in
+congenital disorder; and in his days of apparent sanity, the character of
+his eccentric actions is to be palliated, if not entirely excused, on the
+plea of insanity. Additional force is given to this judgment by the fact
+that, when he died, it was found that he had left his money to found a
+hospital for the insane, illustrating the line,--
+
+    A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind.
+
+In that day of great classical scholars, Swift will hardly rank among the
+most profound; but he possessed a creative power, a ready and versatile
+fancy, a clear and pleasing but plain style. He has been unjustly accused
+by Lady Montagu of having stolen plot and humor from Cervantes and
+Rabelais: he drew from the same source as they; and those suggestions
+which came to him from them owe all their merit to his application of
+them. As a critic, he was heartless and rude; but as a polemic and a
+delineator of his age, he stands prominently forth as an historian, whose
+works alone would make us familiar with the period.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE AGE.
+
+
+_Sir William Temple_, 1628-1698: he was a statesman and a political
+writer; rather a man of mark in his own day than of special interest to
+the present time. After having been engaged in several important
+diplomatic affairs, he retired to his seat of Moor Park, and employed
+himself in study and with his pen. His _Essays and Observations on
+Government_ are valuable as a clue to the history. In his controversy with
+Bentley on the _Epistles of Phalaris_, and the relative merits of ancient
+and modern authors, he was overmatched in scholarship. In a literary point
+of view, Temple deserves praise for the ease and beauty of his style. Dr.
+Johnson says he "was the first writer who gave cadence to English prose."
+"What can be more pleasant," says Charles Lamb, "than the way in which the
+retired statesman peeps out in his essays, penned in his delightful
+retreat at Shene?" He is perhaps better known in literary history as the
+early patron of Swift, than for his own works.
+
+
+_Sir Isaac Newton_, 1642-1727: the chief glory of Newton is not connected
+with literary effort: he ranks among the most profound and original
+philosophers, and was one of the purest and most unselfish of men. The
+son of a farmer, he was born at Woolsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, after his
+father's death,--a feeble, sickly child. The year of his birth was that in
+which Galileo died. At the age of fifteen he was employed on his mother's
+farm, but had already displayed such an ardor for learning that he was
+sent first to school and then to Cambridge, where he was soon conspicuous
+for his talents and his genius. In due time he was made a professor. His
+discoveries in astronomy, mechanics, and optics are of world-wide renown.
+The law of gravitation was established by him, and set forth in his paper
+_De Motu Corporum_. His treatise on _Fluxions_ prepared the way for that
+wonderful mathematical, labor-saving instrument--the differential
+calculus. In 1687 he published his _Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia
+Mathematica_, in which all his mathematical theories are propounded. In
+1696 he was made Warden of the Mint, and in 1699 Master of the Mint. Long
+a member of the Royal Society, he was its president for the last
+twenty-four years of his life. In 1688 he was elected member of parliament
+for the university of Cambridge. Of purely literary works he left two,
+entitled respectively, _Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the
+Apocalypse of St. John_, and a _Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended_;
+both of which are of little present value except as the curious remains of
+so great a man.
+
+
+_Viscount Bolingbroke_ (Henry St. John), 1678-1751: as an erratic
+statesman, a notorious free-thinker, a dissipated lord, a clever political
+writer, and an eloquent speaker, Lord Bolingbroke was a centre of
+attraction in his day, and demands observation in literary history. During
+the reign of Queen Anne he was a plotter in favor of the pretender, and
+when she died, he fled the realm to avoid impeachment for treason. In
+France he joined the pretender as Secretary of State, but was dismissed
+for intrigue; and on being pardoned by the English king, he returned to
+England. His writings are brilliant but specious. His influence was felt
+in the literary society he drew around him,--Swift, Pope, and
+others,--and, as has been already said, his opinions are to be found in
+that _Essay on Man_ which Pope dedicated to him. In his meteoric political
+career he represents and typifies one phase of the time in which he lived.
+
+
+_George Berkeley_, 1684-1753: he was educated at Trinity College, Dublin,
+and soon engaged in metaphysical controversy. In 1724 he was made Dean of
+Derry, and in 1734, Bishop of Cloyne. A man of great philanthropy, he set
+forth a scheme for the founding of the _Bermudas College_, to train
+missionaries for the colonies and to labor among the North American
+Indians. As a metaphysician, he was an _absolute idealist_. This is no
+place to discuss his theory. In the words of Dr. Reid, "He maintains ...
+that there is no such thing as matter in the universe; that the sun and
+moon, earth and sea, our own bodies and those of our friends, are nothing
+but ideas in the minds of those who think of them, and that they have no
+existence when they are not objects of thought; that all that is in the
+universe may be reduced to two categories, to wit, _minds_ and _ideas in
+the mind_." The reader is referred, for a full discussion of this
+question, to Sir William Hamilton's _Metaphysics_. Berkeley's chief
+writings are: _New Theory of Vision, Treatise Concerning the Principles of
+Human Knowledge_, and _Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous_. His name
+and memory are especially dear to the American people; for, although his
+scheme of the training-college failed, he lived for two years and a half
+in Newport, where his house still stands, and where one of his children is
+buried. He presented to Yale College his library and his estate in Rhode
+Island, and he wrote that beautiful poem with its kindly prophecy:
+
+    Westward the course of empire takes its way:
+      The four first acts already past,
+    A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
+      Time's noblest offspring is the last.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF MODERN FICTION.
+
+
+   The New Age. Daniel Defoe. Robinson Crusoe. Richardson. Pamela, and
+   Other Novels. Fielding. Joseph Andrews. Tom Jones. Its Moral. Smollett.
+   Roderick Random. Peregrine Pickle.
+
+
+
+THE NEW AGE.
+
+
+We have now reached a new topic in the course of English
+Literature--contemporaneous, indeed, with the subjects just named, but
+marked by new and distinct development. It was a period when numerous and
+distinctive forms appeared; when genius began to segregate into schools
+and divisions; when the progress of letters and the demands of popular
+curiosity gave rise to works which would have been impossible, because
+uncalled for, in any former period. English enterprise was extending
+commerce and scattering useful arts in all quarters of the globe, and thus
+giving new and rich materials to English letters. Clive was making himself
+a lord in India; Braddock was losing his army and his life in America.
+This spirit of English enterprise in foreign lands was evoking literary
+activity at home: there was no exploit of English valor, no extension of
+English dominion and influence, which did not find its literary
+reproduction. Thus, while it was an age of historical research, it was
+also that of actual delineations of curious novelties at home and abroad.
+
+Poetry was in a transition state; it was taking its leave of the unhealthy
+satire and the technical wit of Queen Anne's reign, and attempting, on
+the one hand, the impostures of Macpherson and Chatterton,--to which we
+shall hereafter refer,--and, on the other, the restoration of the pastoral
+from the theatrical to the real, in Thomson's song of the Rolling Year,
+and Cowper's pleasant Task, so full of life and nature. Swallow-like,
+English poetry had hung about the eaves or skimmed the surface of town and
+court; but now, like the lark, it soared into freer air--
+
+    CÅ“tusque vulgares et udam
+    Spernit humum fugiente penna.
+
+In short, it was a day of general awakening. The intestine troubles
+excited by the Jacobites were brought to an end by the disaster of
+Culloden, in 1745. The German campaigns culminating at Minden, in 1759,
+opened a door to the study of German literature, and of the Teutonic
+dialects as elements of the English language.
+
+It is, therefore, not astonishing that in this period Literature should
+begin to arrange itself into its present great divisions. As in an earlier
+age the drama had been born to cater to a popular taste, so in this, to
+satisfy the public demand, arose English _prose fiction_ in its peculiar
+and enduring form. There had been grand and desultory works preceding
+this, such as _Robinson Crusoe, The Pilgrim's Progress_, and Swift's
+inimitable story of _Gulliver_; but the modern novel, unlike these, owes
+its origin to a general desire for delineations of private life and
+manners. "Show us ourselves!" was the cry.
+
+A novel may be defined as a fictitious story of modern life describing the
+management and mastery of the human passions, and especially the universal
+passion of love. Its power consists in the creation of ideal characters,
+which leave a real impress upon the reader's mind; it must be a prose
+_epic_ in that there is always a hero, or, at least, a heroine, generally
+both, and a _drama_ in its presentation of scenes and supplementary
+personages. Thackeray calls his _Vanity Fair_ a novel without a hero: it
+is impossible to conceive a novel without a heroine. There must also be a
+_dénouement_, or consummation; in short, it must have, in the words of
+Aristotle, a beginning, middle, and ending, in logical connection and
+consecutive interest.
+
+
+DANIEL DEFOE.--Before, however, proceeding to consider the modern novel,
+we must make mention of one author, distinctly of his own age as a
+political pamphleteer, but who, in his chief and inimitable work, stands
+alone, without antecedent or consequent. _Robinson Crusoe_ has had a host
+of imitators, but no rival.
+
+Daniel Foe, or, as he afterwards called himself, De Foe, was born in
+London, in the year 1661. He was the son of a butcher, but such was his
+early aptitude, for learning, that he was educated to become a dissenting
+minister. His own views, however, were different: he became instead a
+political author, and wrote with great force against the government of
+James II. and the Established Church, and in favor of the dissenters. When
+the Duke of Monmouth landed to make his fatal campaign, Defoe joined his
+standard; but does not seem to have suffered with the greater number of
+the duke's adherents.
+
+He was a warm supporter of William III.; and his famous poem, _The
+True-Born Englishman_, was written in answer to an attack upon the king
+and the Dutch, called _The Foreigners_. Of his own poem he says, in the
+preface, "When I see the town full of lampoons and invectives against the
+Dutch, only because they are foreigners, and the king reproached and
+insulted by insolent pedants and ballad-making poets for employing
+foreigners and being a foreigner himself, I confess myself moved by it to
+remind our nation of their own original, thereby to let them see what a
+banter they put upon themselves, since--speaking of Englishmen _ab
+origine_--we are really all foreigners ourselves:"
+
+    The Pict and painted Briton, treach'rous Scot,
+    By hunger, theft, and rapine hither brought;
+    Norwegian pirates, buccaneering Danes,
+    Whose red-haired offspring everywhere remains;
+    Who, joined with Norman-French, compound the breed
+    From whence your true-born Englishmen proceed.
+
+In 1702, just after the death of King William, Defoe published his
+severely ironical pamphlet, _The Shortest Way with the Dissenters_.
+Assuming the character of a High Churchman, he says: "'Tis vain to trifle
+in the matter. The light, foolish handling of them by fines is their glory
+and advantage. If the gallows instead of the compter, and the galleys
+instead of the fines, were the reward of going to a conventicle, there
+would not be so many sufferers." His irony was at first misunderstood: the
+High Churchmen hailed him as a champion, and the Dissenters hated him as
+an enemy. But when his true meaning became apparent, a reward of £50 was
+offered by the government for his discovery. His so-called "scandalous and
+seditious pamphlet" was burnt by the common hangman: he was tried, and
+sentenced to pay two hundred marks, to stand three times in the pillory,
+and to be imprisoned during the queen's pleasure. He bore his sentence
+bravely, and during his two years' residence in prison he published a
+periodical called _The Review_. In 1709 he wrote a _History of the Union_
+between England and Scotland.
+
+
+ROBINSON CRUSOE.--But none of these things, nor all combined, would have
+given to Defoe that immortality which is his as the author of _Robinson
+Crusoe_. Of the groundwork of the story not much need be said.
+
+Alexander Selkirk, the sailing-master of an English privateer, was set
+ashore, in 1704, at his own request, on the uninhabited island Juan
+Fernandez, which lies several hundred miles from the coast of Chili, in
+the Pacific Ocean. He was supplied with clothing and arms, and remained
+there alone for four years and four months. It is supposed that his
+adventures suggested the work. It is also likely that Defoe had read the
+journal of Peter Serrano, who, in the sixteenth century, had been
+_marooned_ in like manner on a desolate island lying off the mouth of the
+Oroonoque (Orinoco). The latter locality was adopted by Defoe. But it is
+not the fact or the adventures which give power to _Robinson Crusoe_. It
+is the manner of treating what might occur to any fancy, even the dullest.
+The charm consists in the simplicity and the verisimilitude of the
+narrative, the rare adaptation of the common man to his circumstances, his
+projects and failures, the birth of religion in his soul, his conflicting
+hopes and fears, his occasional despair. We see in him a brother, and a
+suffering one. We live his life on the island; we share his terrible fear
+at the discovery of the footprint, his courage in destroying the cannibal
+savages and rescuing the victim. Where is there in fiction another man
+Friday? From the beginning of his misfortunes until he is again sailing
+for England, after nearly thirty years of captivity, he holds us
+spellbound by the reality, the simplicity, and the pathos of his
+narrative; but, far beyond the temporary illusion of the modern novel,
+everything remains real: the shipwrecked mariner spins his yarns in sailor
+fashion, and we believe and feel every word he says. The book, although
+wonderfully good throughout, is unequal: the prime interest only lasts
+until he is rescued, and ends with his embarkation for England. The
+remainder of his travels becomes, as a narrative, comparatively tiresome
+and tame; and we feel, besides, that, after his unrivalled experience, he
+should have remained in England, "the observed of all observers." Yet it
+must be said that we are indebted to his later journey in Spain and
+France, his adventures in the Eastern Seas, his caravan ride overland from
+China to Europe, for much which illustrates the manners and customs of
+navigation and travel in that day.
+
+_Robinson Crusoe_ stands alone among English books, a perennial fountain
+of instruction and pleasure. It aids in educating each new generation:
+children read it for its incident; men to renew their youth; literary
+scholars to discover what it teaches of its time and of its author's
+genius. Its influence continues unabated; it incites boys to maritime
+adventure, and shows them how to use in emergency whatever they find at
+hand. It does more: it tends to reclaim the erring by its simple homilies;
+it illustrates the ruder navigation of its day; shows us the habits and
+morals of the merchant marine, and the need and means of reforming what
+was so very bad.
+
+Defoe's style is clear, simple, and natural. He wrote several other works,
+of which few are now read. Among these are the _Account of the Plague, The
+Life and Piracies of Captain Singleton_, and _The Fortunes and Misfortunes
+of Moll Flanders_. He died on the 24th of April, 1731.
+
+
+RICHARDSON.--Samuel Richardson, who, notwithstanding the peculiar merits
+of Defoe, must be called the _Father of Modern Prose Fiction_, was born in
+Derbyshire, in 1689. The personal events of his life are few and
+uninteresting. A carpenter's son, he had but little schooling, and owed
+everything to his own exertions. Apprenticed to a printer in London, at
+the age of fifteen, he labored assiduously at his trade, and it rewarded
+him with fortune: he became, in turn, printer of the Journals of the House
+of Commons, Master of the Stationers' Company, and Printer to the King.
+While young, he had been the confidant of three young women, and had
+written or corrected their love-letters for them. He seems to have had
+great fluency in letter-writing; and being solicited by a publisher to
+write a series of familiar letters on the principal concerns of life,
+which might be used as models,--a sort of "Easy Letter-Writer,"--he began
+the task, but, changing his plan, he wrote a story in a series of letters.
+The first volume was published in 1741, and was no less a work than
+_Pamela_. The author was then fifty years old; and he presents in this
+work a matured judgment concerning the people and customs of the day,--the
+printer's notions of the social condition of England,--shrewd, clever, and
+defective.
+
+Wearied as the world had been by what Sir Walter Scott calls the "huge
+folios of inanity" which had preceded him, the work was hailed with
+delight. There was a little affectation; but the sentiment was moral and
+natural. Ladies carried _Pamela_ about in their rides and walks. Pope,
+near his end, said it was a better moral teacher than sermons: Sherlock
+recommended it from the pulpit.
+
+
+PAMELA, AND OTHER NOVELS.--_Pamela_ is represented as a poor servant-maid,
+but beautiful and chaste, whose honor resists the attack of her dissolute
+master, and whose modesty and virtue overcome his evil nature. Subdued and
+reclaimed by her chastity and her charms, he reforms, and marries her.
+Some pictures which are rather warmly colored and indelicate in our day
+were quite in keeping with the taste of that time, and gave greater effect
+to the moral lesson assigned to be taught.
+
+In his next work, _Clarissa Harlowe_, which appeared in 1749, he has drawn
+the picture of a perfect woman preserving her purity amid seductive
+gayeties, and suffering sorrows to which those of the Virgin Martyr are
+light. We have, too, an excellent portraiture of a bold and wicked, but
+clever and gifted man--Lovelace.
+
+His third and last novel, _Sir Charles Grandison_, appeared in 1753. The
+hero, _Sir Charles_, is the model of a Christian gentleman; but is,
+perhaps, too faultless for popular appreciation.
+
+In his delineations of humbler natures,--country girls like
+_Pamela_,--Richardson is happiest: in his descriptions of high life he has
+failed from ignorance. He was not acquainted with the best society, and
+all his grandees are stilted, artificial, and affected; but even in this
+fault he is of value, for he shows us how men of his class at that time
+regarded the society of those above them.
+
+These works, which, notwithstanding their length, were devoured eagerly as
+soon as they appeared, are little read at present, and exist rather as
+historical interpreters of an age that is past, than as present light
+literature: they have been driven from our shelves by Scott, Dickens,
+Thackeray, and a host of charming novelists since his day.
+
+Richardson lived the admired of a circle of ladies,--to whose sex he had
+paid so noble a tribute,--the hero of tea-drinkings at his house on
+Parson's Green; his books gave him fame, but his shop--in the back office
+of which he wrote his novels, when not pressed by business--gave him money
+and its comforts. He died at the age of seventy-two, on the 4th of July,
+1761.
+
+He was an unconscious actor in a great movement which had begun in France.
+The brilliant theories of Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and
+Dalembert--containing much truth and many heresies--were felt in England,
+and had given a new impetus to English intellect; indeed, it is not
+strange, when we come to consider, that while Richardson's works were
+praised in English pulpits, Voltaire and the French atheists declared that
+they saw in them an advance towards human perfectibility and
+self-redemption, of which, if true, Richardson himself was unconscious.
+From the amours of men and women of fashion, aided by intriguing
+maid-servants and lying valets, Richardson turned away to do honor to
+untitled merit, to exalt the humble, and to defy gilded vice. Whatever
+were the charms of rank, he has elevated our humanity; thus far, and thus
+far only, has he sympathized with the Frenchmen who attacked the
+corruptions of the age, but who assaulted also its faith and its
+reverence.
+
+
+HENRY FIELDING.--The path of prose fiction, so handsomely opened by
+Richardson, was immediately entered and pursued by a genius of higher
+order, and as unlike him as it was possible to be. Richardson still clung
+to romantic sentiment, Fielding eschewed it; Richardson was a teacher of
+morality, Fielding shielded immorality; Richardson described artificial
+manners in a society which he did not frequent, Fielding, in the words of
+Coleridge, "was like an open lawn on a breezy day in May;" Richardson was
+a plebeian, a carpenter's son, a successful printer; Fielding was a
+gentleman, the son of General Fielding, and grandson of the Earl of
+Denbigh; Richardson steadily rose, by his honest exertions, to independent
+fortune, Fielding passed from the high estate of his ancestors into
+poverty and loose company; the one has given us mistaken views of high
+life, the other has been enabled, by his sad experience, to give us
+truthful pictures of every grade of English society in his day from the
+lord, the squire, and the fop to the thief-taker, the prostitute, and the
+thief.
+
+Henry Fielding was born on the 22d of April, 1707, at Sharpham Park,
+Somersetshire. While yet a young man, he had read _Pamela_; and to
+ridicule what he considered its prudery and over-righteousness, he hastily
+commenced his novel of _Joseph Andrews_. This Joseph is represented as the
+brother of Pamela,--a simple country lad, who comes to town and finds a
+place as Lady Booby's footman. As Pamela had resisted her master's
+seductions, he is called upon to oppose the vile attempts of his mistress
+upon his virtue.
+
+In that novel, as well as in its successors, _Tom Jones_ and _Amelia_,
+Fielding has given us rare pictures of English life, and satires upon
+English institutions, which present the social history of England a
+century ago: in this view our sympathies are not lost upon purely ideal
+creations.
+
+In him, too, the French _illuminati_ claimed a co-laborer; and their
+influence is more distinctly seen than in Richardson's works: great
+social problems are discussed almost in the manner of a Greek chorus;
+mechanical forms of religion are denounced. The French philosophers
+attacked errors so intertwined with truth, that the violent stabs at the
+former have cut the latter almost to death; Richardson attacked the errors
+without injuring the truth: he is the champion of purity. If _Joseph
+Andrews_ was to rival _Pamela_ in chastity, _Tom Jones_ was to be
+contrasted with both in the same particular.
+
+
+TOM JONES.--Fielding has received the highest commendations from literary
+men. Byron calls him the "prose Homer of human nature;" and Gibbon, in
+noticing that the Lords of Denbigh were descended, like Charles V., from
+Rudolph of Hapsburg, says: "The successors of Charles V. may despise their
+brethren of England, but the romance of _Tom Jones_--that exquisite
+picture of human manners--will outlive the Palace of the Escurial and the
+Imperial Eagle of Austria." We cannot go so far; we quote the praise but
+doubt the prophecy. The work is historically valuable, but technically
+imperfect and unequal. The plot is rambling, without method: most of the
+scenes lie in the country or in obscure English towns; the meetings are as
+theatrical as stage encounters; the episodes are awkwardly introduced, and
+disfigure the unity; the classical introductions and invocations are
+absurd. His heroes are men of generous impulses but dissolute lives, and
+his women are either vile, or the puppets of circumstance.
+
+
+ITS TRUE VALUE.--What can redeem his works from such a category of
+condemnation? Their rare portraiture of character and their real glimpses
+of nature: they form an album of photographs of life as it was--odd,
+grotesque, but true. They have no mysterious Gothic castles like that of
+Otranto, nor enchanted forests like that of Mrs. Radcliffe. They present
+homely English life and people,--_Partridge_, barber, schoolmaster, and
+coward; _Mrs. Honor_, the type of maid-servants, devoted to her mistress,
+and yet artful; _Squire Western_, the foul and drunken country gentleman;
+_Squire Allworthy_, a noble specimen of human nature; _Parson Adams_, who
+is regarded by the critics as the best portrait among all his characters.
+
+And even if we can neither commend nor recommend heroes like _Tom Jones_,
+such young men really existed, and the likeness is speakingly drawn: we
+bear with his faults because of his reality. Perhaps our verdict may be
+best given in the words of Thackeray. "I am angry," he says, "with Jones.
+Too much of the plum-cake and the rewards of life fall to that boisterous,
+swaggering young scapegrace. Sophia actually surrenders without a proper
+sense of decorum; the fond, foolish, palpitating little creature. 'Indeed,
+Mr. Jones,' she says, 'it rests with you to name the day.' ... And yet
+many a young fellow, no better than Mr. Thomas Jones, has carried by a
+_coup-de-main_ the heart of many a kind girl who was a great deal too good
+for him."
+
+When _Joseph Andrews_ appeared, and Richardson found that so profane a
+person as Fielding had dared to burlesque his _Pamela_, he was angry; and
+his little tea-drinking coterie was warm in his defence; but Fielding's
+party was then, and has remained, the stronger.
+
+In his novel of _Amelia_, we have a general autobiography of Fielding.
+Amelia, his wife, is lovely, chaste, and constant. Captain Booth--Fielding
+himself--is errant, guilty, generous, and repentant. We have besides in it
+many varieties of English life,--lords, clergymen, officers; Vauxhall and
+the masquerade; the sponging-house and its inmates, debtors and
+criminals,--all as Fielding saw and knew them.
+
+The condition of the clergy is more clearly set forth in Fielding's novels
+than in the pages of Echard, Oldham, Wood, Macaulay, or Churchill
+Babington. So changed was their estate since the Reformation, that few
+high-born youths, except the weak or lame, took holy orders. Many
+clergymen worked during the week. One, says South, was a cobbler on
+weekdays, and preached on Sundays. Wilmot says: "We are struck by the
+phenomenon of a learned man sitting down to prove, with the help of logic,
+that a priest or a chaplain in a family is not a servant,"--Jeremy
+Collier: _Essays on Pride and the Office of a Chaplain_.
+
+Fielding drew them and their condition from the life. Parson Adams is the
+most excellent of men. His cassock is ten years old; over it he dons a
+coarse white overcoat, and travels on foot to London to sell nine volumes
+of sermons, wherewithal to buy food for his family. He engages the
+innkeeper in serious talk; he does desperate battle to defend a young
+woman who has fallen into the hands of ruffians on the highway; and when
+he is arrested, his manuscript Eschylus is mistaken for a book of ciphers
+unfolding a dreadful plot against the government. This is a hit against
+the ignorance and want of education among the people; for it is some time
+before some one in the company thinks he saw such characters many years
+ago when he was young, and that it may be Greek. The incident of Parson
+Trulliber mistaking his fellow-priest for a pork-merchant, on account of
+his coarse garments, is excellent, but will not bear abbreviation. Adams
+is splattered by the huge, overfed swine, and ejaculates, "_Nil habeo cum
+porcis_; I am a clergyman, sir, and am not come to buy hogs!" The
+condition of a curate and the theology of the publican are set forth in
+the conversation between Parson Adams and the innkeeper.
+
+The works of Fielding may be justly accused of describing immoral scenes
+and using lewd language; but even in this they are delineative of the
+manners and conversation of an age in which such men lived, such scenes
+occurred, such language was used. I liken the great realm of English prose
+fiction to some famous museum of art. The instructor of the young may
+carefully select what pictures to show them; but the student of English
+literature moves through the rooms and galleries, gazing, judging,
+approving, condemning, comparing. Genius may have soiled its canvas with
+what is prurient and vile; lascivious groups may stand side by side with
+pictures of saints and madonnas. To leave the figure, it is wise counsel
+to read on principle, and, armed with principle, to accept and imitate the
+good, and to reject the evil. Conscience gives the rule, and for every
+bane will give the antidote.
+
+Of this school and period, Fielding is the greatest figure. One word as to
+his career. Passing through all social conditions,--first a country
+gentleman, living on or rather squandering his first wife's little fortune
+in following the hounds and entertaining the county; then a playwright,
+vegetating very seedily on the proceeds of his comedies; justice of the
+peace, and encountering, in his vocation, such characters as _Jonathan
+Wild_; drunken, licentious, unfaithful to his wife, but always--strange
+paradox of poor human nature--generous as the day; mourning with bitter
+tears the loss of his first wife, and then marrying her faithful
+maid-servant, that they may mourn for her together,--he seems to have been
+a rare mechanism without a _governor_. "Poor Harry Fielding!" And yet to
+this irregular, sinful character, we owe the inimitable portraitures of
+English life as it was, in _Joseph Andrews_, _Tom Jones_, and _Amelia_.
+
+Fielding's habits, acting upon a naturally weak constitution, wore him
+out. He left England, and wandered to the English factory at Lisbon, where
+he died, in 1754, in the forty-eighth year of his age.
+
+
+TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT.--Smollett, the third in order and in rank of the
+novelists of his age, was born at Cardross, Dumbartonshire, in 1721, of a
+good family; but he had small means. After some schooling at Dumbarton and
+a university career at Glasgow, he was, from necessity, apprenticed to a
+surgeon. But as his grandfather, Sir James Smollett, on whom he depended,
+died, he left his master, at the age of eighteen, and, taking in his
+pocket a manuscript play he had thus early written,--_The Regicides_,--he
+made his way to London, the El Dorado of all youths with literary
+aspirations. The play was not accepted; but, through the knowledge
+obtained in the surgery, he received an appointment as surgeon's mate, and
+went out with Admiral Vernon's fated expedition to Carthagena in that
+capacity, and thus acquired a knowledge of the sea and of sailors which he
+was to use with great effect in his later writings. For a time he remained
+in the West Indies, where he fell in love with Miss Anne Lascelles, whom
+he afterwards married. In 1746 he returned to London, and, after an
+unsuccessful attempt to practise medicine, he threw himself with great
+vigor into the field of literature. He was a man of strange and
+antagonistic features, just and generous in theory, quarrelsome and
+overbearing in practice. From the year 1746 his pen seems to have been
+always busy. He first tried his hand on some satires, which gained for him
+numerous enemies; and in 1748 he produced his first novel, _Roderick
+Random_, which, in spite of its indecency, the world at once acknowledged
+to be a work of genius: the verisimilitude was perfect; every one
+recognized in the hero the type of many a young North countryman going out
+to seek his fortune. The variety is great, the scenes are more varied and
+real than those in Richardson and Fielding, the characters are numerous
+and vividly painted, and the keen sense of ridicule pervading the book
+makes it a broad jest from beginning to end. Historically, his
+delineations are valuable; for he describes a period in the annals of the
+British marine which has happily passed away,--a hard life in little
+stifling holds or forecastles, with hard fare,--a base life, for the
+sailor, oppressed on shipboard, was the prey of vile women and land-sharks
+when on shore. What pictures of prostitution and indecency! what obscenity
+of language! what drunken infernal orgies! We may shun the book as we
+would shun the company, and yet the one is the exact portraiture of the
+other.
+
+Roderick Random was followed, in 1751, by _Peregrine Pickle_, a book in
+similar taste, but the characters in which are even more striking. The
+forms of Commodore Trunnion, Lieutenant Hatchway, Pipes the boatswain, and
+Ap Morgan the choleric Welsh surgeon, are as familiar to us now as at the
+first.
+
+Smollett had now retired to Chelsea, where his facile pen was still hard
+at work. In 1753 appeared his _Ferdinand Count Fathom_, the portraiture of
+a complete villain, corresponding in character with Fielding's _Jonathan
+Wild_, but with a better moral.
+
+About this time he translated _Don Quixote_; and although his version is
+still published, it is by no means true to the idiom of the language, nor
+to the higher purpose of Cervantes.
+
+Passing by his _Complete History of Authentic and Entertaining Voyages_,
+we come to his _History of England from the Descent of Julius Cæsar to the
+Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748_. It is not a profound work; but it is
+so currently written, that, in lieu of better, the latter portion was
+taken to supplement Hume; as a work of less merit than either, that of
+Bissett was added in the later editions to supplement Smollett and Hume.
+For this history he is said to have received £2000.
+
+In 1762 he issued _The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves_, who, with his
+attendant, _Captain Crowe_, goes forth, in the style of Don Quixote and
+Sancho, to _do_ the world. Smollett's forte was in the broadly humorous,
+and this is all that redeems this work from utter absurdity.
+
+
+HUMPHREY CLINKER.--His last work of any importance, and perhaps his best,
+is _The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker_, described in a series of letters
+descriptive of this amusing imaginative journey. Mrs. Winifred, Tabitha,
+and, best of all, Lismahago, are rare characters, and in all respects,
+except its vulgarity, it was the prototype of Hood's exquisite _Up the
+Rhine_.
+
+From the year 1756, Smollett edited, at intervals, various periodicals,
+and wrote what he thought very good poetry, now forgotten,--an _Ode to
+Independence_, after the Greek manner of strophe and antistrophe, not
+wanting in a noble spirit; and _The Tears of Scotland_, written on the
+occasion of the Duke of Cumberland's barbarities, in 1746, after the
+battle of Culloden:
+
+    Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn
+    Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn!
+    Thy sons, for valor long renowned,
+    Lie slaughtered on thy native ground.
+
+Smollett died abroad on the 21st of October, 1771. His health entirely
+broken, he had gone to Italy, and taken a cottage near Leghorn: a slight
+resuscitation was the consequence, and he had something in prospect to
+live for: he was the heir-at-law to the estate of Bonhill, worth £1000 per
+annum; but the remorseless archer would not wait for his fortune.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+STERNE, GOLDSMITH, AND MACKENZIE.
+
+
+   The Subjective School. Sterne--Sermons. Tristram Shandy. Sentimental
+   Journey. Oliver Goldsmith. Poems--The Vicar. Histories, and Other
+   Works. Mackenzie. The Man of Feeling.
+
+
+
+THE SUBJECTIVE SCHOOL.
+
+
+In the same age, and inspired by similar influences, there sprang up a
+widely-different school of novelists, which has been variously named as
+the Sentimental and the Subjective School. Richardson and Fielding
+depicted what they saw around them objectively, rather than the
+impressions made upon their individual sensitiveness. Both Sterne and
+Goldsmith were eminently subjective. They stand as a transparent medium
+between their works and the reader. The medium through which we see
+_Tristram Shandy_ is a double lens,--one part of which is the distorted
+mind of the author, and the other the nondescript philosophy which he
+pilfered from Rabelais and Burton. The glass through which the _Vicar of
+Wakefield_ is shown us is the good-nature and loving heart of Goldsmith,
+which brighten and gladden every creation of his pen. Thus it is that two
+men, otherwise essentially unlike, appear together as representatives of a
+school which was at once sentimental and subjective.
+
+
+STERNE.--Lawrence Sterne was the son of an officer in the British army,
+and was born, in 1713, at Clonmel, in Ireland, where his father was
+stationed.
+
+His father died not long afterwards, at Gibraltar, from the effect of a
+wound which he had received in a duel; and it is indicative of the _code
+of honor_ in that day, that the duel was about a goose at the mess-table!
+What little Lawrence learned in his brief military experience was put to
+good use afterwards in his army reminiscences and portraitures in
+_Tristram Shandy_. No doubt My Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim are sketches
+from his early recollections. Aided by his mother's relations, he studied
+at Cambridge, and afterwards, without an inward call, but in accordance
+with the custom of the day, he entered into holy orders, and was presented
+to a living, of which he stood very much in need.
+
+
+HIS SERMONS.--With no spirit for parochial work, it must be said that he
+published very forcible and devout sermons, and set before his people and
+the English world a pious standard of life, by which, however, he did not
+choose to measure his own: he preached, but did not practise. In a letter
+to Mr. Foley, he says: "I have made a good campaign in the field of the
+literati: ... two volumes of sermons which I shall print very soon will
+bring me a considerable sum.... 'Tis but a crown for sixteen sermons--dog
+cheap; but I am in quest of honor, not money."
+
+These discourses abound in excellent instruction and in pithy expressions;
+but it is painful to see how often his pointed rebukes are undesignedly
+aimed at his own conduct. In one of them he says: "When such a man tells
+you that a thing goes against his conscience, always believe he means
+exactly the same thing as when he tells you it goes against his stomach--a
+present want of appetite being generally the true cause of both." In his
+discourse on _The Forgiveness of Injuries_, we have the following striking
+sentiment: "The brave only know how to forgive: it is the most refined and
+generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at. Cowards have done
+good and kind actions; cowards have even fought, nay, sometimes even
+conquered; but a coward never forgave." All readers of _Tristram Shandy_
+will recall his sermon on the text, "For we trust we have a good
+conscience," so affecting to Corporal Trim and so overwhelming to Dr.
+Slop.
+
+But if his sermons are so pious and good, we look in vain into his
+entertaining _Letters_ for a corresponding piety in his life. They are
+witty, jolly, occasionally licentious. They touch and adorn every topic
+except religion; and so it may be feared that all his religion was
+written, printed, bound, and sold by subscription, in those famous
+sermons, sixteen for a crown--"dog cheap!"
+
+
+TRISTRAM SHANDY.--In 1759 appeared the first part of _Tristram Shandy_--a
+strange, desultory work, in which many of the curious bits of philosophy
+are taken from Montaigne, Burton, Rabelais, and others; but which has,
+besides, great originality in the handling and in the portraiture of
+characters. Much of what Sterne borrowed from these writers passed for his
+own in that day, when there were comparatively few readers of the authors
+mentioned. As to the charge of plagiarism, we may say that Sterne's hero
+is like the _Gargantua_ of Rabelais in many particulars; but he is a man
+instead of a monster; while the chapter on _Hobby-Horses_ is a
+reproduction, in a new form of crystallization, of _Gargantua's wooden
+horses_.
+
+So, too, the entire theological cast of _Tristram Shandy_ is that of the
+sixteenth century;--questions before the Sorbonne, the use of
+excommunication, and the like. Dr. Slop, the Roman Catholic surgeon of the
+family, is but a weak mouthpiece of his Church in the polemics of the
+story; for Sterne was a violent opponent of the Church of Rome in story as
+well as in sermon; and Obadiah, the stupid man-servant, is the lay figure
+who receives the curses which Dr. Slop reads,--"cursed in house and
+stable, garden and field and highway, in path or in wood, in the water or
+in the church." Whether the doctor was in earnest or not, Obadiah paid
+him fully by upsetting him and his pony with the coach-horse.
+
+But in spite of the resemblance to Rabelais and a former age, it must be
+allowed that _Tristram Shandy_ contains many of the richest pictures and
+fairest characters of the age in which it was written. Rural England is
+truthfully presented, and the political cast of the day is shown in his
+references to the war in Flanders. Among the sterling original portraits
+are those of Mr. Shandy, the country gentleman, controversial and
+consequential; Mrs. Shandy, the nonentity,--the Amelia Osborne and Mrs.
+Nickleby of her day; Yorick, the lukewarm, time-serving priest--Sterne
+himself: and these are only supplementary characters.
+
+The sieges of towns in the Low Countries, then going on, are pleasantly
+connected with that most exquisite of characters, _my Uncle Toby_, who has
+a fortification in his garden,--sentry-box, cannon, and all,--and who
+follows the great movement on this petty scale from day to day, as the
+bulletins come in from the seat of war.
+
+The _Widow Wadman_, with her artless wiles, and the "something in her
+eye," makes my Uncle Toby--who protests he can see nothing in the
+white--look, not without peril, "with might and main into the pupil." Ah,
+that sentry-box and the widow's tactics might have conquered many a more
+wary man than my Uncle Toby! and yet my Uncle Toby escaped.
+
+Now, all these are real English characters, sketched from life by the hand
+of genius, and they become our friends and acquaintances forever. It seems
+as though Sterne, after a long and close study of Rabelais and Burton, had
+fancied that, with their aid, he might write a money-making book; but his
+own genius, rising superior to the plagiarism, took the project out of his
+venal hands; and from the antique learning and the incongruities which he
+had heaped together, bright and beautiful forms sprang forth like genii
+from the mine, to subsidize the tears and laughter of all future time.
+What an exquisite creation is my Uncle Toby!--a soldier in the van of
+battle, a man of honor and high tone in every-day life, a kind brother, a
+good master to Corporal Trim, simple as a child, benevolent as an angel.
+"Go, poor devil," quoth he to the fly which buzzed about his nose all
+dinner-time, "get thee gone; why should I hurt thee? This world is surely
+wide enough to hold both thee and me!"
+
+And as for Corporal Trim, he is a host in himself. There is in the English
+literary portrait-gallery no other Uncle Toby, there is no other Corporal
+Trim. Hazlitt has not exaggerated in saying that the _Story of Le Fevre_
+is perhaps the finest in the English language. My Uncle Toby's conduct to
+the dying officer is the perfection of loving-kindness and charity.
+
+
+THE SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY.--Sterne's _Sentimental Journey_, although
+charmingly written,--and this is said in spite of the preference of such a
+critic as Horace Walpole,--will not compare with _Tristram Shandy_: it is
+left unfinished, and is constantly suggestive of licentiousness.
+
+Sterne's English is excellent and idiomatic, and has commended his works
+to the ordinary reader, who shrinks from the hyperlatinism of the time
+represented so strongly by Dr. Johnson and his followers. His wit, if
+sometimes artificial, is always acute; his sentiment is entirely
+artificial; "he is always protruding his sensibility, trying to play upon
+you as upon an instrument; more concerned that you should acknowledge his
+power than have any depth of feeling." Thackeray, whose opinion is just
+quoted, calls him "a great jester, not a great humorist." He had lived a
+careless, self-indulgent life, and was no honor to his profession. His
+death was like a retribution. In a mean lodging, with no friends but his
+bookseller, he died suddenly from hemorrhage. His funeral was hasty, and
+only attended by two persons; his burial was in an obscure graveyard; and
+his body was taken up by corpse-snatchers for the dissecting-room of the
+professor of anatomy at Cambridge,--alas, poor Yorick!
+
+
+OLIVER GOLDSMITH.--We have placed Goldsmith in immediate connection with
+Sterne as, like him, of the Subjective School, in his story of the _Vicar
+of Wakefield_ and his numerous biographical and prose sketches; but he
+belongs to more than one literary school of his period. He was a poet, an
+essayist, a dramatist, and an historian; a writer who, in the words of his
+epitaph,--written by Dr. Johnson, and with no extravagant
+eulogium,--touched all subjects, and touched none that he did not
+adorn,--_nullum quod tetigit non ornavit_. His life was a strange
+melodrama, so varied with laughter and tears, so checkered with fame and
+misfortune, so resounding with songs pathetic and comic, that, were he an
+unknown hero, his adventures would be read with pleasure by all persons of
+sensibility. There is no better illustration of the _subjective_ in
+literature. It is the man who is presented to us in his works, and who can
+no more be disjoined from them than the light from the vase, the beauties
+of which it discloses. As an essayist, he was of the school of Addison and
+Steele; but he has more ease of style and more humor than his teachers. As
+a dramatist, he had many and superior competitors in his own vein; and yet
+his plays still occupy the stage. As an historian, he was fluent but
+superficial; and yet the charm of his style and the easy flow of his
+narrative, have given his books currency as manuals of instruction. And
+although as a writer of fiction, or of truth gracefully veiled in the
+garments of fiction, he stands unrivalled in his beautiful and touching
+story of the incorruptible _Vicar_, yet this is his only complete story,
+and presents but one side of his literary character. Considering him first
+as a poet, we shall find that he is one of the Transition School, but that
+he has a beautiful originality: his poems appeal not to the initiated
+alone, but to human nature in all its conditions and guises; they are
+elevated and harmonious enough for the most fastidious taste, and simple
+and artless enough to please the rustic and the child. To say that he is
+the most popular writer in the whole course of English Literature thus
+far, is hardly to overstate his claims; and the principal reason is that,
+with a blundering and improvident nature, a want of dignity, a lack of
+coherence, he had a great heart, alive to human suffering; he was generous
+to a fault, true to the right, and ever seeking, if constantly failing, to
+direct and improve his own life, and these good characteristics are
+everywhere manifest in his works. A brief recital of the principal events
+in his career will throw light upon his works, and will do the best
+justice to his peculiar character.
+
+Oliver Goldsmith was born at the little village of Pallas, in Ireland,
+where his father was a poor curate, on the 10th of November, 1728. There
+were nine children, of whom he was the fifth. His father afterwards moved
+to Lissoy, which the poet described, in his _Deserted Village_, as
+
+    Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,
+    Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain.
+
+As his father was entirely unable to educate so numerous a family,
+Goldsmith owed his education partly to his uncle, the Rev. Thomas
+Contarini, and in part to his brother, the Rev. Henry Goldsmith, whom he
+cherished with the sincerest affection. An attack of the small-pox while
+he was a boy marked his face, and he was to most persons an
+unprepossessing child. He was ill-treated at school by larger boys, and
+afterwards at Trinity College, Dublin, which he entered as a sizar, by his
+tutor. He was idle, careless, and improvident: he left college without
+permission, but was taken back by his brother, and was finally graduated
+with a bachelor's degree, in 1749. His later professional studies were
+spasmodic and desultory: he tried law and medicine, and more than once
+gained a scanty support by teaching. Seized with a rambling spirit, he
+went to the Continent, and visited Holland, France, Germany, Switzerland,
+and Italy; sometimes gaining a scanty livelihood by teaching English, and
+sometimes wandering without money, depending upon his flute to win a
+supper and bed from the rustics who lived on the highway. He obtained, it
+is said, the degree of Doctor of Medicine at Padua; and on his return to
+England, he went before a board of examiners to obtain the position of
+surgeon's mate in the army or navy. He was at this time so poor that he
+was obliged to borrow a suit of clothes to make a proper appearance before
+the examiners. He failed in his examination, and then, in despair, he
+pawned the borrowed clothes, to the great anger of the publisher who had
+lent them. This failure in his medical examination, unfortunate as it then
+seemed, secured him to literature. From that time his pen was constantly
+busy for the reviews and magazines. His first work was _An Inquiry into
+the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe_, which, at least, prepared
+the way for his future efforts. This appeared in 1759, and is
+characterized by general knowledge and polish of style.
+
+
+HIS POEMS.--In 1764 he published _The Traveller_, a moralizing poem upon
+the condition of the people under the European governments. It was at once
+and entirely successful; philosophical, elegant, and harmonious, it is
+pitched in a key suited to the capacity of the world at large; and as, in
+the general comparison of nations, he found abundant reason for lauding
+England, it was esteemed patriotic, and was on that account popular. Many
+of its lines have been constantly quoted since.
+
+In 1770 appeared his _Deserted Village_, which was even more popular than
+_The Traveller_; nor has this popularity flagged from that time down to
+the present day. It is full of exquisite pictures of rural life and
+manners. It is what it claims to be,--not an attempt at high art or epic,
+but a gallery of cabinet pictures of rare finish and detail, painted by
+the poet's heart and appealing to the sensibility of every reader. The
+world knows it by heart,--the portraiture of the village schoolmaster and
+his school; the beautiful picture of the country parson:
+
+    A man he was to all the country dear,
+    And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
+
+This latter is a worthy companion-piece to Chaucer's "poor persoune," and
+is, besides, a filial tribute to Goldsmith's father. So real are the
+characters and scenes, that the poem has been a popular subject for the
+artist. If in _The Traveller_ he has been philosophical and didactic, in
+the _Deserted Village_ he is only descriptive and tender. In no work is
+there a finer spirit of true charity, the love of man for God's
+sake,--like God himself, "no respecter of persons."
+
+While in form and versification he is like Pope and the Artificial School,
+he has the sensibility to nature of Thomson, and the simplicity of feeling
+and thought of Wordsworth; and thus he stands between the two great poetic
+periods, partaking of the better nature of both.
+
+
+THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.--Between the appearance of these two poems, in
+1766, came forth that nonpareil of charming stories, _The Vicar of
+Wakefield_. It is so well known that we need not enter into an analysis of
+it. It is the story of a good vicar, of like passions with ourselves; not
+wanting in vanity and impetuosity, but shining in his Christian virtue
+like a star in the midst of accumulating misfortunes,--a man of immaculate
+honor and undying faith, preaching to his fellow-prisoners in the jail,
+surveying death without fear, and at last, like Job, restored to
+happiness, and yet maintaining his humility. It does not seem to have been
+constructed according to artificial rules, but rather to have been told
+extemporaneously, without effort and without ambition; and while this very
+fact has been the cause of some artistic faults and some improbabilities,
+it has also given it a peculiar charm, by contrast with such purely
+artificial constructions as the _Rasselas_ of Johnson.
+
+So doubtful was the publisher, who had bought the manuscript for £60, that
+he held it back for two years, until the name of the author had become
+known through _The Traveller_, and was thus a guarantee for its success.
+The _Vicar of Wakefield_ has also an additional value in its delineation
+of manners, persons, and conditions in that day, and in its strictures
+upon the English penal law, in such terms and with such suggestions as
+seem a prophecy of the changes which have since taken place.
+
+
+HISTORIES, AND OTHER WORKS.--Of Goldsmith's various histories it may be
+said that they are of value for the clear, if superficial, presentation of
+facts, and for their charm of style.
+
+The best is, without doubt, _The History of England_; but the _Histories
+of Greece and Rome_, re-edited, are still used as text-books in many
+schools. The _Vicar_ has been translated into most of the modern
+languages, and imitated by many writers since.
+
+As an essayist, Goldsmith has been a great enricher of English history.
+His Chinese letters--for the idea of which he was indebted to the _Lettres
+Persanes_ of Montesquieu--describe England in his day with the same
+_vraisemblance_ which we have noticed in _The Spectator_. These were
+afterwards collected and published in a volume entitled _The Citizen of
+the World_. And besides the pleasure of biography, and the humor of the
+presentment, his _Life of Beau Nash_ introduces us to Bath and its
+frequenters with historical power. The life at the Spring is one and a
+very valuable phase of English society.
+
+As a dramatist, he was more than equalled by Sheridan; but his two plays,
+_The Good-Natured Man_ and _She Stoops to Conquer_, are still favorites
+upon the stage.
+
+The irregularities of Goldsmith's private life seem to have been rather
+defects in his character than intentional wrong-doings. Generous to a
+fault, squandering without thought what was due to his creditors, losing
+at play, he lived in continual pecuniary embarrassment, and died unhappy,
+with a debt of £1000, the existence of which led Johnson to ejaculate,
+"Was ever poet so trusted before?" He lived a bachelor; and the conclusion
+seems forced upon us that had he married a woman who could have controlled
+him, he, would have been a happier and more respectable man, but perhaps
+have done less for literature than he did.
+
+While Goldsmith was a type and presenter of his age, and while he took no
+high flights in the intellectual realms, he so handled what the age
+presented that he must be allowed the claim of originality, both in his
+poems and in the _Vicar_; and he has had, even to the present day, hosts
+of imitators. Poems on college gala-days were for a long time faint
+reflections of his _Traveller_, and simple, causal stories of quiet life
+are the teeming progeny of the _Vicar_, in spite of the Whistonian
+controversy, and the epitaph of his living wife.
+
+A few of his ballads and songs display great lyric power, but the most of
+his poetry is not lyric; it is rather a blending of the pastoral and epic
+with rare success. His minor poems are few, but favorites. Among these is
+the beautiful ballad entitled _Edwin and Angelina_, or _The Hermit_, which
+first appeared in _The Vicar of Wakefield_, but which has since been
+printed separately among his poems. Of its kind and class it has no
+superior. _Retaliation_ is a humorous epitaph upon his friends and
+co-literati, hitting off their characteristics with truth and point; and
+_The Haunch of Venison_--upon which he did not dine--is an amusing
+incident which might have happened to any Londoner like himself, but which
+no one could have related so well as he.
+
+He died in 1774, at the age of forty-five; but his fame--his better
+life--is more vigorous than ever. Washington Irving, whose writings are
+similar in style to those of Goldsmith, has extended and perpetuated his
+reputation in America by writing his Biography; a charming work, many
+touches of which seem almost autobiographical, as displaying the
+resemblance between the writer and his subject.
+
+
+MACKENZIE.--From Sterne and Goldsmith we pass to Mackenzie, who, if not a
+conscious imitator of the former, is, at least, unconsciously formed upon
+the model of Sterne, without his genius, but also without his coarseness:
+in the management of his narrative, he is a medium between Sterne and
+Walter Scott; indeed, from his long life, he saw the period of both these
+authors, and his writings partake of the characteristics of both.
+
+Henry Mackenzie was born at Edinburgh, in August, 1745, and lived until
+1831, to the ripe age of eighty-six. He was educated at the University of
+Edinburgh, and afterwards studied law. He wrote some strong political
+pamphlets in favor of the Pitt government, for which he was rewarded with
+the office of comptroller of the taxes, which he held to the day of his
+death.
+
+
+THE MAN OF FEELING.--In 1771 the world was equally astonished and
+delighted by the appearance of his first novel, _The Man of Feeling_. In
+this there are manifest tokens of his debt to Sterne's _Sentimental
+Journey_, in the journey of Harley, in the story of the beggar and his
+dog, and in somewhat of the same forced sensibility in the account of
+Harley's death.
+
+In 1773 appeared his _Man of the World_ which was in some sort a sequel to
+the _Man of Feeling_, but which wearies by the monotony of the plot.
+
+In 1777 he published _Julia de Roubigné_, which, in the opinion of many,
+shares the palm with his first novel: the plot is more varied than that of
+the second, and the language is exceedingly harmonious--elegiac prose. The
+story is plaintive and painful: virtue is extolled, but made to suffer, in
+a domestic tragedy, which all readers would be glad to see ending
+differently.
+
+At different times Mackenzie edited _The Mirror_ and _The Lounger_, and he
+has been called the restorer of the Essay. His story of the venerable _La
+Roche_, contributed to _The Mirror_, is perhaps the best specimen of his
+powers as a sentimentalist: it portrays the influence of Christianity, as
+exhibited in the very face of infidelity, to support the soul in the
+sorest of trials--the death of an only and peerless daughter.
+
+His contributions to the above-named periodicals were very numerous and
+popular.
+
+The name of his first novel was applied to himself as a man. He was known
+as the _man of feeling_ to the whole community. This was a misnomer: he
+was kind and affable; his evening parties were delightful; but he had
+nothing of the pathetic or sentimental about him. On the contrary, he was
+humorous, practical, and worldly-wise; very fond of field sports and
+athletic exercises. His sentiment--which has been variously criticized, by
+some as the perfection of moral pathos, and by others as lackadaisical and
+canting--may be said to have sprung rather from his observations of life
+and manners than to have welled spontaneously from any source within his
+own heart.
+
+Sterne and Goldsmith will be read as long as the English language lasts,
+and their representative characters will be quoted as models and standards
+everywhere: Mackenzie is fast falling into an oblivion from which he will
+only be resuscitated by the historian of English Literature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE HISTORICAL TRIAD IN THE SCEPTICAL AGE.
+
+
+   The Sceptical Age. David Hume. History of England. Metaphysics. Essay
+   on Miracles. Robertson. Histories. Gibbon. The Decline and Fall.
+
+
+
+THE SCEPTICAL AGE.
+
+
+History presents itself to the student in two forms: The first is
+_chronicle_, or a simple relation of facts and statistics; and the second,
+_philosophical history_, in which we use these facts and statistics in the
+consideration of cause and effect, and endeavor to extract a moral from
+the actions and events recorded. From pregnant causes the philosophic
+historian traces, at long distances, the important results; or,
+conversely, from the present condition of things--the good and evil around
+him--he runs back, sometimes remotely, to the causes from which they have
+sprung. Chronicle is very pleasing to read, and the reader may be, to some
+extent, his own philosopher; but the importance of history as a study is
+found in its philosophy.
+
+As far down as the eighteenth century, almost everything in history
+partakes of the nature of chronicle. In that century, in obedience to the
+law of human progress, there sprang up in England and on the Continent the
+men who first made chronicle material for philosophy, and used philosophy
+to teach by example what to imitate and what to shun.
+
+What were the circumstances which led, in the eighteenth century, to the
+simultaneous appearance of Hume, Gibbon, and Robertson, as the originators
+of a new school of history? Some of them have been already mentioned in
+treating of the antiquarian age. We have endeavored to show how the
+English literati--novelists, essayists, and poets--have been in part
+unconscious historians. It will also appear that the professed historians
+themselves have been, in a great measure, the creatures of English
+history. The _fifteenth_ century was the period when the revival of
+letters took place, and a great spur was given to mental activity; but the
+world, like a child, was again learning rudiments, and finding out what it
+was, and what it possessed at that present time: it received the new
+classical culture presented to it at the fall of the lower empire, and was
+content to learn the existing, without endeavoring to create the new, or
+even to recompose the scattered fragments of the past. The _eighteenth_
+century saw a new revival: the world had become a man; great progress was
+reported in arts, in inventions, and in discoveries; science began to
+labor at the arduous but important task of classification; new theories of
+government and laws were propounded; the past was consulted that its
+experience might be applied; the partisan chronicles needed to be united
+and compared that truth might be elicited; the philosophic historian was
+required, and the people were ready to learn, and to criticize, what he
+produced.
+
+I have ventured to call this the Sceptical Age. It had other
+characteristics: this was one. We use the word sceptical in its
+etymological sense: it was an age of inquiry, of doubt to be resolved.
+Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, D'Alembert, and Diderot had founded a new
+school of universal inquiry, and from their bold investigations and
+startling theories sprang the society of the _illuminati_, and the race of
+thinkers. They went too far: they stabbed the truth as it lay in the grasp
+of error. From thinkers they became free-thinkers: from philosophers they
+became infidels, and some of them atheists. This was the age which
+produced "the triumvirate of British historians who," in the words of
+Montgomery, "exemplified in their very dissimilar styles the triple
+contrast of simplicity, elegance, and splendor."
+
+Imbued with this spirit of the time, Hume undertook to write a _History of
+England_, which, with all its errors and faults, still ranks among the
+best efforts of English historians. Like the French philosophers, Hume was
+an infidel, and his scepticism appears in his writings; but, unlike
+them--for they were stanch reformers in government as well as infidels in
+faith--he who was an infidel was also an aristocrat in sentiment, and a
+consistent Tory his life long. In his history, with all the artifices of a
+philosopher, he takes the Jacobite side in the civil war.
+
+
+HUME.--David Hume was born in Edinburgh on the 26th of April (O.S.), 1711.
+His life was without many vicissitudes of interest, but his efforts to
+achieve an enduring reputation on the most solid grounds, mark him as a
+notable example of patient industry, study, and economy. He led a
+studious, systematic, and consistent life.
+
+Although of good family,--being a descendant of the Earl of Home,--he was
+in poor circumstances, and after some study of the law, and some
+unsuccessful literary ventures, he was obliged to seek employment as a
+means of livelihood. Thus he became tutor or keeper to the young Marquis
+of Annandale, who was insane. Abandoning this position in disgust, he was
+appointed secretary to General St. Clair in various embassies,--to Paris,
+Vienna, and Turin; everywhere hoarding his pay, until he became
+independent, "though," he says, "most of my friends were inclined to smile
+when I said so; in short, I was master of a thousand pounds."
+
+His earliest work was a _Treatise on Human Nature_, published in 1738,
+which met with no success. Nothing discouraged thereat, in 1741 he issued
+a volume of _Essays Moral and Political_, the success of which emboldened
+him to publish, in 1748, his _Inquiry Concerning the Human Understanding_.
+These and other works were preparing his pen for its greater task, the
+material for which he was soon to find.
+
+In 1752 he was appointed librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, not for
+the emolument, but with the real purpose of having entire control of the
+books and material in the library; and then he determined to write the
+_History of England_.
+
+
+HISTORY OF ENGLAND.--He began with the accession of the Stuarts, in 1603,
+the period when the popular element, so long kept tranquil by the power
+and sex of Queen Elizabeth, was ready first to break out into open
+assertion. Hume's self-deception must have been rudely discovered to him;
+for he tells us, in an autobiography fortunately preserved, that he
+expected so dispassionately to steer clear of all existent parties, or,
+rather, to be so just to all, that he should gain universal approbation.
+"Miserable," he adds, "was my disappointment. I was assailed by one cry of
+reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation. English, Scotch, Irish,
+Whig and Tory, churchman and sectary, free-thinker and religionist,
+patriot and courtier, united, in their rage, against the man who had
+presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl
+of Strafford." How far, too, this was ignorant invective, may be judged
+from the fact that in twelve months only forty-five copies of his work
+were sold.
+
+However, he patiently continued his labor. The first volume, containing
+the reigns of James I. and Charles I, had been issued in 1754; his second,
+published in 1756, and containing the later history of the Commonwealth,
+of Charles II., and James II., and concluding with the revolution of 1688,
+was received with more favor, and "helped to buoy up its unfortunate
+brother." Then he worked backward: in 1759 he produced the reigns of the
+house of Tudor; and in 1761, the earlier history, completing his work,
+from the earliest times to 1688. The tide had now turned in his favor; the
+sales were large, and his pecuniary rewards greater than any historian had
+yet received.
+
+The Tory character of his work is very decided: he not only sheds a
+generous tear for the fate of Charles I., but conceals or glosses the
+villanies of Stuarts far worse than Charles. The liberties of England
+consist, in his eyes, of wise concessions made by the sovereign, rather
+than as the inalienable birthright of the English man.
+
+He has also been charged with want of industry and honesty in the use of
+his materials--taking things at second-hand, without consulting original
+authorities which were within his reach, and thus falling into many
+mistakes, while placing in his marginal notes the names of the original
+authors. This charge is particularly just with reference to the
+Anglo-Saxon period, since so picturesquely described by Sharon Turner.
+
+The first in order of the philosophical historians, he is rather a
+collector of facts than a skilful diviner with them. His style is sonorous
+and fluent, but not idiomatic. Dr. Johnson said, "His style is not
+English; the structure of his sentences is French,"--an opinion concurred
+in by the eminent critic, Lord Jeffrey.
+
+But whatever the criticism, the _History_ of Hume is a great work. He did
+what was never done before. For a long time his work stood alone; and even
+now it has the charm of a clear, connected narrative, which is still
+largely consulted by many who are forewarned of its errors and faults. And
+however unidiomatic his style, it is very graceful and flowing, and lends
+a peculiar charm to his narrative.
+
+
+METAPHYSICS.--Of Hume as a philosopher, we need not here say much. He was
+acute, intelligent, and subtle; he was, in metaphysical language, "a
+sceptical nihilist." And here a distinction must be made between his
+religious tenets and his philosophical views,--a distinction so happily
+stated by Sir William Hamilton, that we present it in his words: "Though
+decidedly opposed to one and all of Hume's theological conclusions, I have
+no hesitation in asserting of his philosophical scepticism, that this was
+not only beneficial in its results, but, in the circumstances of the
+period, even a necessary step in the progress of Philosophy towards
+Truth." And again he says, "To Hume we owe the philosophy of Kant, and
+therefore also, in general, the later philosophy of Germany." "To Hume, in
+like manner, we owe the philosophy of Reid, and, consequently, what is now
+distinctively known in Europe as the Philosophy of the Scottish School."
+Great praise this from one of the greatest Christian philosophers of this
+century, and it shows Hume to have been more original as a philosopher
+than as an historian.
+
+He is also greatly commended by Lord Brougham as a political economist.
+"His _Political Discourses_," says his lordship, "combine almost every
+excellence which can belong to such a performance.... Their great merit is
+their originality, and the new system of politics and political economy
+which they unfold."
+
+
+MIRACLES.--The work in which is most fairly set forth his religious
+scepticism is his _Essay on Miracles_. In it he adopts the position of
+Locke, who had declared "that men should not believe any proposition that
+is contrary to reason, on the authority either of inspiration or of
+miracle; for the reality of the inspiration or of the miracle can only be
+established by reason." Before Hume, assaults on the miracles recorded in
+Scripture were numerous and varied. Spinoza and the Pantheistic School had
+started the question, "Are miracles possible?" and had taken the negative.
+Hume's question is, "Are miracles credible?" And as they are contrary to
+human experience, his answer is essentially that it must be always more
+probable that a miracle is false than that it is true; since it is not
+contrary to experience that witnesses are false or deceived. With him it
+is, therefore, a question of the preponderance of evidence, which he
+declares to be always against the miracle. This is not the place to
+discuss these topics. Archbishop Whately has practically illustrated the
+fallacy of Hume's reasoning, in a little book called _Historic Doubts,
+relative to Napoleon Bonaparte_, in which, with Hume's logic, he has
+proved, that the great emperor never lived; and Whately's successor in the
+archbishopric of Dublin, Dr. Trench, has given us some thoughtful words on
+the subject: "So long as we abide in the region of nature, miraculous and
+improbable, miraculous and incredible may be allowed to remain convertible
+terms; but once lift up the whole discussion into a higher region, once
+acknowledge aught higher than nature--_a kingdom of God_, and men the
+intended denizens of it--and the whole argument loses its strength and the
+force of its conclusions."
+
+Hume's death occurred on the 25th of August, 1776. His scepticism, or
+philosophy as he called it, remained with him to the end. He even diverted
+himself with the prospect of the excuses he would make to Charon as he
+reached the fatal river, and is among the few doubters who have calmly
+approached the grave without that concern which the Christian's hope alone
+is generally able to dispel.
+
+
+WILLIAM ROBERTSON.--the second of the great historians of the eighteenth
+century, although very different from the others in his personal life and
+in his creed,--was, like them, a representative and creature of the age.
+They form, indeed, a trio in literary character as well as in period; and
+we have letters from each to the others on the appearance of their works,
+showing that they form also what in the present day is called a "Mutual
+Admiration Society." They were above common envy: they recognized each
+other's excellence, and forbore to speak of each other's faults. As a
+philosopher, Hume was the greatest of the three; as an historian, the palm
+must be awarded to Gibbon. But Robertson surprises us most from the fact
+that a quiet Scotch pastor, who never travelled, should have attempted,
+and so gracefully treated, subjects of such general interest as those he
+handled.
+
+William Robertson was the son of a Scottish minister, and was born at
+Borthwick, in Scotland, on September 19th, in the year 1721. He was a
+precocious child, and, after attending school at Dalkeith, he entered the
+University of Edinburgh at the age of twelve. At the age of twenty he was
+licensed to preach. He published, in 1755, a sermon on _The Situation of
+the World at the Time of Christ's Appearance_, which attracted attention;
+but he astonished the world by issuing, in 1759, his _History of Scotland
+During the Reigns of Queen Mary, and of James VI. until his Accession to
+the Crown of England_. This is undoubtedly his best work, but not of such
+general interest as his others. His materials were scanty, and he did not
+consult such as were in his reach with much assiduity. The invaluable
+records of the archives of Simancas were not then opened to the world, but
+he lived among the scenes of his narrative, and had the advantage of
+knowing all the traditions and of hearing all the vehement opinions _pro_
+and _con_ upon the subjects of which he treated. The character of Queen
+Mary is drawn with a just but sympathetic hand, and his verdict is not so
+utterly denunciatory as that of Mr. Froude. Such was the popularity of
+this work, that in 1764 its author was appointed to the honorable office
+of Historiographer to His Majesty for Scotland. In 1769 he published his
+_History of Charles V._ Here was a new surprise. Whatever its faults, as
+afterwards discerned by the critics, it opened a new and brilliant page to
+the uninitiated reader, and increased his reputation very greatly. The
+history is preceded by a _View of the Progress of Society in Europe from
+the Subversion of the Roman Empire to the Beginning of the Sixteenth
+Century_. The best praise that can be given to this _View_ is, that
+students have since used it as the most excellent summary of that kind
+existing. Of the history itself it may be said that, while it is greatly
+wanting in historic material in the interest of the narrative and the
+splendor of the pageantry of the imperial court, it marked a new era in
+historical delineations.
+
+
+HISTORY OF AMERICA.--In 1777 appeared the first eight books of his
+_History of America_, to which, in 1778, he appended additions and
+corrections. The concluding books, the ninth and tenth, did not appear
+until 1796, when, three years after his death, they were issued by his
+son. As a connected narrative of so great an event in the world's history
+as the discovery of America, it stood quite alone. If, since that time,
+far better and fuller histories have appeared, we should not withhold our
+meed of praise from this excellent forerunner of them all. One great
+defect of this and the preceding work was his want of knowledge of the
+German and Spanish historians, and of the original papers then locked up
+in the archives of Simancas; later access to which has given such great
+value to the researches of Irving and Prescott and Sterling. Besides,
+Robertson lacked the life-giving power which is the property of true
+genius. His characters are automata gorgeously arrayed, but without
+breath; his style is fluent and sometimes sparkling, but in all respects
+he has been superseded, and his works remain only as curious
+representatives of the age to the literary student. One other work remains
+to be mentioned, and that is his _Historical Disquisition Concerning the
+Knowledge which the Ancients had of India, and the Progress of Trade with
+that Country Prior to the Discovery of the Passage to it by the Cape of
+Good Hope_. This is chiefly of value as it indicates the interest felt in
+England at the rise of the English Empire in India; but for real facts it
+has no value at all.
+
+
+GIBBON.--Last in order of time, though far superior as an historian to
+Hume and Robertson, stands Edward Gibbon, the greatest historian England
+has produced, whether we regard the dignity of his style--antithetic and
+sonorous; the range of his subject--the history of a thousand years; the
+astonishing fidelity of his research in every department which contains
+historic materials; or the symmetry and completeness of his colossal work.
+
+Like Hume, he has left us a sketch of his own life and labors, simple and
+dispassionate, from which it appears that he was born in London on the
+27th of April, 1737; and, being of a good family, he had every advantage
+of education. Passing a short time at the University of Oxford, he stands
+in a small minority of those who can find no good in their _Alma Mater_.
+"To the University of Oxford," he says, "I acknowledge no obligation, and
+she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son as I am willing to disclaim
+her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College. They proved
+to be fourteen of the most idle and unprofitable months of my whole life."
+This singular experience may be contrasted with that of hundreds, but may
+be most fittingly illustrated by stating that of Dr. Lowth, a venerable
+contemporary of the historian. He speaks enthusiastically of the place
+where the student is able "to breathe the same atmosphere that had been
+breathed by Hooker and Chillingworth and Locke; to revel in its grand and
+well-ordered libraries; to form part of that academic society where
+emulation without envy, ambition without jealousy, contention without
+animosity, incited industry and awakened genius."
+
+Gibbon, while still in his boyhood, had read with avidity ancient and
+modern history, and had written a juvenile paper on _The Age of
+Sesostris_, which was, at least, suggested by Voltaire's _Siècle de Louis
+XIV_.
+
+Early interested, too, in the history of Christianity, his studies led him
+to become a Roman Catholic; but his belief was by no means stable. Sent by
+his father to Lausanne, in Switzerland, to be under the religious training
+of a Protestant minister, he changed his opinions, and became again a
+Protestant. His convictions, however, were once more shaken, and, at the
+last, he became a man of no creed, a sceptic of the school of Voltaire, a
+creature of the age of illumination. Many passages of his history display
+a sneering unbelief, which moves some persons more powerfully than the
+subtlest argument. This modern Platonist, beginning with sensation,
+evolves his philosophy from within,--from the finite mind; whereas human
+history can only be explained in the light of revelation, which gives to
+humanity faith, but which educes all science from the infinite--the mind
+of God.
+
+The history written by Gibbon, called _The Decline and Fall of the Roman
+Empire_, begins with that empire in its best days, under Hadrian, and
+extends to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, under Mohammed II.,
+in 1453.
+
+And this marvellous scope he has treated with a wonderful equality of
+research and power;--the world-absorbing empire, the origin and movements
+of the northern tribes and the Scythian marauders, the fall of the Western
+Empire, the history of the civil law, the establishment of the Gothic
+monarchies, the rise and spread of Mohammedanism, the obscurity of the
+middle age deepening into gloom, the crusades, the dawning of letters, and
+the inauguration of the modern era after the fall of Constantinople,--the
+detailed history of a thousand years. It is difficult to conceive that any
+one should suggest such a task to himself; it is astonishing to think
+that, with a dignified, self-reliant tenacity of purpose, it should have
+been completely achieved. It was an historic period, in which, in the
+words of Corneille, "_Un grand destin commence un grand destin s'achève_."
+In many respects Gibbon's work stands alone; the general student must
+refer to Gibbon, because there is no other work to which he can refer. It
+was translated by Guizot into French, the first volume by Wenck into
+German (he died before completing it); and it was edited by Dean Milman in
+England.
+
+The style of Gibbon is elegant and powerful; at first it is singularly
+pleasing, but as one reads it becomes too sonorous, and fatigues, as the
+crashing notes of a grand march tire the ear. His periods are antithetic;
+each contains a surprise and a witty point. His first two volumes have
+less of this stately magnificence, but in his later ones, in seeking to
+vindicate popular applause, he aims to shine, and perpetually labors for
+effect. Although not such a philosopher as Hume, his work is quite as
+philosophical as Hume's history, and he has been more faithful in the use
+of his materials. Guizot, while pointing out his errors, says he was
+struck, after "a second and attentive perusal," with "the immensity of his
+researches, the variety of his knowledge, and, above all, with that truly
+philosophical discrimination which judges the past as it would judge the
+present."
+
+The danger to the unwary reader is from the sceptical bias of the author,
+which, while he states every important fact, leads him, by its manner of
+presentation, to warp it, or put it in a false light. Thus, for example,
+he has praise for paganism, and easy absolution for its sins; Mohammed
+walks the stage with a stately stride; Alaric overruns Europe to a grand
+quickstep; but Christianity awakens no enthusiasm, and receives no
+eulogium, although he describes its early struggles, its martyrdoms, its
+triumphs under Constantine, its gentle radiance during the dark ages, and
+its powerful awakening. Because he cannot believe, he cannot even be just.
+
+In his special chapter on the rise and spread of Christianity, he gives a
+valuable summary of its history, and of the claims of the papacy, with
+perhaps a leaning towards the Latin Church. Gibbon finished his work at
+Lausanne on the 27th of June, 1787.
+
+Its conception had come to his mind as he sat one evening amid the ruins
+of the Capitol at Rome, and heard the barefooted friars singing vespers in
+the Temple of Jupiter. He had then thought of writing the decline and fall
+of the city of Rome, but soon expanded his view to the empire. This was in
+1764. Nearly thirteen years afterwards, he wrote the last line of the last
+page in his garden-house at Lausanne, and reflected joyfully upon his
+recovered freedom and his permanent fame. His second thought, however,
+will fitly close this notice with a moral from his own lips: "My pride was
+soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea
+that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion,
+and that whatever might be the future fate of my history, the life of the
+historian must be short and precarious."
+
+
+
+OTHER CONTRIBUTORS TO HISTORY.
+
+
+_James Boswell_, 1740-1795: he was the son of a Scottish judge called Lord
+Auchinleck, from his estate. He studied law, and travelled, publishing, on
+his return, _Journal of a Tour in Corsica_. He appears to us a
+simple-hearted and amiable man, inquisitive, and exact in details. He
+became acquainted with Dr. Johnson in 1763, and conceived an immense
+admiration for him. In numerous visits to London, and in their tour to the
+Hebrides together, he noted Johnson's speech and actions, and, in 1791,
+published his life, which has already been characterized as the greatest
+biography ever written. Its value is manifold; not only is it a faithful
+portrait of the great writer, but, in the detailed record of his life, we
+have the wit, dogmatism, and learning of his hero, as expressing and
+illustrating the history of the age, quite as fully as the published works
+of Johnson. In return for this most valuable contribution to history and
+literature, the critics, one and all, have taxed their ingenuity to find
+strong words of ridicule and contempt for Boswell, and have done him great
+injustice. Because he bowed before the genius of Johnson, he was not a
+toady, nor a fool; at the worst, he was a fanatic, and a not always wise
+champion. Johnson was his king, and his loyalty was unqualified.
+
+
+_Horace Walpole_, the Right Honorable, and afterwards Earl of Orford,
+1717-1797: he was a wit, a satirist, and a most accomplished writer, who,
+notwithstanding, affected to despise literary fame. His paternity was
+doubted; but he enjoyed wealth and honors, and, by the possession of three
+sinecures, he lived a life of elegant leisure. He transformed a small
+house on the bank of the Thames, at Twickenham, into a miniature castle,
+called _Strawberry Hill_, which he filled with curiosities. He held a very
+versatile pen, and wrote much on many subjects. Among his desultory works
+are: _Anecdotes of Painting in England_, and _Ædes Walpoliana_, a
+description of the pictures at Houghton Hall, the seat of Sir Robert
+Walpole. He also ranks among the novelists, as the author of _The Castle
+of Otranto_, in which he deviates from the path of preceding writers of
+fiction--a sort of individual reaction from their portraitures of existing
+society to the marvellous and sensational. This work has been variously
+criticized; by some it has been considered a great flight of the
+imagination, but by most it is regarded as unnatural and full of
+"pasteboard machinery." He had immediate followers in this vein, among
+whom are Mrs. Aphra Behn, in her _Old English Baron_; and Ann Radcliffe,
+in _The Romance of the Forest_, and _The Mysteries of Udolpho_. Walpole
+also wrote a work entitled _Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of
+Richard III_. But his great value as a writer is to be found in his
+_Memoirs_ and varied _Correspondence_, in which he presents photographs of
+the society in which he lives. Scott calls him "the best letter-writer in
+the language." Among the series of his letters, those of the greatest
+historical importance are those addressed to Sir Horace Mann, between 1760
+and 1785. Of this series, Macaulay, who is his severest critic, says: "It
+forms a connected whole--a regular journal of what appeared to Walpole the
+most important transactions of the last twenty years of George II.'s
+reign. It contains much new information concerning the history of that
+time, the portion of English history of which common readers know the
+least."
+
+
+_John Lord Hervey_, 1696-1743: he is known for his attempts in poetry, and
+for a large correspondence, since published; but his chief title to rank
+among the contributors to history is found in his _Memoirs of the Court of
+George II. and Queen Caroline_, which were not published until 1848. They
+give an unrivalled view of the court and of the royal household; and the
+variety of the topics, combined with the excellence of description, render
+them admirable as aids to understanding the history.
+
+
+_Sir William Blackstone_, 1723-1780: a distinguished lawyer, he was an
+unwearied student of the history of the English statute law, and was on
+that account made Professor of Law in the University of Oxford. Some time
+a member of Parliament, he was afterwards appointed a judge. He edited
+_Magna Charta_ and _The Forest Charter_ of King John and Henry III. But
+his great work, one that has made his name famous, is _The Commentaries on
+the Laws of England_. Notwithstanding much envious criticism, it has
+maintained its place as a standard work. It has been again and again
+edited, and perhaps never better than by the Hon. George Sharswood, one of
+the Judges of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
+
+
+_Adam Smith_, 1723-1790: this distinguished writer on political economy,
+the intelligent precursor of a system based upon the modern usage of
+nations, was educated at Glasgow and Oxford, and became in turn Professor
+of Logic and of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow. His lecture
+courses in Moral Science contain the germs of his two principal works: 1.
+_The Theory of Moral Sentiments_, and 2. _An Enquiry into the Nature and
+Causes of the Wealth of Nations_. The theory of the first has been
+superseded by the sounder views of later writers; but the second has
+conferred upon him enduring honor. In it he establishes as a principle
+that _labor_ is the source of national wealth, and displays the value of
+division of labor. This work--written in clear, simple language, with
+copious illustrations--has had a wonderful influence upon the legislation
+and the commercial system of all civilized states since its issue, and has
+greatly conduced to the happiness of the human race. He wrote it in
+retirement, during a period of ten years. He astonished and instructed his
+period by presenting it with a new and necessary science.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+SAMUEL JOHNSON AND HIS TIMES.
+
+
+   Early Life and Career. London. Rambler and Idler. The Dictionary. Other
+   Works. Lives of the Poets. Person and Character. Style. Junius.
+
+
+
+EARLY LIFE AND CAREER.
+
+
+Doctor Samuel Johnson was poet, dramatist, essayist, lexicographer,
+dogmatist, and critic, and, in this array of professional characters,
+played so distinguished a part in his day that he was long regarded as a
+prodigy in English literature. His influence has waned since his
+personality has grown dim, and his learning been superseded or
+overshadowed; but he still remains, and must always remain, the most
+prominent literary figure of his age; and this is in no small measure due
+to his good fortune in having such a champion and biographer as James
+Boswell. Johnson's Life by Boswell is without a rival among biographies:
+in the words of Macaulay: "Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic
+poets; Shakspeare is not more decidedly the first of dramatists;
+Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of orators, than Boswell is
+the first of biographers;" and Burke has said that Johnson appears far
+greater in Boswell's book than in his own. We thus know everything about
+Johnson, as we do not know about any other literary man, and this
+knowledge, due to his biographer, is at least one of the elements of
+Johnson's immense reputation.
+
+He was born at Lichfield on the 18th of September, 1709. His father was a
+bookseller; and after having had a certain amount of knowledge "well
+beaten into him" by Mr. Hunter, young Johnson was for two years an
+assistant in his father's shop. But such was his aptitude for learning,
+that he was sent in 1728 to Pembroke College, Oxford. His youth was not a
+happy one: he was afflicted with scrofula, "which disfigured a countenance
+naturally well formed, and hurt his visual nerves so much that he did not
+see at all with one of his eyes." He had a morbid melancholy,--fits of
+dejection which made his life miserable. He was poor; and when, in 1731,
+his father died insolvent, he was obliged to leave the university without
+a degree. After fruitless attempts to establish a school, he married, in
+1736, Mrs. Porter, a widow, who had £800. Rude and unprepossessing to
+others, she was sincerely loved by her husband, and deeply lamented when
+she died. In 1737 Johnson went to London in company with young Garrick,
+who had been one of his few pupils, and who was soon to fill the English
+world with his theatrical fame.
+
+
+LONDON.--Johnson soon began to write for Cave's _Gentleman's Magazine_,
+and in 1738 he astonished Pope and the artificial poets by producing, in
+their best vein, his imitation of the third Satire of Juvenal, which he
+called _London_. This was his usher into the realm of literature. But he
+did not become prominent until he had reached his fiftieth year; he
+continued to struggle with gloom and poverty, too proud to seek patronage
+in an age when popular remuneration had not taken its place. In 1740 he
+was a reporter of the debates in parliament for Cave; and it is said that
+many of the indifferent speakers were astonished to read the next day the
+fine things which the reporter had placed in their mouths, which they had
+never uttered.
+
+In 1749 he published his _Vanity of Human Wishes_, an imitation of the
+tenth Satire of Juvenal, which was as heartily welcomed as _London_ had
+been. It is Juvenal applied to English and European history. It contains
+many lines familiar to us all; among them are the following:
+
+    Let observation with extended view
+    Survey mankind from China to Peru.
+
+In speaking of Charles XII., he says:
+
+    His fall was destined to a barren strand,
+    A petty fortress and a dubious hand;
+    He left a name at which the world grew pale,
+    To point a moral or adorn a tale.
+
+    From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow,
+    And Swift expires a driveller and a show.
+
+In the same year he published his tragedy of _Irene_, which,
+notwithstanding the friendly efforts of Garrick, who was now manager of
+Drury Lane Theatre, was not successful. As a poet, Johnson was the
+perfection of the artificial school; and this very technical perfection
+was one of the causes of the reaction which was already beginning to sweep
+it away.
+
+
+RAMBLER AND IDLER.--In 1750 he commenced _The Rambler_, a periodical like
+_The Spectator_, of which he wrote nearly all the articles, and which
+lived for two years. Solemn, didactic, and sonorous, it lacked the variety
+and genial humor which had characterized Addison and Steele. In 1758 he
+started _The Idler_, in the same vein, which also ran its respectable
+course for two years. In 1759 his mother died, and, in order to defray the
+expenses of her funeral, he wrote his story of _Rasselas_ in the evenings
+of one week, for two editions of which he received £125. Full of moral
+aphorisms and instruction, this "Abyssinian tale" is entirely English in
+philosophy and fancy, and has not even the slight illusion of other
+Eastern tales in French and English, which were written about the same
+time, and which are very similar in form and matter. Of _Rasselas_,
+Hazlitt says: "It is the most melancholy and debilitating moral
+speculation that was ever put forth."
+
+
+THE DICTIONARY.--As early as 1747 he had begun to write his English
+Dictionary, which, after eight years of incessant and unassisted labor,
+appeared in 1755. It was a noble thought, and produced a noble work--a
+work which filled an original vacancy. In France, a National Academy had
+undertaken a similar work; but this English giant had accomplished his
+labors alone. The amount of reading necessary to fix and illustrate his
+definitions was enormous, and the book is especially valuable from the apt
+and varied quotations from English authors. He established the language,
+as he found it, on a firm basis in signification and orthography. He laid
+the foundation upon which future lexicographers were to build; but he was
+ignorant of the Teutonic languages, from which so much of the structure
+and words of the English are taken, and thus is signally wanting in the
+scientific treatment of his subject. This is not to his discredit, for the
+science of language has had its origin in a later and modern time.
+
+Perhaps nothing displays more fully the proud, sturdy, and self-reliant
+character of the man, than the eight years of incessant and unassisted
+labor upon this work.
+
+His letter to Lord Chesterfield, declining his tardy patronage, after
+experiencing his earlier neglect, is a model of severe and yet respectful
+rebuke, and is to be regarded as one of the most significant events in his
+history. In it he says: "The notice you have been pleased to take of my
+labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I
+am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart
+it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical
+asperity not to confess obligation when no benefit has been received, or
+to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a
+patron which Providence has enabled me to do for myself." Living as he did
+in an age when the patronage of the great was wearing out, and public
+appreciation beginning to reward an author's toils, this manly letter gave
+another stab to the former, and hastened the progress of the latter.
+
+
+OTHER WORKS.--The fame of Johnson was now fully established, and his
+labors were rewarded, in 1762, by the receipt of a pension of £300 from
+the government, which made him quite independent. It was then, in the very
+heyday of his reputation, that, in 1763, he became acquainted with James
+Boswell, to whom he at once became a Grand Lama; who took down the words
+as they dropped from his lips, and embalmed his fame.
+
+In 1764 he issued his edition of Shakspeare, in eight octavo volumes, of
+which the best that can be said is, that it is not valuable as a
+commentary. A commentator must have something in common with his author;
+there was nothing congenial between Shakspeare and Johnson.
+
+It was in 1773, that, urged by Boswell, he made his famous _Journey to the
+Hebrides_, or Western Islands of Scotland, of which he gave delightful
+descriptions in a series of letters to his friend Mrs. Thrale, which he
+afterwards wrote out in more pompous style for publication. The letters
+are current, witty, and simple; the published work is stilted and
+grandiloquent.
+
+It is well known that he had no sympathy with the American colonies in
+their struggle against British oppression. When, in 1775, the Congress
+published their _Resolutions_ and _Address_, he answered them in a
+prejudiced and illogical paper entitled _Taxation no Tyranny_.
+Notwithstanding its want of argument, it had the weight of his name and of
+a large party; but history has construed it by the _animus_ of the writer,
+who had not long before declared of the colonists that they were "a race
+of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of
+hanging."
+
+As early as 1744 he had published a Life of the gifted but unhappy
+Savage, whom in his days of penury he had known, and with whom he had
+sympathized; but in 1781 appeared his _Lives of the English Poets, with
+Critical Observations on their Works_, and _Lives of Sundry Eminent
+Persons_.
+
+
+LIVES OF THE POETS.--These comprise fifty-two poets, most of them little
+known at the present day, and thirteen _eminent persons_. Of historical
+value, as showing us the estimate of an age in which Johnson was an usher
+to the temple of Fame, they are now of little other value; those of his
+own school and coterie he could understand and eulogize. To Milton he
+accorded carefully measured praise, but could not do him full justice,
+from entire want of sympathy; the majesty of blank verse pentameters he
+could not appreciate, and from Milton's puritanism he recoiled with
+disgust.
+
+Johnson died on the 13th of December, 1784, and was buried in Westminster
+Abbey; a flat stone with an inscription was placed over his grave: it was
+also designed to erect his monument there, but St. Paul's Cathedral was
+afterwards chosen as the place. There, a colossal figure represents the
+distinguished author, and a Latin epitaph, written by Dr. Parr, records
+his virtues and his achievements in literature.
+
+
+PERSON AND CHARACTER.--A few words must suffice to give a summary of his
+character, and will exhibit some singular contrarieties. He had varied but
+not very profound learning; was earnest, self-satisfied, overbearing in
+argument, or, as Sir Walter Scott styles it, _despotic_. As distinguished
+for his powers of conversation as for his writings, he always talked _ex
+cathedra_, and was exceedingly impatient of opposition. Brutal in his word
+attacks, he concealed by tone and manner a generous heart. Grandiloquent
+in ordinary matters, he "made little fishes talk like whales."
+
+Always swayed by religious influences, he was intolerant of the sects
+around him; habitually pious, he was not without superstition; he was not
+an unbeliever in ghostly apparitions, and had a great fear of death; he
+also had the touching mania--touching every post as he walked along the
+street, thereby to avoid some unknown evil.
+
+Although of rural origin, he became a thorough London cockney, and his
+hatred of Scotchmen and dissenters is at once pitiful and ludicrous. His
+manners and gestures were uncouth and disagreeable. He devoured rather
+than eat his food, and was a remarkable tea-drinker; on one occasion,
+perhaps for bravado, taking twenty-five cups at a sitting.
+
+Massive in figure, seamed with scrofulous scars and marks, seeing with but
+one eye, he had convulsive motions and twitches, and his slovenly dress
+added to the uncouthness and oddity of his appearance. In all respects he
+was an original, and even his defects and peculiarities seemed to conduce
+to make him famous.
+
+Considered the first among the critics of his own day, later judgments
+have reversed his decisions; many of those whom he praised have sunk into
+obscurity, and those whom he failed to appreciate have been elevated to
+the highest pedestals in the literary House of Fame.
+
+
+STYLE.--His style is full-sounding and antithetic, his periods are
+carefully balanced, his manner eminently respectable and good; but his
+words, very many of them of Latin derivation, constitute what the later
+critics have named _Johnsonese_, which is certainly capable of translation
+into plainer Saxon English, with good results. Thus, in speaking of
+Addison's style, he says: "It is pure without scrupulosity, and exact
+without apparent elaboration; ... he seeks no ambitious ornaments, and
+tries no hazardous innovations; his page is always luminous, but never
+blazes in unexpected splendor." Very numerous examples might be given of
+sentences most of the words in which might be replaced by simpler
+expressions with great advantage to the sound and to the sense.
+
+As a critic, his word was law: his opinion was clearly and often severely
+expressed on literary men and literary subjects, and no great writer of
+his own or a past age escaped either his praise or his censure. Authors
+wrote with the fear of his criticism before their eyes; and his pompous
+diction was long imitated by men who, without this influence, would have
+written far better English. But, on the other hand, his honesty, his
+scholarship, his piety, and his championship of what was good and true, as
+depicted in his writings, made him a blessing to his time, and an honored
+and notable character in the noble line of English authors.
+
+
+JUNIUS.--Among the most significant and instructive writings to the
+student of English history, in the earlier part of the reign of George
+III., is a series of letters written by a person, or by several persons in
+combination, whose _nom de plume_ was Junius. These letters specified the
+errors and abuses of the government, were exceedingly bold in denunciation
+and bitter in invective. The letters of Junius were forty-four in number,
+and were addressed to Mr. Woodfall, the proprietor of _The Public
+Advertiser_, a London newspaper, in which they were published. Fifteen
+others in the same vein were signed Philo-Junius; and there are besides
+sixty-two notes addressed by Junius to his publisher.
+
+The principal letters signed Junius were addressed to ministers directly,
+and the first, on the _State of the Nation_, was a manifesto of the
+grounds of his writing and his purpose. It was evident that a bold censor
+had sprung forth; one acquainted with the secret movements of the
+government, and with the foibles and faults of the principal statesmen:
+they writhed under his lash. Some of the more gifted attempted to answer
+him, and, as in the case of Sir William Draper, met with signal
+discomfiture. Vigorous efforts were made to discover the offender, but
+without success; and as to his first patriotic intentions he soon added
+personal spite, the writer found that his life would not be safe if his
+secret were discovered. The rage of parties has long since died away, and
+the writer or writers have long been in their graves, but the curious
+secret still remains, and has puzzled the brains of students to the
+present day. Allibone gives a list of forty-two persons to whom the
+letters were in whole or in part ascribed, among whom are Colonel Barré,
+Burke, Lord Chatham, General Charles Lee, Horne Tooke, Wilkes, Horace
+Walpole, Lord Lyttleton, Lord George Sackville, and Sir Philip Francis.
+Pamphlets and books have been written by hundreds upon this question of
+authorship, and it is not yet by any means definitely settled. The
+concurrence of the most intelligent investigators is in favor of Sir
+Philip Francis, because of the handwriting being like his, but slightly
+disguised; because he and Junius were alike intimate with the government
+workings in the state department and in the war department, and took notes
+of speeches in the House of Lords; because the letters came to an end just
+before Francis was sent to India; and because, indecisive as these claims
+are, they are stronger than those of any other suspected author. Macaulay
+adds to these: "One of the strongest reasons for believing that Francis
+was Junius is the _moral_ resemblance between the two men."
+
+It is interesting to notice that the ministry engaged Dr. Johnson to
+answer the _forty-second_ letter, in which the king is especially
+arraigned. Johnson's answer, published in 1771, is entitled _Thoughts on
+the Late Transactions respecting Falkland's Islands_. Of Junius he says:
+"He cries havoc without reserve, and endeavors to let slip the dogs of
+foreign and civil war, ignorant whither they are going, and careless what
+maybe their prey." "It is not hard to be sarcastic in a mask; while he
+walks like Jack the giant-killer, in a coat of darkness, he may do much
+mischief with little strength." "Junius is an unusual phenomenon, on which
+some have gazed with wonder and some with terror; but wonder and terror
+are transitory passions. He will soon be more closely viewed, or more
+attentively examined, and what folly has taken for a comet, that from its
+flaming hair shook pestilence and war, inquiry will find to be only a
+meteor formed by the vapors of putrefying democracy, and kindled into
+flame by the effervescence of interest struggling with conviction, which,
+after having plunged its followers into a bog, will leave us inquiring why
+we regarded it."
+
+Whatever the moral effect of the writings of Junius, as exhibited by
+silent influence in the lapse of years, the schemes he proposed and the
+party he championed alike failed of success. His farewell letter to
+Woodfall bears date the 19th of January, 1773. In that letter he declared
+that "he must be an idiot to write again; that he had meant well by the
+cause and the public; that both were given up; that there were not ten men
+who would act steadily together on any question."[35] But one thing is
+sure: he has enriched the literature with public letters of rare sagacity,
+extreme elegance of rhetoric and great logical force, and has presented a
+problem always curious and interesting for future students,--not yet
+solved, in spite of Mr. Chabot's recent book,[36] and every day becoming
+more difficult of solution,--_Who was Junius_?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THE LITERARY FORGERS IN THE ANTIQUARIAN AGE.
+
+
+   The Eighteenth Century. James Macpherson. Ossian. Thomas Chatterton.
+   His Poems. The Verdict. Suicide. The Cause.
+
+
+
+THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+
+The middle of the eighteenth century is marked as a period in which, while
+other forms of literature flourished, there arose a taste for historic
+research. Not content with the _actual_ in poetry and essay and pamphlet,
+there was a looking back to gather up a record of what England had done
+and had been in the past, and to connect, in logical relation, her former
+with her latter glory. It was, as we have seen, the era of her great
+historians, Hume, Gibbon, and Robertson, who, upon the chronicles, and the
+abundant but scattered material, endeavored to construct philosophic
+history; it was the day of her greatest moralists, Adam Smith, Tucker, and
+Paley, and of research in metaphysics and political economy. In this
+period Bishop Percy collected the ancient English ballads, and also
+historic poems from the Chinese and the Runic; in it Warton wrote his
+history of poetry. Dr. Johnson, self-reliant and laborious, was producing
+his dictionary, and giving limits and coherence to the language. Mind was
+on the alert, not only subsidizing the present, but looking curiously into
+the past. I have ventured to call it the antiquarian age. In 1751, the
+Antiquarian Society of London was firmly established; men began to collect
+armor and relics: in this period grew up such an antiquary as Mr. Oldbuck,
+who curiously sought out every relic of the Roman times,--armor, fosses,
+and _prætoria_,--and found, with much that was real, many a fraud or
+delusion. It was an age which, in the words of old Walter Charleton,
+"despised the present as an innovation, and slighted the future, like the
+madman who fell in love with Cleopatra."
+
+There was manifestly a great temptation to adventurous men--with
+sufficient learning, and with no high notion of honor--to creep into the
+distant past; to enact, in mask and domino, its literary parts, and
+endeavor to deceive an age already enthusiastic for antiquity.
+
+Thus, in the third century, if we may believe the Scotch and Irish
+traditions, there existed in Scotland a great chieftain named Fion na
+Gael--modernized into Fingal--who fought with Cuthullin and the Irish
+warriors, and whose exploits were, as late as the time of which we have
+been speaking, the theme of rude ballads among the highlands and islands
+of Scotland. To find and translate these ballads was charming and
+legitimate work for the antiquarian; to counterfeit them, and call them by
+the name of a bard of that period, was the great temptation to the
+literary forger. Of such a bard, too, there was a tradition. As brave as
+were the deeds of Fingal, their fame was not so great as that of his son
+Ossian, who struck a lofty harp as he recounted his father's glory. Could
+the real poems be found, they would verify the lines:
+
+    From the barred visor of antiquity
+    Reflected shines the eternal light of Truth
+    As from a mirror.
+
+And if they could not be found, they might be counterfeited. This was
+undertaken by Doctor James Macpherson. Catering to the spirit of the age,
+he reproduced the songs of Ossian and the lofty deeds of Fingal.
+
+Again, we have referred, in an early part of this work, to the almost
+barren expanse in the highway of English literature from the death of
+Chaucer to the middle of the sixteenth century; this barrenness was due,
+as we saw, to the turbulence of those years--civil war, misgovernment, a
+time of bloody action rather than peaceful authorship. Here, too, was a
+great temptation for some gifted but oblique mind to supply a partial
+literature for that bare period; a literature which, entirely fabricated,
+should yet bear all the characteristics of the history, language, customs,
+manners, and religion of that time.
+
+This attempt was made by Thomas Chatterton, an obscure, ill-educated lad,
+without means or friends, but who had a master-mind, and would have
+accomplished some great feat in letters, had he not died, while still very
+young, by his own hand.
+
+Let us examine these frauds in succession: we shall find them of double
+historic value, as literary efforts in one age designed to represent the
+literature of a former age.
+
+
+JAMES MACPHERSON.--James Macpherson was born at Ruthven, a village in
+Inverness-shire, in 1738. Being intended for the ministry, he received a
+good preliminary education, and became early interested in the ancient
+Gaelic ballads and poetic fragments still floating about the Highlands of
+Scotland. By the aid of Mr. John Home, the author of _Douglas_, and his
+friends Blair and Ferguson, he published, in 1760, a small volume of sixty
+pages entitled, _Fragments of Ancient Poetry translated from the Gaelic or
+Erse Language_. They were heroic and harmonious, and were very well
+received: he had catered to the very spirit of the age. At first, there
+seemed to be no doubt as to their genuineness. It was known to tradition
+that this northern Fingal had fought with Severus and Caracalla, on the
+banks of the Carun, and that blind Ossian had poured forth a flood of song
+after the fight, and made the deeds immortal. And now these songs and
+deeds were echoing in English ears,--the thrumming of the harp which told
+of "the stream of those olden years, where they have so long hid, in their
+mist, their many-colored sides." (_Cathloda_, Duan III.)
+
+So enthusiastically were these poems received, that a subscription was
+raised to enable Macpherson to travel in the Highlands, and collect more
+of this lingering and beautiful poetry.
+
+Gray the poet, writing to William Mason, in 1760, says: "These poems are
+in everybody's mouth in the Highlands; have been handed down from father
+to son. We have therefore set on foot a subscription of a guinea or two
+apiece, in order to enable Mr. Macpherson to recover this poem (Fingal),
+and other fragments of antiquity."
+
+
+FINGAL.--On his return, in 1762, he published _Fingal_, and, in the same
+volume, some smaller poems. This Fingal, which he calls "an ancient epic
+poem" in six duans or books, recounts the deliverance of Erin from the
+King of Lochlin. The next year, 1763, he published _Temora_. Among the
+earlier poems, in all which Fingal is the hero, are passages of great
+beauty and touching pathos. Such, too, are found in _Carricthura and
+Carthon, the War of Inis-thona_, and the _Songs of Selma_. After reading
+these, we are pleasantly haunted with dim but beautiful pictures of that
+Northern coast where "the blue waters rolled in light," "when morning rose
+In the east;" and again with ghostly moonlit scenes, when "night came down
+on the sea, and Rotha's Bay received the ship." "The wan, cold moon rose
+in the east; sleep descended upon the youths; their blue helmets glitter
+to the beam; the fading fire decays; but sleep did not rest on the king;
+he rode in the midst of his arms, and slowly ascended the hill to behold
+the flame of Sarno's tower. The flame was dim and distant; the moon hid
+her red face in the east. A blast came from the mountain; on its wings was
+the spirit of Loda." In _Carthon_ occurs that beautiful address to the
+Sun, which we are fortunate in knowing, from other sources than
+Macpherson, is a tolerably correct translation of a real original. If we
+had that alone, it would be a revelation of the power of Ossian, and of
+the aptitudes of a people who could enjoy it. It is not within our scope
+to quote from the veritable Ossian, or to expose the bombast and fustian,
+tumid diction and swelling sound of Macpherson, of which the poems contain
+so much.
+
+As soon as a stir was made touching the authenticity of the poems, a
+number of champions sprang up on both sides: among those who favored
+Macpherson, was Dr. Hugh Blair, who wrote the critical dissertation
+usually prefixed to the editions of Ossian, and who compares him favorably
+to Homer. First among the incredulous, as might be expected, was Dr.
+Samuel Johnson, who, in his _Journey to the Hebrides_, lashes Macpherson
+for his imposture, and his insolence in refusing to show the original.
+Johnson was threatened by Macpherson with a beating, and he answered: "I
+hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat by the
+menaces of a ruffian ... I thought your book an imposture; I think it an
+imposture still ... Your rage I defy ... You may print this if you will."
+
+Proofs of the imposture were little by little discovered by the critics.
+There were some real fragments in his first volume; but even these he had
+altered, and made symmetrical, so as to disguise their original character.
+Ossian would not have known them. As for Fingal, in its six duans, with
+captional arguments, it was made up from a few fragments, and no such poem
+ever existed. It was Macpherson's from beginning to end.
+
+The final establishment of the forgery was not simply by recourse to
+scholars versed in the Celtic tongues, but the Highland Society appointed
+a committee in 1767, whose duty it was to send to the Highland pastors a
+circular, inquiring whether they had heard in the original the poems of
+Ossian, said to be translated by Macpherson; if so, where and by whom they
+had been written out or repeated: whether similar fragments still existed,
+and whether there were persons living who could repeat them; whether, to
+their knowledge, Macpherson had obtained such poems in the Highlands; and
+for any information concerning the personality of Fingal and Ossian.
+
+
+CRITICISM.--The result was as follows: Certain Ossianic poems did exist,
+and some manuscripts of ancient ballads and bardic songs. A few of these
+had formed the foundation of Macpherson's so-called translations of the
+earlier pieces; but he had altered and added to them, and joined them with
+his own fancies in an arbitrary manner.
+
+_Fingal_ and _Temora_ were also made out of a few fragments; but in their
+epic and connected form not only did not exist, but lack the bardic
+character and construction entirely.
+
+Now that the critics had the direction of the chase made known, they
+discovered that Macpherson had taken his imagery from the Bible, of which
+Ossian was ignorant; from classic authors, of whom he had never heard; and
+from modern sources down to his own day.
+
+Then Macpherson's Ossian--which had been read with avidity and translated
+into many languages, while it was considered an antique gem only reset in
+English--fell into disrepute, and was unduly despised when known to be a
+forgery.
+
+It is difficult to conceive why he did not produce the work as his own,
+with a true story of its foundation: it is not so difficult to understand
+why, when he was detected, he persisted in the falsehood. For what it
+really is, it must be partially praised; and it will remain not only as a
+literary curiosity, but as a work of unequal but real merit. It was
+greatly admired by Napoleon and Madame de Staël, and, in endeavoring to
+consign it to oblivion, the critics are greatly in the wrong.
+
+Macpherson resented any allusion to the forgery, and any leading question
+concerning it. He refused, at first, to produce the originals; and when he
+did say where they might be found, the world had decided so strongly
+against him, that there was no curiosity to examine them. He at last
+maintained a sullen silence; and, dying suddenly, in 1796, left no papers
+which throw light upon the controversy. The subject is, however, still
+agitated. Later writers have endeavored to reverse the decision of his
+age, without, however, any decided success. For much information
+concerning the Highland poetry, the reader is referred to _A Summer in
+Skye_, by Alexander Smith.
+
+
+OTHER WORKS.--His other principal work was a _Translation of the Iliad of
+Homer_ in the Ossianic style, which was received with execration and
+contempt. He also wrote _A History of Great Britain from the Restoration
+to the Accession of the House of Hanover_, which Fox--who was, however,
+prejudiced--declared to be full of impudent falsehoods.
+
+Of his career little more need be said: he was too shrewd a man to need
+sympathy; he took care of himself. He was successful in his pecuniary
+schemes; as agent of the Nabob of Arcot, he had a seat in parliament for
+ten years, and was quite unconcerned what the world thought of his
+literary performances. He had achieved notoriety, and enjoyed it.
+
+But, unfortunately, his forgery did fatal injury by its example; it
+inspired Chatterton, the precocious boy, to make another attempt on public
+credulity. It opened a seductive path for one who, inspired by the
+adventure and warned by the causes of exposure, might make a better
+forgery, escape detection, and gain great praise in the antiquarian world.
+
+
+THOMAS CHATTERTON.--With this name, we accost the most wonderful story of
+its kind in any literature; so strange, indeed, that we never take it up
+without trying to discover some new meaning in it. We hope, against hope,
+that the forgery is not proved.
+
+Chatterton was born in Bristol, on the Avon, in 1752, of poor parents, but
+early gave signs of remarkable genius, combined with a prurient ambition.
+A friend who wished to present him with an earthen-ware cup, asked him
+what device he would have upon it. "Paint me," he answered, "an angel with
+wings and a trumpet, to trumpet my name over the world." He learned his
+alphabet from an old music-book; at eight years of age he was sent to a
+charity-school, and he spent his little pocket-money at a circulating
+library, the books of which he literally devoured.
+
+At the early age of eleven he wrote a piece of poetry, and published it in
+the _Bristol Journal_ of January 8, 1763; it was entitled _On the last
+Epiphany, or Christ coming to Judgment_, and the next year, probably, a
+_Hymn to Christmas-day_, of which the following lines will give an idea:
+
+    How shall we celebrate his name,
+    Who groaned beneath a life of shame,
+      In all afflictions tried?
+    The soul is raptured to conceive
+    A truth which being must believe;
+      The God eternal died.
+
+    My soul, exert thy powers, adore;
+    Upon Devotion's plumage soar
+      To celebrate the day.
+    The God from whom creation sprung
+    Shall animate my grateful tongue,
+      From Him I'll catch the lay.
+
+Some member of the Chatterton family had, for one hundred and fifty years,
+held the post of sexton in the church of St. Mary Redcliffe at Bristol;
+and at the time of which we write his uncle was sexton. In the
+muniment-room of the church were several coffers, containing old papers
+and parchments in black letter, some of which were supposed to be of
+value. The chests were examined by order of the vestry; the valuable
+papers were removed, and of the rest, as perquisites of the sexton, some
+fell into the hands of Chatterton's father. The boy, who had been, upon
+leaving school, articled to an attorney, and had thus become familiar with
+the old English text, caught sight of these, and seemed then to have first
+formed the plan of turning them to account, as _The Rowlie papers_.
+
+
+OLD MANUSCRIPTS.--If he could be believed, he found a variety of material
+in this old collection. To a credulous and weak acquaintance, Mr. Burgum,
+he went, beaming with joy, to present the pedigree and illuminated arms of
+the de Bergham family--tracing the honest mechanic's descent to a noble
+house which crossed the Channel with William the Conqueror. The delighted
+Burgum gave him a crown, and Chatterton, pocketing the money, lampooned
+his credulity thus:
+
+    Gods! what would Burgum give to get a name,
+    And snatch his blundering dialect from shame?
+    What would he give to hand his memory down
+    To time's remotest boundary? a crown!
+    Would you ask more, his swelling face looks blue--
+    Futurity he rates at two pound two!
+
+In September, 1768, the inauguration or opening of the new bridge across
+the Avon took place; and, taking advantage of the temporary interest it
+excited, Chatterton, then sixteen, produced in the _Bristol Journal_ a
+full description of the opening of the old bridge two hundred years
+before, which he said he found among the old papers: "A description of the
+Fryers first passing over the old bridge, taken from an ancient
+manuscript," with details of the procession, and the Latin sermon preached
+on the occasion by Ralph de Blundeville; ending with the dinner, the
+sports, and the illumination on Kynwulph Hill.
+
+This paper, which attracted general interest, was traced to Chatterton,
+and when he was asked to show the original, it was soon manifest that
+there was none, but that the whole was a creation of his fancy. The
+question arises,--How did the statements made by Chatterton compare with
+the known facts of local history?
+
+There was in the olden time in Bristol a great merchant named William
+Canynge, who was remembered for his philanthropy; he had altered and
+improved the church of St. Mary, and had built the muniment-room: the
+reputed poems, some of which were said to have been written by himself,
+and others by the monk Rowlie, Chatterton declared he had found in the
+coffers. Thomas Rowlie, "the gode preeste," appears as a holy and learned
+man, poet, artist, and architect. Canynge and Rowlie were strong friends,
+and the latter was supposed to have addressed many of the poems to the
+former, who was his good patron.
+
+The principal of the Rowlie poems is the _Bristowe_ (Bristol) _Tragedy_,
+or _Death of Sir Charles Bawdin_. This Bawdin, or Baldwin, a real
+character, had been attainted by Edward IV. of high treason, and brought
+to the block. The poem is in the finest style of the old English ballad,
+and is wonderfully dramatic. King Edward sends to inform Bawdin of his
+fate:
+
+    Then with a jug of nappy ale
+    His knights did on him waite;
+    "Go tell the traitor that to daie
+    He leaves this mortal state."
+
+Sir Charles receives the tidings with bold defiance. Good Master Canynge
+goes to the king to ask the prisoner's life as a boon.
+
+    "My noble liege," good Canynge saide,
+      "Leave justice to our God;
+    And lay the iron rule aside,
+      Be thine the olyve rodde."
+
+The king is inexorable, and Sir Charles dies amid tears and loud weeping
+around the scaffold.
+
+Among the other Rowlie poems are the _Tragical Interlude of Ella_, "plaied
+before Master Canynge, and also before Johan Howard, Duke of Norfolk;"
+_Godwin_, a short drama; a long poem on _The Battle of Hastings_, and _The
+Romaunt of the Knight_, modernized from the original of John de Bergham.
+
+
+THE VERDICT.--These poems at once became famous, and the critics began to
+investigate the question of their authenticity. From this investigation
+Chatterton did not shrink. He sent some of them with letters to Horace
+Walpole, and, as Walpole did not immediately answer, he wrote to him quite
+impertinently. Then they were submitted to Mason and Gray. The opinion of
+those who examined them was almost unanimous that they were forgeries: he
+could produce no originals; the language is in many cases not that of the
+period, and the spelling and idioms are evidently factitious. A few there
+were who seemed to have committed themselves, at first, to their
+authenticity; but Walpole, the Wartons, Dr. Johnson, Gibbon the historian,
+Sheridan, and most other literary men, were clear as to their forgery. The
+forged manuscripts which he had the hardihood afterwards to present, were
+totally unlike those of Edward the Fourth's time; he was entirely at fault
+in his heraldry; words were used out of their meaning; and, in his poem on
+_The Battle of Hastings_, he had introduced the modern discoveries
+concerning Stone Henge. He uses the possessive case _yttes_, which did not
+come into use until long after the Rowlie period. Add to these that
+Chatterton's reputation for veracity was bad.
+
+The truth was, that he had found some curious scraps, which had set his
+fancy to work, and the example of Macpherson had led to the cheat he was
+practising upon the public. To some friends he confessed the deception,
+denying it again, violently, soon after; and he had been seen smoking
+parchment to make it look old. The lad was crazy.
+
+
+HIS SUICIDE.--Keeping up appearances, he went to London, and tried to get
+work. At one time he was in high spirits, sending presents to his mother
+and sisters, and promising them better days; at another, he was in want,
+in the lowest depression, no hope in the world. He only asks for work; he
+is entirely unconcerned for whom he writes or what party he eulogizes; he
+wants money and a name, and when these seem unattainable, he takes refuge
+from "the whips and scorns of time," the burning fever of pride, the
+gnawings of hunger, in suicide. He goes to his little garret
+room,--refusing, as he goes, a dinner from his landlady, although he is
+gaunt with famine,--mixes a large dose of arsenic in water, and--"jumps
+the life to come." He was just seventeen years and nine months old! When
+his room was forced open, it was found that he had torn up most of his
+papers, and had left nothing to throw light upon his deception.
+
+The verdict of literary criticism is that of the medical art--he was
+insane; and to what extent this mania acted as a monomania, that is, how
+far he was himself deceived, the world can never know. One thing, at
+least; it redeems all his faults. Precocious beyond any other known
+instance of precocity; intensely haughty; bold in falsehood; working best
+when the moon was at the full, he stands in English literature as the most
+singular of its curiosities. His will is an awful jest; his declaration of
+his religious opinions a tissue of contradictions and absurdities: he
+bequeathes to a clergyman his humility; to Mr. Burgum his prosody and
+grammar, with half his modesty--the other half to any young lady that
+needs it; his abstinence--a fearful legacy--to the aldermen of Bristol at
+their annual feast! to a friend, a mourning ring--"provided he pays for it
+himself"--with the motto, "Alas, poor Chatterton!" Fittest ending to his
+biography--"Alas, poor Chatterton!"
+
+And yet it is evident that the crazy Bristol boy and the astute Scotchman
+were alike the creatures of the age and the peculiar circumstances in
+which they lived. No other age of English history could have produced
+them. In an earlier period, they would have found no curiosity in the
+people to warrant their attempts; and in a later time, the increase in
+antiquarian studies would have made these efforts too easy of detection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+POETRY OF THE TRANSITION SCHOOL.
+
+
+   The Transition Period. James Thomson. The Seasons. The Castle of
+   Indolence. Mark Akenside. Pleasures of the Imagination. Thomas Gray.
+   The Elegy. The Bard. William Cowper. The Task. Translation of Homer.
+   Other Writers.
+
+
+
+THE TRANSITION PERIOD.
+
+
+The poetical standards of Dryden and Pope, as poetic examples and
+arbiters, exercised tyrannical sway to the middle of the eighteenth
+century, and continued to be felt, with relaxing influence, however, to a
+much later period. Poetry became impatient of too close a captivity to
+technical rules in rhythm and in subjects, and began once again to seek
+its inspiration from the worlds of nature and of feeling. While seeking
+this change, it passed through what has been properly called the period of
+transition,--a period the writers of which are distinctly marked as
+belonging neither to the artificial classicism of Pope, nor to the simple
+naturalism of Wordsworth and the Lake school; partaking, indeed, in some
+degree of the former, and preparing the way for the latter.
+
+The excited condition of public feeling during the earlier period,
+incident to the accession of the house of Hanover and the last struggles
+of the Jacobites, had given a political character to every author, and a
+political significance to almost every literary work. At the close of this
+abnormal condition of things, the poets of the transition school began
+their labors; untrammelled by the court and the town, they invoked the
+muse in green fields and by babbling brooks; from materialistic
+philosophy in verse they appealed through the senses to the hearts of men;
+and appreciation and popularity rewarded and encouraged them.
+
+
+JAMES THOMSON.--The first distinguished writer of this school was Thomson,
+the son of a Scottish minister. He was born on the 11th of September,
+1700, at Ednam in Roxburghshire. While a boy at school in Jedburgh, he
+displayed poetical talent: at the University of Edinburgh he completed his
+scholastic course, and studied divinity; which, however, he did not pursue
+as a profession. Being left, by his father's death, without means, he
+resolved to go to the great metropolis to try his fortunes. He arrived in
+London in sorry plight, without money, and with ragged shoes; but through
+the assistance of some persons of station, he procured occupation as tutor
+to a lord's son, and thus earned a livelihood until the publication of his
+first poem in 1726. That poem was _Winter_, the first of the series called
+_The Seasons_: it was received with unusual favor. The first edition was
+speedily exhausted, and with the publication of the second, his position
+as a poet was assured. In 1727 he produced the second poem of the series,
+_Summer_, and, with it, a proposal for issuing the _Four Seasons_, with a
+_Hymn_ on their succession. In 1728 his _Spring_ appeared, and in the next
+year an unsuccessful tragedy called _Sophonisba_, which owed its immediate
+failure to the laughter occasioned by the line,
+
+    O Sophonisba, Sophonisba O!
+
+This was parodied by some wag in these words:
+
+    O Jemmie Thomson, Jemmie Thomson O!
+
+and the ridicule was so potent that the play was ruined.
+
+The last of the seasons, _Autumn_, and the _Hymn_, were first printed in a
+complete edition of _The Seasons_, in 1730. It was at once conceded that
+he had gratified the cravings of the day, In producing a real and
+beautiful English pastoral. The reputation which he thus gained caused him
+to be selected as the mentor and companion of the son of Sir Charles
+Talbot in a tour through France and Italy in 1730 and 1731.
+
+In 1734 he published the first part of a poem called _Liberty_, the
+conclusion of which appeared in 1736. It is designed to trace the progress
+of Liberty through Italy, Greece, and Rome, down to her excellent
+establishment in Great Britain, and was dedicated to Frederick, Prince of
+Wales.
+
+His tragedies _Agamemnon_ and _Edward and Eleanora_ are in the then
+prevailing taste. They were issued in 1738-39. The latter is of political
+significance, in that Edward was like Frederick the Prince of Wales--heir
+apparent to the crown; and some of the passages are designed to strengthen
+the prince in the favor of the people.
+
+The personal life of Thomson is not of much interest. From his first
+residence in London, he supported, with his slender means, a brother, who
+died young of consumption, and aided two maiden sisters, who kept a small
+milliner-shop in Edinburgh. This is greatly to his praise, as he was at
+one time so poor that he was arrested for debt and committed to prison. As
+his reputation increased, his fortunes were ameliorated. In 1745 his play
+_Tancred and Sigismunda_ was performed. It was founded upon a story
+universally popular,--the same which appears in the episode of _The Fatal
+Marriage_ in Gil Bias, and in one of the stories of Boccaccio. He enjoyed
+for a short time a pension from the Prince of Wales, of which, however, he
+was deprived without apparent cause; but he received the office of
+Surveyor-General of the Leeward Islands, the duties of which he could
+perform by deputy; after that he lived a lazy life at his cottage near
+Richmond, which, if otherwise reprehensible, at least gave him the power
+to write his most beautiful poem, _The Castle of Indolence_. It appeared
+in 1748, and was universally admired; it has a rhetorical harmony similar
+and quite equal to that of the _Lotos Eaters_ of Tennyson. The poet, who
+had become quite plethoric, was heated by a walk from London, and, from a
+check of perspiration, was thrown into a high fever, a relapse of which
+caused his death on the 27th of August, 1748. His friend Lord Lyttleton
+wrote the prologue to his play of _Coriolanus_, which was acted after the
+poet's death, in which he says:
+
+    "--His chaste Muse employed her heaven-taught lyre
+    None but the noblest missions to inspire,
+    Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,
+    _One line which, dying, he could wish to blot_."
+
+The praise accorded him in this much-quoted line is justly his due: it is
+greater praise that he was opening a new pathway in English Literature,
+and supplying better food than the preceding age had given. His _Seasons_
+supplied a want of the age: it was a series of beautiful pastorals. The
+descriptions of nature will always be read and quoted with pleasure; the
+little episodes, if they affect the unity, relieve the monotony of the
+subject, and, like figures introduced by the painter into his landscape,
+take away the sense of loneliness, and give us a standard at once of
+judgment, of measurement, and of sympathetic enjoyment; they display, too,
+at once the workings of his own mind in his production, and the manners
+and sentiments of the age in which he wrote. It was fitting that he who
+had portrayed for us such beautiful gardens of English nature, should
+people them instead of leaving them solitary.
+
+
+THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.--This is an allegory, written after the manner of
+Spenser, and in the Spenserian stanza. He also employs archaic words, as
+Spenser did, to give it greater resemblance to Spenser's poem. The
+allegorical characters are well described, and the sumptuous adornings and
+lazy luxuries of the castle are set forth _con amore_. The spell that
+enchants the castle is broken by the stalwart knight _Industry_; but the
+glamour of the poem remains, and makes the reader in love with
+_Indolence_.
+
+
+MARK AKENSIDE.--Thomson had restored or reproduced the pastoral from
+Nature's self; Akenside followed in his steps. Thomson had invested blank
+verse with a new power and beauty; Akenside produced it quite as
+excellent. But Thomson was the original, and Akenside the copy. The one is
+natural, the other artificial.
+
+Akenside was the son of a butcher, and was born at New Castle, in 1721.
+Educated at the University of Edinburgh, he studied medicine, and
+received, at different periods, lucrative and honorable professional
+appointments. His great work, and the only one to which we need refer, is
+his _Pleasures of the Imagination_. Whether his view of the imagination is
+always correct or not, his sentiments are always elevated; his language
+high sounding but frequently redundant, and his versification correct and
+pleasing. His descriptions of nature are cold but correct; his standard of
+humanity is high but mortal. Grand and sonorous, he constructs his periods
+with the manner of a declaimer; his ascriptions and apostrophes are like
+those of a high-priest. The title of his poem, if nothing more, suggested
+_The Pleasures-of Hope_ to Campbell, and _The Pleasures of Memory_ to
+Rogers. As a man, Akenside was overbearing and dictatorial; as a hospital
+surgeon, harsh in his treatment of poor patients. His hymn to the Naiads
+has been considered the most thoroughly and correctly classical of
+anything in English. He died on the 23rd of June, 1770.
+
+
+THOMAS GRAY.--Among those who form a link between the school of Pope and
+that of the modern poets, Gray occupies a distinguished place, both from
+the excellence of his writings, and from the fact that, while he
+unconsciously conduced to the modern, he instinctively resisted its
+progress. He was in taste and intention an extreme classicist. Thomas Gray
+was born in London on the 26th December, 1716. His father was a money
+scrivener, and, to his family at least, a bad man; his mother, forced to
+support herself, kept a linen-draper shop; and to her the poet owed his
+entire education. He was entered at Eton College, and afterwards at
+Cambridge, and found in early life such friendships as were of great
+importance to him later in his career. Among his college friends were
+Horace Walpole, West, the son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and
+William Mason, who afterwards wrote the poet's life. After completing his
+college course, he travelled on the continent with Walpole; but, on
+account of incompatibility of temper, they quarrelled and parted, and Gray
+returned home. Although Walpole took the blame upon himself, it would
+appear that Gray was a somewhat captious person, whose serious tastes
+interfered with the gayer pleasures of his friend. On his return, Gray
+went to Cambridge, where he led the life of a retired student, devoting
+himself to the ancient authors, to poetry, botany, architecture, and
+heraldry. He was fastidious as to his own productions, which were very
+few, and which he kept by him, pruning, altering, and polishing, for a
+long time before he would let them see the light. His lines entitled _A
+Distant Prospect of Eton College_ appeared in 1742, and were received with
+great applause.
+
+It was at this time that he also began his _Elegy in a Country
+Churchyard_; which, however, did not appear until seven or eight years
+later, and which has made him immortal. The grandeur of its language, the
+elevation of its sentiments, and the sympathy of its pathos, commend it to
+all classes and all hearts; and of its kind of composition it stands alone
+in English literature.
+
+The ode on the progress of poetry appeared in 1755. Like the _Elegy_, his
+poem of _The Bard_ was for several years on the literary easel, and he was
+accidentally led to finish it by hearing a blind harper performing on a
+Welsh harp.
+
+On the death of Cibber, Gray was offered the laureate's crown, which he
+declined, to avoid its conspicuousness and the envy of his brother poets.
+In 1762, he applied for the professorship of modern history at Cambridge,
+but failed to obtain the position. He was more fortunate in 1768, when it
+again became vacant; but he held it as a sinecure, doing none of its
+duties. He died in 1770, on the 3d of July, of gout in the stomach. His
+habits were those of a recluse; and whether we agree or not, with Adam
+Smith, in saying that nothing is wanting to render him perhaps the first
+poet in the English language, but to have written a little more, it is
+astonishing that so great and permanent a reputation should have been
+founded on so very little as he wrote. Gray has been properly called the
+finest lyric poet in the language; and his lyric power strikes us as
+intuitive and original; yet he himself, adhering strongly to the
+artificial school, declared, if there was any excellence in his own
+numbers, he had learned it wholly from Dryden. His archæological tastes
+are further shown by his enthusiastic study of heraldry, and by his
+surrounding himself with old armor and other curious relics of the past.
+Mr. Mitford, in a curious dissection of the _Elegy_, has found numerous
+errors of rhetoric, and even of grammar.
+
+His _Bard_ is founded on a tradition that Edward I., when he conquered
+Wales, ordered all the bards to be put to death, that they might not, by
+their songs, excite the Welsh people to revolt. The last one who figures
+in his story, sings a lament for his brethren, prophesies the downfall of
+the usurper, and then throws himself over the cliff:
+
+    "Be thine despair and sceptered care,
+    To triumph and to die are mine!"
+    He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height,
+    Deep in the roaring tide, he plunged to endless night.
+
+
+WILLIAM COWPER.--Next in the catalogue of the transition school occurs the
+name of one who, like Gray, was a recluse, but with a better reason and a
+sadder one. He was a gentle hypochondriac, and, at intervals, a maniac,
+who literally turned to poetry, like Saul to the harper, for relief from
+his sufferings. William Cowper, the eldest son of the Rector of
+Berkhampsted in Hertfordshire, was born on the 15th of November, 1731. He
+was a delicate and sensitive child, and was seriously affected by the loss
+of his mother when he was six years old. At school, he was cruelly treated
+by an older boy, which led to his decided views against public schools,
+expressed in his poem called _Tirocinium_. His morbid sensitiveness
+increased upon him as he grew older, and interfered with his legal studies
+and advancement. His depression of spirits took a religious turn; and we
+are glad to think that religion itself brought the balm which gave him
+twelve years of unclouded mind, devoted to friendship and to poetry. He
+was offered, by powerful friends, eligible positions connected with the
+House of Lords, in 1762; but as the one of these which he accepted was
+threatened with a public examination, he abandoned it in horror; not,
+however, before the fearful suspense had unsettled his brain, so that he
+was obliged to be placed, for a short time, in an asylum for the insane.
+When he left this asylum, he went to Huntingdon, where he became
+acquainted with the Rev. William Unwin, who, with his wife and son, seem
+to have been congenial companions to his desolate heart. On the death of
+Mr. Unwin, in 1767, he removed with the widow to Olney, and there formed
+an intimate acquaintance with another clergyman, the Rev. William Newton.
+Here, and in this society, the remainder of the poet's life was passed in
+writing letters, which have been considered the best ever written in
+England; in making hymns, in conjunction with Mr. Newton, which have ever
+since been universal favorites; and in varied poetic attempts, which give
+him high rank in the literature of the day. The first of his larger pieces
+was a poem entitled, _The Progress of Error_, which appeared in 1783, when
+the author had reached the advanced age of 52. Then followed _Truth_ and
+_Expostulation_, which, according to the poet himself, did much towards
+diverting his melancholy thoughts. These poems would not have fixed his
+fame; but Lady Austen, an accomplished woman with whom he became
+acquainted in 1781, deserves our gratitude for having proposed to him the
+subjects of those poems which have really made him famous, namely, _The
+Task, John Gilpin_, and the translation of _Homer_. Before, however,
+undertaking these, he wrote poems on _Hope_, _Charity_, _Conversation_ and
+_Retirement_. The story of _John Gilpin_--a real one as told him by Lady
+Austen--made such an impression upon him, that he dashed off the ballad at
+a sitting.
+
+
+THE TASK.--The origin of _The Task_ is well known. In 1783, Lady Austen
+suggested to him to write a poem in blank verse: he said he would, if she
+would suggest the subject. Her answer was, "Write on _this sofa_." The
+poem thus begun was speedily expanded into those beautiful delineations of
+varied nature, domestic life, and religious sentiment which rivalled the
+best efforts of Thomson. The title that connects them is _The Task.
+Tirocinium_ or _the Review of Schools_, appeared soon after, and excited
+considerable attention in a country where public education has been the
+rule of the higher social life. Cowper began the translation of Homer in
+1785, from a feeling of the necessity of employment for his mind. His
+translations of both Iliad and Odyssey, which occupied him for five years,
+and which did not entirely keep off his old enemy, were published in 1791.
+They are correct in scholarship and idiom, but lack the nature and the
+fire of the old Grecian bard.
+
+The rest of his life was busy, but sad--a constant effort to drive away
+madness by incessant labor. The loss of his friend, Mrs. Unwin, in 1796,
+affected him deeply, and the clouds settled thicker and thicker upon his
+soul. In the year before his death, he published that painfully touching
+poem, _The Castaway_, which gives an epitome of his own sufferings in the
+similitude of a wretch clinging to a spar in a stormy night upon the
+Atlantic.
+
+His minor and fugitive poems are very numerous; and as they were
+generally inspired by persons and scenes around him, they are truly
+literary types of the age in which he lived. In his _Task_, he resembles
+Thomson and Akenside; in his didactic poems, he reminds us of the essays
+of Pope; in his hymns he catered successfully to the returning piety of
+the age; in his translations of Homer and of Ovid, he presented the
+ancients to moderns in a new and acceptable dress; and in his Letters he
+sets up an epistolary model, which may be profitably studied by all who
+desire to express themselves with energy, simplicity, and delicate taste.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE TRANSITION SCHOOL.
+
+
+_James Beattie_, 1735-1803: he was the son of a farmer, and was educated
+at Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he was afterwards professor of
+natural philosophy. For four years he taught a village school. His first
+poem, _Retirement_, was not much esteemed; but in 1771 appeared the first
+part of _The Minstrel_, a poem at once descriptive, didactic, and
+romantic. This was enthusiastically received, and gained for him the favor
+of the king, a pension of £200 per annum, and a degree from Oxford. The
+second part was published in 1774. _The Minstrel_ is written in the
+Spenserian stanza, and abounds in beautiful descriptions of nature,
+marking a very decided progress from the artificial to the natural school.
+The character of Edwin, the young minstrel, ardent in search for the
+beautiful and the true, is admirably portrayed; as is also that of the
+hermit who instructs the youth. The opening lines are very familiar:
+
+    Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb
+    The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar;
+
+and the description of the morning landscape has no superior in the
+language:
+
+    But who the melodies of morn can tell?
+      The wild brook babbling down the mountain side;
+    The lowing herd; the sheepfold's simple bell;
+      The pipe of early shepherd dim descried
+        In the lone valley.
+
+Beattie wrote numerous prose dissertations and essays, one of which was in
+answer to the infidel views of Hume--_Essay on the Nature and
+Immutability of Truth, in Opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism_. Beattie
+was of an excitable and sensitive nature, and his polemical papers are
+valued rather for the beauty of their language, than for acuteness of
+logic.
+
+
+_William Falconer_, 1730-1769: first a sailor in the merchant service, he
+afterwards entered the navy. He is chiefly known by his poem _The
+Shipwreck_, and for its astonishing connection with his own fortunes and
+fate. He was wrecked off Cape Colonna, on the coast of Greece, before he
+was eighteen; and this misfortune is the subject of his poem. Again, in
+1760, he was cast away in the Channel. In 1769, the Aurora frigate, of
+which he was the purser, foundered in Mozambique Channels, and he, with
+all others on board, went down with her. The excellence of his nautical
+directions and the vigor of his descriptions establish the claims of his
+poem; but it has the additional interest attaching to his curious
+experience--it is his autobiography and his enduring monument. The picture
+of the storm is very fine; but in the handling of his verse there is more
+of the artificial than of the romantic school.
+
+
+_William Shenstone_, 1714-1763: his principal work is _The
+Schoolmistress_, a poem in the stanza of Spenser, which is pleasing from
+its simple and sympathizing description of the village school, kept by a
+dame; with the tricks and punishment of the children, and many little
+traits of rural life and character. It is pitched in so low a key that it
+commends itself to the world at large. Shenstone is equally known for his
+mania in landscape gardening, upon which he spent all his means. His
+place, _The Leasowes_ in Shropshire, has gained the greater notoriety
+through the descriptions of Dodsley and Goldsmith. The natural simplicity
+of _The Schoolmistress_ allies it strongly to the romantic school, which
+was now about to appear.
+
+
+_William Collins_, 1720-1756: this unfortunate poet, who died at the early
+age of thirty-six, deserves particular mention for the delicacy of his
+fancy and the beauty of his diction. His _Ode on the Passions_ is
+universally esteemed for its sudden and effective changes from the
+bewilderment of Fear, the violence of Anger, and the wildness of Despair
+to the rapt visions of Hope, the gentle dejection of Pity, and the
+sprightliness of Mirth and Cheerfulness. His _Ode on the Death of Thomson_
+is an exquisite bit of pathos, as is also the _Dirge on Cymbeline_.
+Everybody knows and admires the short ode beginning
+
+    How sleep the brave who sink to rest
+    By all their country's wishes blest!
+
+His _Oriental Eclogues_ please by the simplicity of the colloquies, the
+choice figures of speech, and the fine descriptions of nature. But of all
+his poems, the most finished and charming is the _Ode to Evening_. It
+contains thirteen four-lined stanzas of varied metre, and in blank verse
+so full of harmony that rhyme would spoil it. It presents a series of
+soft, dissolving views, and stands alone in English poetry, with claims
+sufficient to immortalize the poet, had he written nothing else. The
+latter part of his life was clouded by mental disorders, not unsuggested
+to the reader by the pathos of many of his poems. Like Gray, he wrote
+little, but every line is of great merit.
+
+
+_Henry Kirke White_, 1785-1806: the son of a butcher, this gifted youth
+displayed, in his brief life, such devotion to study, and such powers of
+mind, that his friends could not but predict a brilliant future for him,
+had he lived. Nothing that he produced is of the highest order of poetic
+merit, but everything was full of promise. Of a weak constitution, he
+could not bear the rigorous study which he prescribed to himself, and
+which hastened his death. With the kind assistance of Mr. Capel Lofft and
+the poet Southey, he was enabled to leave the trade to which he had been
+apprenticed and go to Cambridge. His poems have most of them a strongly
+devotional cast. Among them are _Gondoline_, _Clifton Grove_, and the
+_Christiad_, in the last of which, like the swan, he chants his own
+death-song. His memory has been kept green by Southey's edition of his
+_Remains_, and by the beautiful allusion of Byron to his genius and his
+fate in _The English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. His sacred piece called
+_The Star of Bethlehem_ has been a special favorite:
+
+    When marshalled on the nightly plain
+      The glittering host bestud the sky,
+    One star alone of all the train
+      Can fix the sinner's wandering eye.
+
+
+_Bishop Percy_, 1728-1811: Dr. Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore, deserves
+particular notice in a sketch of English Literature not so much for his
+own works,--although he was a poet,--as for his collection of ballads,
+made with great research and care, and published in 1765. By bringing
+before the world these remains of English songs and idyls, which lay
+scattered through the ages from the birth of the language, he showed
+England the true wealth of her romantic history, and influenced the
+writers of the day to abandon the artificial and reproduce the natural,
+the simple, and the romantic. He gave the impulse which produced the
+minstrelsy of Scott and the simple stories of Wordsworth. Many of these
+ballads are descriptive of the border wars between England and Scotland;
+among the greatest favorites are _Chevy Chase, The Battle of Otterburne,
+The Death of Douglas_, and the story of _Sir Patrick Spens_.
+
+
+_Anne Letitia Barbauld_, 1743-1825: the hymns and poems of Mrs. Barbauld
+are marked by an adherence to the artificial school in form and manner;
+but something of feminine tenderness redeems them from the charge of being
+purely mechanical. Her _Hymns in Prose for Children_ have been of value in
+an educational point of view; and the tales comprised in _Evenings at
+Home_ are entertaining and instructive. Her _Ode to Spring_, which is an
+imitation of Collins's _Ode to Evening_, in the same measure and
+comprising the same number of stanzas, is her best poetic effort, and
+compares with Collins's piece as an excellent copy compares with the
+picture of a great master.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THE LATER DRAMA.
+
+
+   The Progress of the Drama. Garrick. Foote. Cumberland. Sheridan. George
+   Colman. George Colman, the Younger. Other Dramatists and Humorists.
+   Other Writers on Various Subjects.
+
+
+
+THE PROGRESS OF THE DRAMA.
+
+
+The latter half of the eighteenth century, so marked, as we have seen, for
+manifold literary activity, is, in one phase of its history, distinctly
+represented by the drama. It was a very peculiar epoch in English annals.
+The accession of George III., in 1760, gave promise, from the character of
+the king and of his consort, of an exemplary reign. George III. was the
+first monarch of the house of Hanover who may be justly called an English
+king in interest and taste. He and his queen were virtuous and honest; and
+their influence was at once felt by a people in whom virtue and honesty
+are inherent, and whose consciences and tastes had been violated by the
+evil examples of the former reigns.
+
+In 1762 George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales, was born; and as soon
+as he approached manhood, he displayed the worst features of his ancestral
+house: he was extravagant and debauched; he threw himself into a violent
+opposition to his father: with this view he was at first a Whig, but
+afterwards became a Tory. He had also peculiar opportunities for exerting
+authority during the temporary fits of insanity which attacked the king in
+1764, in 1788, and in 1804. At last, in 1810, the king was so disabled
+from attending to his duties that the prince became regent, and assumed
+the reins of government, not to resign them again during his life.
+
+In speaking of the drama of this period, we should hardly, therefore, be
+wrong in calling it the Drama of the Regency. It held, however, by
+historic links, following the order of historic events, to the earlier
+drama. Shakspeare and his contemporaries had established the dramatic art
+on a firm basis. The frown of puritanism, in the polemic period, had
+checked its progress: with the restoration of Charles II, it had returned
+to rival the French stage in wicked plots and prurient scenes. With the
+better morals of the Revolution, and the popular progress which was made
+at the accession of the house of Hanover, the drama was modified: the
+older plays were revived in their original freshness; a new and better
+taste was to be catered to; and what of immorality remained was chiefly
+due to the influence of the Prince of Wales. Actors, so long despised,
+rose to importance as great artists. Garrick and Foote, and, later,
+Kemble, Kean, and Mrs. Siddons, were social personages in England. Peers
+married actresses, and enduring reputation was won by those who could
+display the passions and the affections to the life, giving flesh and
+blood and mind and heart to the inimitable creations of Shakspeare.
+
+It must be allowed that this power of presentment marks the age more
+powerfully than any claims of dramatic authorship. The new play-writers
+did not approach Shakspeare; but they represented their age, and
+repudiated the vices, in part at least, of their immediate predecessors.
+In them, too, is to be observed the change from the artificial to the
+romantic and natural, The scenes and persons in their plays are taken from
+the life around them, and appealed to the very models from which they were
+drawn.
+
+
+DAVID GARRICK.--First among these purifiers of the drama is David Garrick,
+who was born in Lichfield, in 1716. He was a pupil of Dr. Johnson, and
+came up with that distinguished man to London, in 1735. The son of a
+captain in the Royal army, but thrown upon his own exertions, he first
+tried to gain a livelihood as a wine merchant; but his fondness for the
+stage led him to become an actor, and in taking this step he found his
+true position. A man of respectable parts and scholarship, he wrote many
+agreeable pieces for the stage; which, however, owed their success more to
+his accurate knowledge of the _mise en scene_, and to his own
+representation of the principal characters, than to their intrinsic
+merits. His mimetic powers were great: he acted splendidly in all casts,
+excelling, perhaps, in tragedy; and he, more than any actor before or
+since, has made the world thoroughly acquainted with Shakspeare. Dramatic
+authors courted him; for his appearance in any new piece was almost an
+assurance of its success.
+
+Besides many graceful prologues, epigrams, and songs, he wrote, or
+altered, forty plays. Among these the following have the greatest merit:
+_The Lying Valet_, a farce founded on an old English comedy; _The
+Clandestine Marriage_, in which he was aided by the elder Colman; (the
+character of _Lord Ogleby_ he wrote for himself to personate;) _Miss in
+her Teens_, a very clever and amusing farce. He was charmingly natural in
+his acting; but he was accused of being theatrical when off the stage. In
+the words of Goldsmith:
+
+    On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;
+    'Twas only that when he was off, he was acting.
+
+Garrick married a dancer, who made him an excellent wife. By his own
+exertions he won a highly respectable social position, and an easy fortune
+of £140,000, upon which he retired from the stage. He died in London in
+1779.
+
+In 1831-2 his _Private Correspondence with the Most Celebrated Persons of
+his Time_ was published, and opened a rich field to the social historian.
+Among his correspondents were Dr. Johnson, Boswell, Goldsmith, Gibber,
+Sheridan, Burke, Wilkes, Junius, and Dr. Franklin. Thus Garrick catered
+largely to the history of his period, as an actor and dramatic author,
+illustrating the stage; as a reviver of Shakspeare, and as a correspondent
+of history.
+
+
+SAMUEL FOOTE.--Among the many English actors who have been distinguished
+for great powers of versatility in voice, feature, and manner, there is
+none superior to Foote. Bold and self-reliant, he was a comedian in
+every-day life; and his ready wit and humor subdued Dr. Johnson, who had
+determined to dislike him. He was born in 1722, at Truro, and educated at
+Oxford: he studied law, but his peculiar aptitudes soon led him to the
+stage, where he became famous as a comic actor. Among his original pieces
+are _The Patron_, _The Devil on Two Stilts_, _The Diversions of the
+Morning_, _Lindamira_, and _The Slanderer_. But his best play, which is a
+popular burlesque on parliamentary elections, is _The Mayor of Garrat_. He
+died in 1777, at Dover, while on his way to France for the benefit of his
+health. His plays present the comic phase of English history in his day.
+
+
+RICHARD CUMBERLAND.--This accomplished man, who, in the words of Walter
+Scott, has given us "many powerful sketches of the age which has passed
+away," was born in 1732, and lived to the ripe age of seventy-nine, dying
+in 1811. After receiving his education at Cambridge, he became secretary
+to Lord Halifax. His versatile pen produced, besides dramatic pieces,
+novels and theological treatises, illustrating the principal topics of the
+time. In his plays there is less of immorality than in those of his
+contemporaries. _The West Indian_, which was first put upon the stage in
+1771, and which is still occasionally presented, is chiefly noticeable in
+that an Irishman and a West Indian are the principal characters, and that
+he has not brought them into ridicule, as was common at the time, but has
+exalted them by their merits. The best of his other plays are _The Jew,
+The Wheel of Fortune_, and _The Fashionable Lover_. Goldsmith, in his poem
+_Retaliation_, says of Cumberland, referring to his greater morality and
+his human sympathy,
+
+    Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts,
+    The Terence of England, the mender of hearts;
+    A flattering painter, who made it his care
+    To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
+
+
+RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.--No man represents the Regency so completely as
+Sheridan. He was a statesman, a legislator, an orator, and a dramatist;
+and in social life a wit, a gamester, a spendthrift, and a debauchee. His
+manifold nature seemed to be always in violent ebullition. He was born in
+September, 1751, and was the son of Thomas Sheridan, the actor and
+lexicographer, His mother, Frances Sheridan, was also a writer of plays
+and novels. Educated at Harrow, he was there considered a dunce; and when
+he grew to manhood, he plunged into dissipation, and soon made a stir in
+the London world by making a runaway match with Miss Linley, a singer, who
+was noted as one of the handsomest women of the day. A duel with one of
+her former admirers was the result.
+
+As a dramatist, he began by presenting _A Trip to Scarborough_, which was
+altered from Vanbrugh's _Relapse_; but his fame was at once assured by his
+production, in 1775, of _The Duenna_ and _The Rivals_. The former is
+called an opera, but is really a comedy containing many songs: the plot is
+varied and entertaining; but it is far inferior to _The Rivals_, which is
+based upon his own adventures, and is brimming with wit and humor. Mrs.
+Malaprop, Bob Acres, Sir Lucius O'Trigger, and the Absolutes, father and
+son, have been prime favorites upon the stage ever since.
+
+In 1777 he produced _The School for Scandal_, a caustic satire on London
+society, which has no superior in genteel comedy. It has been said that
+the characters of Charles and Joseph Surface were suggested by the Tom
+Jones and Blifil of Fielding; but, if this be true, the handling is so
+original and natural, that they are in no sense a plagiarism. Without the
+rippling brilliancy of _The Rivals, The School for Scandal_ is better
+sustained in scene and colloquy; and in spite of some indelicacy, which is
+due to the age, the moral lesson is far more valuable. The satire is
+strong and instructive, and marks the great advance in social decorum over
+the former age.
+
+In 1779 appeared _The Critic_, a literary satire, in which the chief
+character is that of Sir Fretful Plagiary.
+
+Sheridan sat in parliament as member for Stafford. His first effort in
+oratory was a failure; but by study he became one of the most effective
+popular orators of his day. His speeches lose by reading: he abounded in
+gaudy figures, and is not without bombast; but his wonderful flow of words
+and his impassioned action dazzled his audience and kept it spellbound.
+His oratory, whatever its faults, gained also the unstinted praise of his
+colleagues and rivals in the art. Of his great speech in the trial of
+Warren Hastings, in 1788, Fox declared that "all he had ever heard, all he
+had ever read, when compared with it, dwindled into nothing, and vanished
+like vapor before the sun." Burke called it "the most astonishing effort
+of eloquence, argument, and wit united, of which there was any record or
+tradition;" and Pitt said "that it surpassed all the eloquence of ancient
+or modern times."
+
+Sheridan was for some time the friend and comrade of the Prince Regent, in
+wild courses which were to the taste of both; but this friendship was
+dissolved, and the famous dramatist and orator sank gradually in the
+social scale, until he had sounded the depths of human misery. He was
+deeply in debt; he obtained money under mean and false pretences; he was
+drunken and debauched; and even death did not bring rest. He died in July,
+1816. His corpse was arrested for debt, and could not be buried until the
+debt was paid. In his varied brilliancy and in his fatal debauchery, his
+character stands forth as the completest type of the period of the
+Regency. Many memoirs have been written, among which those of his friend
+Moore, and his granddaughter the Hon. Mrs. Norton, although they unduly
+palliate his faults, are the best.
+
+
+GEORGE COLMAN.--Among the respectable dramatists of this period who
+exerted an influence in leading the public taste away from the witty and
+artificial schools of the Restoration, the two Colmans deserve mention.
+George Colman, the elder, was born in Florence in 1733, but began his
+education at Westminster School, from which he was removed to Oxford.
+After receiving his degree he studied law; but soon abandoned graver study
+to court the comic muse. His first piece, _Polly Honeycomb_, was produced
+in 1760; but his reputation was established by _The Jealous Wife_,
+suggested by a scene in Fielding's _Tom Jones_. Besides many humorous
+miscellanies, most of which appeared in _The St. James' Chronicle_,--a
+magazine of which he was the proprietor,--he translated Terence, and
+produced more than thirty dramatic pieces, some of which are still
+presented upon the stage. The best of these is _The Clandestine Marriage_,
+which was the joint production of Garrick and himself. Of this play,
+Davies says "that no dramatic piece, since the days of Beaumont and
+Fletcher, had been written by two authors, in which wit, fancy, and humor
+were so happily blended." In 1768 he became one of the proprietors of the
+Covent Garden Theatre: in 1789 his mind became affected, and he remained a
+mental invalid until his death in 1794.
+
+
+GEORGE COLMAN. THE YOUNGER.--This writer was the son of George Colman, and
+was born in 1762. Like his father, he was educated at Westminster and
+Oxford; but he was removed from the university before receiving his
+degree, and was graduated at King's College, Aberdeen. He inherited an
+enthusiasm for the drama and considerable skill as a dramatic author. In
+1787 he produced _Inkle and Yarico_, founded upon the pathetic story of
+Addison, in _The Spectator_. In 1796 appeared _The Iron Chest_; this was
+followed, in 1797,. by _The Heir at Law_ and _John Bull_. To him the world
+is indebted for a large number of stock pieces which still appear at our
+theatres. In 1802 he published a volume entitled _Broad Grins_, which was
+an expansion of a previous volume of comic scraps. This is full of frolic
+and humor: among the verses in the style of Peter Pindar are the
+well-known sketches _The Newcastle Apothecary_, (who gave the direction
+with his medicine, "When taken, to be well shaken,") and _Lodgings for
+Single Gentlemen_.
+
+The author's fault is his tendency to farce, which robs his comedies of
+dignity. He assumed the cognomen _the younger_ because, he said, he did
+not wish his father's memory to suffer for his faults. He died in 1836.
+
+
+
+OTHER HUMORISTS AND DRAMATISTS OF THE PERIOD.
+
+
+_John Wolcot_, 1738-1819: his pseudonym was _Peter Pindar_. He was a
+satirist as well as a humorist, and was bold in lampooning the prominent
+men of his time, not even sparing the king. The world of literature knows
+him best by his humorous poetical sketches, _The Apple-Dumplings and the
+King, The Razor-Seller, The Pilgrims and the Peas_, and many others.
+
+
+_Hannah More_, 1745-1833: this lady had a flowing, agreeable style, but
+produced no great work. She wrote for her age and pleased it; but
+posterity disregards what she has written. Her principal plays are:
+_Percy_, presented in 1777, and a tragedy entitled _The Fatal Falsehood_.
+She was a poet and a novelist also; but in neither part did she rise above
+mediocrity. In 1782 appeared her volume of _Sacred Dramas_. Her best novel
+is entitled _Cælebs in Search of a Wife, comprehending Observations on
+Domestic Habits and Manners, Religion and Morals_. Her greatest merit is
+that she always inculcated pure morals and religion, and thus aided in
+improving the society of her age. Something of her fame is also due to the
+rare appearance, up to this time, of women in the fields of literature; so
+that her merits are indulgently exaggerated.
+
+
+_Joanna Baillie_, 1762-1851: this lady, the daughter of a Presbyterian
+divine, wrote graceful verses, but is principally known by her numerous
+plays. Among these, which include thirteen _Plays on the Passions_, and
+thirteen _Miscellaneous Plays_, those best known are _De Montfort_ and
+_Basil_--both tragedies, which have received high praise from Sir Walter
+Scott. Her _Ballads_ and _Metrical Legends_ are all spirited and
+excellent; and her _Hymns_ breathe the very spirit of devotion. Very
+popular during her life, and still highly estimated by literary critics,
+her works have given place to newer and more favorite authors, and have
+already lost interest with the great world of readers.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS.
+
+
+_Thomas Warton_, 1728-1790: he was Professor of Poetry and of Ancient
+History at Oxford, and, for the last five years of his life,
+poet-laureate. The student of English Literature is greatly indebted to
+him for his _History of English Poetry_, which he brings down to the early
+part of the seventeenth century. No one before him had attempted such a
+task; and, although his work is rather a rare mass of valuable materials
+than a well articulated history, it is of great value for its collected
+facts, and for its suggestions as to where the scholar may pursue his
+studies farther.
+
+
+_Joseph Warton_, 1722-1800: a brother of Thomas Warton; he published
+translations and essays and poems. Among the translations was that of the
+_Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil_, which is valued for its exactness and
+perspicuity.
+
+
+_Frances Burney_, (Madame D'Arblay,) 1752-1840: the daughter of Dr.
+Burney, a musical composer. While yet a young girl, she astonished herself
+and the world by her novel of _Evelina_, which at once took rank among the
+standard fictions of the day. It is in the style of Richardson, but more
+truthful in the delineation of existing manners, and in the expression of
+sentiment. She afterwards published _Cecilia_ and several other tales,
+which, although excellent, were not as good as the first. She led an
+almost menial life, as one of the ladies in waiting upon Queen Charlotte;
+but the genuine fame achieved by her writings in some degree relieved the
+sense of thraldom, from which she happily escaped with a pension. The
+novels of Madame D'Arblay are the intermediate step between the novels of
+Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett, and the Waverly novels of Walter
+Scott. They are entirely free from any taint of immorality; and they were
+among the first feminine efforts that were received with enthusiasm: thus
+it is that, without being of the first order of merit, they mark a
+distinct era in English letters.
+
+
+_Edmund Burke_, 1730-1797: he was born in Dublin, and educated at Trinity
+College. He studied law, but soon found his proper sphere in public life.
+He had brilliant literary gifts; but his fame is more that of a statesman
+and an orator, than an author. Prominent in parliament, he took noble
+ground in favor of American liberty in our contest with the mother
+country, and uttered speeches which have remained as models of forensic
+eloquence. His greatest oratorical efforts were his famous speeches as one
+of the committee of impeachment in the case of Warren Hastings,
+Governor-General of India. Whatever may be thought of Hastings and his
+administration, the famous trial has given to English oratory some of its
+noblest specimens; and the people of England learned more of their empire
+in India from the learned, brilliant, and exhaustive speeches of Burke,
+than they could have learned in any other way. The greatest of his written
+works is: _Reflections on the Revolution in France_, written to warn
+England to avoid the causes of such colossal evil. In 1756 he had
+published his _Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and
+Beautiful_. This has been variously criticized; and, although written with
+vigor of thought and brilliancy of style, has now taken its place among
+the speculations of theory, and not as establishing permanent canons of
+æsthetical science. His work entitled _The Vindication of Natural Society,
+by a late noble writer_, is a successful attempt to overthrow the infidel
+system of Lord Bolingbroke, by applying it to civil society, and thus
+showing that it proved too much--"that if the abuses of or evils sometimes
+connected with religion invalidate its authority, then every institution,
+however beneficial, must be abandoned." Burke's style is peculiar, and, in
+another writer, would be considered pompous and pedantic; but it so
+expresses the grandeur and dignity of the man, that it escapes this
+criticism. His learning, his private worth, his high aims and
+incorruptible faith in public station, the dignity of his statesmanship,
+and the power of his oratory, constitute Mr. Burke as one of the noblest
+characters of any English period; and, although his literary reputation is
+not equal to his political fame, his accomplishments in the field of
+letters are worthy of admiration and honorable mention.
+
+
+_Hugh Blair_, 1718-1800: a Presbyterian divine in Edinburgh, Dr. Blair
+deserves special mention for his lectures on _Rhetoric and
+Belles-Lettres_, which for a long time constituted the principal text-book
+on those subjects in our schools and colleges. A better understanding of
+the true scope of rhetoric as a science has caused this work to be
+superseded by later text-books. Blair's lectures treat principally of
+style and literary criticism, and are excellent for their analysis of some
+of the best authors, and for happy illustrations from their works. Blair
+wrote many eloquent sermons, which were published, and was one of the
+strong champions of Macpherson, in the controversy concerning the poems of
+Ossian. He occupied a high place as a literary critic during his life.
+
+
+_William Paley_, 1743-1805: a clergyman of the Established Church, he rose
+to the dignity of Archdeacon and Chancellor of Carlisle. At first
+thoughtless and idle, he was roused from his unprofitable life by the
+earnest warnings of a companion, and became a severe student and a
+vigorous writer on moral and religious subjects. Among his numerous
+writings, those principally valuable are: _Horæ Paulinæ_, and _A View of
+the Evidences of Christianity_--the former setting forth the life and
+character of St. Paul, and the latter being a clear exposition of the
+truth of Christianity, which has long served as a manual of academic
+instruction. His treatise on _Natural Theology_ is, in the words of Sir
+James Mackintosh, "the wonderful work of a man who, after sixty, had
+studied anatomy in order to write it." Later investigations of science
+have discarded some of his _facts_; but the handling of the subject and
+the array of arguments are the work of a skilful and powerful hand. He
+wrote, besides, a work on _Moral and Political Philosophy_, and numerous
+sermons. His theory of morals is, that whatever is expedient is right; and
+thus he bases our sense of duty upon the ground of the production of the
+greatest amount of happiness. This low view has been successfully refuted
+by later writers on moral science.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY: SCOTT.
+
+
+   Walter Scott. Translations and Minstrelsy. The Lay of the Last
+   Minstrel. Other Poems. The Waverly Novels. Particular Mention.
+   Pecuniary Troubles. His Manly Purpose. Powers Overtasked. Fruitless
+   Journey. Return and Death. His Fame.
+
+
+
+The transition school, as we have seen, in returning to nature, had
+redeemed the pastoral, and had cultivated sentiment at the expense of the
+epic. As a slight reaction, and yet a progress, and as influenced by the
+tales of modern fiction, and also as subsidizing the antiquarian lore and
+taste of the age, there arose a school of poetry which is best represented
+by its _Tales in verse_;--some treating subjects of the olden time, some
+laying their scenes in distant countries, and some describing home
+incidents of the simplest kind. They were all minor epics: such were the
+poetic stories of Scott, the _Lalla Rookh_ of Moore, _The Bride_ and _The
+Giaour_ of Byron, and _The Village_ and _The Borough_ of Crabbe; all of
+which mark the taste and the demand of the period.
+
+
+WALTER SCOTT.--First in order of the new romantic poets was Scott, alike
+renowned for his _Lays_ and for his wonderful prose fictions; at once the
+most equable and the most prolific of English authors.
+
+Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, on the 15th of August, 1771. His
+father was a writer to the signet; his mother was Anne Rutherford, the
+daughter of a medical professor in the University of Edinburgh. His
+father's family belonged to the clan Buccleugh. Lame from his early
+childhood, and thus debarred the more active pleasures of children, his
+imagination was unusually vigorous; and he took special pleasure in the
+many stories, current at the time, of predatory warfare, border forays,
+bogles, warlocks, and second sight. He spent some of his early days in the
+country, and thus became robust and healthy; although his lameness
+remained throughout life. He was educated in Edinburgh, at the High School
+and the university; and, although not noted for excellence as a scholar,
+he exhibited precocity in verse, and delighted his companions by his
+readiness in reproducing old stories or improving new ones. After leaving
+the university he studied law, and ranged himself in politics as a
+Conservative or Tory.
+
+Although never an accurate classical scholar, he had a superficial
+knowledge of several languages, and was an industrious collector of old
+ballads and relics of the antiquities of his country. He was, however,
+better than a scholar;--he had genius, enthusiasm, and industry: he could
+create character, adapt incident, and, in picturesque description, he was
+without a rival.
+
+During the rumors of the invasion of Scotland by the French, which he has
+treated with such comical humor in _The Antiquary_, his lameness did not
+prevent his taking part with the volunteers, as quartermaster--a post
+given him to spare him the fatigue and rough service of the ranks. The
+French did not come; and Scott returned to his studies with a budget of
+incident for future use.
+
+
+TRANSLATIONS AND MINSTRELSY.--The study of the German language was then
+almost a new thing, even among educated people in England; and Scott made
+his first public essay in the form of translations from the German. Among
+these were versions of the _Erl König_ of Goethe, and the _Lenore_ and
+_The Wild Huntsman_ of Bürger, which appeared in 1796. In 1797 he rendered
+into English _Otho of Wittelsbach_ by Steinburg, and in 1799 Goethe's
+tragedy, _Götz von Berlichingen_. These were the trial efforts of his
+"'prentice hand," which predicted a coming master.
+
+On the 24th of December, 1797, he married Miss Carpenter, or Charpentier,
+a lady of French parentage, and retired to a cottage at Lasswade, where he
+began his studies, and cherished his literary aspirations in earnest and
+for life.
+
+In 1799 he was so fortunate as to receive the appointment of Sheriff of
+Selkirkshire, with a salary of £300 per annum. His duties were not
+onerous: he had ample time to scour the country, ostensibly in search of
+game, and really in seeking for the songs and traditions of Scotland,
+border ballads, and tales, and in storing his fancy with those picturesque
+views which he was afterwards to describe so well in verse and prose. In
+1802 he was thus enabled to present to the world his first considerable
+work, _The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, containing many new ballads
+which he had collected, with very valuable local and historical notes.
+This was followed, in 1804, by the metrical romance _of Sir Tristrem_, the
+original of which was by Thomas of Ercildoune, of the thirteenth century,
+known as _Thomas the Rhymer_: it was he who dreamed on Huntley bank that
+he met the Queen of Elfland,
+
+    And, till seven years were gone and past,
+    True Thomas on earth was never seen.
+
+The reputation acquired by these productions led the world to expect
+something distinctly original and brilliant from his pen; a hope which was
+at once realized.
+
+
+THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.--In 1805 appeared his first great poem, _The
+Lay of the Last Minstrel_, which immediately established his fame: it was
+a charming presentation of the olden time to the new. It originated in a
+request of the Countess of Dalkeith that he would write a ballad on the
+legend of Gilpin Horner. The picture of the last minstrel, "infirm and
+old," fired by remembrance as he begins to tell an old-time story of
+Scottish valor, is vividly drawn. The bard is supposed to be the last of
+his fraternity, and to have lived down to 1690. The tale, mixed of truth
+and fable, is exceedingly interesting. The octo-syllabic measure, with an
+occasional line of three feet, to break the monotony, is purely
+minstrelic, and reproduces the effect of the _troubadours and trouvères_.
+The wizard agency of Gilpin Horner's brood, and the miracle at the tomb of
+Michael Scott, are by no means out of keeping with the minstrel and the
+age of which he sings. The dramatic effects are good, and the descriptions
+very vivid. The poem was received with great enthusiasm, and rapidly
+passed through several editions. One element of its success is modestly
+and justly stated by the author in his introduction to a later edition:
+"The attempt to return to a more simple and natural style of poetry was
+likely to be welcomed at a time when the public had become tired of heroic
+hexameters, with all the buckram and binding that belong to them in modern
+days."
+
+With an annual income of £1000, and an honorable ambition, Scott worked
+his new literary mine with great vigor. He saw not only fame but wealth
+within his reach. He entered into a silent partnership with the publisher,
+James Ballantyne, which was for a long time lucrative, by reason of the
+unprecedented sums he received for his works. In 1806 he was appointed to
+the reversion--on the death of the incumbent--of the clerkship of the
+Court of Sessions, a place worth £1300 per annum.
+
+
+OTHER POEMS.--In 1808, before _The Lay_ had lost its freshness, _Marmion_
+appeared: it was kindred in subject and form, and was received with equal
+favor. _The Lady of the Lake_, the most popular of these poems, was
+published in 1810; and with it his poetical talent culminated. The later
+poems were not equal to any of those mentioned, although they were not
+without many beauties and individual excellences.
+
+_The Vision of Don Roderick_, which appeared in 1811, is founded upon the
+legend of a visit made by one of the Gothic kings of Spain to an enchanted
+cavern near Toledo. _Rokeby_ was published in 1812; _The Bridal of
+Triermain_ in 1813; _The Lord of the Isles_, founded upon incidents in the
+life of Bruce, in 1815; and _Harold the Dauntless_ in 1817. With the
+decline of his poetic power, manifest to himself, he retired from the
+field of poetry, but only to appear upon another and a grander field with
+astonishing brilliancy: it was the domain of the historical romance. Such,
+however, was the popular estimate of his poetry, that in 1813 the Prince
+Regent offered him the position of poet-laureate, which was gratefully and
+wisely declined.
+
+Just at this time the new poets came forth, in his own style, and actuated
+by his example and success. He recognized in Byron, Moore, Crabbe, and
+others, genius and talent; and, with his generous spirit, exaggerated
+their merits by depreciating his own, which he compared to cairngorms
+beside the real jewels of his competitors. The mystics, following the lead
+of the Lake poets, were ready to increase the depreciation. It soon became
+fashionable to speak of _The Lay_, and _Marmion_, and _The Lady of the
+Lake_ as spirited little stories, not equal to Byron's, and not to be
+mentioned beside the occult philosophy of _Thalaba_ and gentle egotism of
+_The Prelude_. That day is passed: even the critical world returns to its
+first fancies. In the words of Carlyle, a great balance-striker of
+literary fame, speaking in 1838: "It were late in the day to write
+criticisms on those metrical romances; at the same time, the great
+popularity they had seems natural enough. In the first place, there was
+the indisputable impress of worth, of genuine human force in them ...
+Pictures were actually painted and presented; human emotions conceived and
+sympathized with. Considering that wretched Dellacruscan and other
+vamping up of wornout tattlers was the staple article then, it may be
+granted that Scott's excellence was superior and supreme." Without
+preferring any claim to epic grandeur, or to a rank among the few great
+poets of the first class, Scott is entitled to the highest eminence in
+minstrelic power. He is the great modern troubadour. His descriptions of
+nature are simple and exquisite. There is nothing in this respect more
+beautiful than the opening of _The Lady of the Lake_. His battle-pieces
+live and resound again: what can be finer than Flodden field in _Marmion_,
+and The Battle of Beal and Duine in _The Lady of the Lake_?
+
+His love scenes are at once chaste, impassioned, and tender; and his harp
+songs and battle lyrics are unrivalled in harmony. And, besides these
+merits, he gives us everywhere glimpses of history, which, before his day,
+were covered by the clouds of ignorance, and which his breath was to sweep
+away.
+
+Such are his claims as the first of the new romantic poets. We might here
+leave him, to consider his prose works in another connection; but it seems
+juster to his fame to continue and complete a sketch of his life, because
+all its parts are of connected interest. The poems were a grand proem to
+the novels.
+
+While he was achieving fame by his poetry, and reaping golden rewards as
+well as golden opinions, he was also ambitious to establish a family name
+and estate. To this end, he bought a hundred acres of land on the banks of
+the Tweed, near Melrose Abbey, and added to these from time to time by the
+purchase of adjoining properties. Here he built a great mansion, which
+became famous as Abbotsford: he called it one of his air-castles reduced
+to solid stone and mortar. Here he played the part of a feudal proprietor,
+and did the honors for Scotland to distinguished men from all quarters:
+his hospitality was generous and unbounded.
+
+
+THE WAVERLEY NOVELS.--As early as 1805, while producing his beautiful
+poems, he had tried his hand upon a story in prose, based upon the
+stirring events in 1745, resulting in the fatal battle of Culloden, which
+gave a death-blow to the cause of the Stuarts, and to their attempts to
+regain the crown. Dissatisfied with the effort, and considering it at that
+time less promising than poetry, he had thrown the manuscript aside in a
+desk with some old fishing-tackle. There it remained undisturbed for eight
+years. With the decline of his poetic powers, he returned to the former
+notion of writing historical fiction; and so, exhuming his manuscript, he
+modified and finished it, and presented it anonymously to the world in
+1814. He had at first proposed the title of _Waverley, or 'Tis Fifty Years
+Since_, which was afterwards altered to '_Tis Sixty Years Since_. This,
+the first of his splendid series of fictions, which has given a name to
+the whole series, is by no means the best; but it was good and novel
+enough to strike a chord in the popular heart at once. Its delineations of
+personal characters already known to history were masterly; its historical
+pictures were in a new and striking style of art. There were men yet
+living to whom he could appeal--men who had _been out_ in the '45, who had
+seen Charles Edward and many of the originals of the author's heroes and
+heroines. In his researches and wanderings, he had imbibed the very spirit
+of Scottish life and history; and the Waverley novels are among the most
+striking literary types and expounders of history.
+
+
+PARTICULAR MENTION.--In 1815, before half the reading world had delighted
+themselves with _Waverley_, his rapid pen had produced _Guy Mannering_, a
+story of English and Scottish life, superior to Waverley in its original
+descriptions and more general interest. He is said to have written it in
+six weeks at Christmas time. The scope of this volume will not permit a
+critical examination of the Waverley novels. The world knows them almost
+by heart. In _The Antiquary_, which appeared in 1816, we have a rare
+delineation of local manners, the creation of distinct characters, and a
+humorous description of the sudden arming of volunteers in fear of
+invasion by the French. _The Antiquary_ was a free portrait or sketch of
+Mr. George Constable, filled in perhaps unconsciously from the author's
+own life; for he, no less than his friend, delighted in collecting relics,
+and in studying out the lines, prætoria, and general castrametation of the
+Roman armies. Andrew Gemmels was the original of that Edie Ochiltree who
+was bold enough to dispute the antiquary's more learned assertions.
+
+In the same year, 1816, was published the first series of _The Tales of my
+Landlord_, containing _The Black Dwarf_ and _Old Mortality_, both valuable
+as contributions to Scottish history. The former is not of much literary
+merit; and the author was so little pleased with it, that he brought it to
+a hasty conclusion; the latter is an extremely animated sketch of the
+sufferings of the Covenanters at the hands of Grahame of Claverhouse, with
+a fairer picture of that redoubted commander than the Covenanters have
+drawn. _Rob Roy_, the best existing presentation of Highland life and
+manners, appeared in 1817. Thus Scott's prolific pen, like nature,
+produced annuals. In 1818 appeared _The Heart of Mid-Lothian_, that
+touching story of Jeanie and Effie Deans, which awakens the warmest
+sympathy of every reader, and teaches to successive generations a moral
+lesson of great significance and power.
+
+In 1819 he wrote _The Bride of Lammermoor_, the story of a domestic
+tragedy, which warns the world that outraged nature will sometimes assert
+herself in fury; a story so popular that it has been since arranged as an
+Italian opera. With that came _The Legend of Montrose_, another historic
+sketch of great power, and especially famous for the character of Major
+Dugald Dalgetty, soldier of fortune and pedant of Marischal College,
+Aberdeen. The year 1819 also beheld the appearance of _Ivanhoe_, which
+many consider the best of the series. It describes rural England during
+the regency of John, the romantic return of Richard Lion-heart, the
+glowing embers of Norman and Saxon strife, and the story of the Templars.
+His portraiture of the Jewess Rebecca is one of the finest in the Waverley
+Gallery.
+
+The next year, 1820, brought forth _The Monastery_, the least popular of
+the novels thus far produced; and, as Scott tells us, on the principle of
+sending a second arrow to find one that was lost, he wrote _The Abbot_, a
+sequel, to which we are indebted for a masterly portrait of Mary Stuart in
+her prison of Lochleven. The _Abbot_, to some extent, redeemed and
+sustained its weaker brother. In this same year Scott was created a
+baronet, in recognition of his great services to English Literature and
+history. The next five years added worthy companion-novels to the
+marvellous series. _Kenilworth_ is founded upon the visit of Queen
+Elizabeth to her favorite Leicester, in that picturesque palace in
+Warwickshire, and contains that beautiful and touching picture of Amy
+Robsart. _The Pirate_ is a story the scene of which is laid in Shetland,
+and the material for which he gathered in a pleasure tour among those
+islands. In _The Fortunes of Nigel_, London life during the reign of James
+I. is described; and it contains life-like portraits of that monarch, of
+his unfortunate son, Prince Charles, and of Buckingham. _Peveril of the
+Peak_ is a story of the time of Charles II., which is not of equal merit
+with the other novels. _Quentin Durward_, one of the very best, describes
+the strife between Louis XI. of France and Charles the Bold of Burgundy,
+and gives full-length historic portraits of these princes. The scene of
+_St. Ronan's Well_ is among the English lakes in Cumberland, and the story
+describes the manners of the day at a retired watering-place. _Red
+Gauntlet_ is a curious narrative connected with one of the latest attempts
+of Charles Edward--abortive at the outset--to effect a rising in
+Scotland. In 1825 appeared his _Tales of the Crusaders_, comprising _The
+Betrothed_ and _The Talisman_, of which the latter is the more popular, as
+it describes with romantic power the deeds of Richard and his comrades in
+the second crusade.
+
+A glance at this almost tabular statement will show the scope and
+versatility of his mind, the historic range of his studies, the fertility
+of his fancy, and the rapidity of his pen. He had attained the height of
+fame and happiness; his success had partaken of the miraculous; but
+misfortune came to mar it all, for a time.
+
+
+PECUNIARY TROUBLES.--In the financial crash of 1825-6, he was largely
+involved. As a silent partner in the publishing house of the Ballantynes,
+and as connected with them in the affairs of Constable & Co., he found
+himself, by the failure of these houses, legally liable to the amount of
+£117,000. To relieve himself, he might have taken the benefit of the
+_bankrupt law_; or, such was his popularity, that his friends desired to
+raise a subscription to cover the amount of his indebtedness; but he was
+now to show by his conduct that, if the author was great, the man was
+greater. He refused all assistance, and even rejected general sympathy. He
+determined to relieve himself, to pay his debts, or die in the effort. He
+left Abbotsford, and took frugal lodgings in Edinburgh; curtailed all his
+expenses, and went to work--which was over-work--not for fame, but for
+guineas; and he gained both.
+
+His first novel after this, and the one which was to test the
+practicability of his plan, was _Woodstock_, a tale of the troublous times
+of the Civil War, in the last chapter of which he draws the picture of the
+restored Charles coming in peaceful procession to his throne. This he
+wrote in three months; and for it he received upwards of £8000. With this
+and the proceeds of his succeeding works, he was enabled to pay over to
+his creditors the large sum of £70,000; a feat unparalleled in the history
+of literature. But the anxiety and the labor were too much even for his
+powerful constitution: he died in his heroic attempt.
+
+
+HIS MANLY PURPOSE.--More for money than for reputation, he compiled
+hastily, and from partial and incomplete material, a _Life of Napoleon
+Bonaparte_, which appeared in 1827. The style is charming and the work
+eminently readable; but it contains many faults, is by no means
+unprejudiced, and, as far as pure truth is concerned, is, in parts, almost
+as much of a romance as any of the Waverley novels; but, for the first two
+editions, he received the enormous sum of £18,000. The work was
+accomplished in the space of one year. Among the other _task-work_ books
+were the two series of _The Chronicles of the Canongate_ (1827 and 1828),
+the latter of which contains the beautiful story of _St. Valentine's Day_,
+or _The Fair Maid of Perth_. It is written in his finest vein, especially
+in those chapters which describe the famous Battle of the Clans. In 1829
+appeared _Anne of Geierstein_, another story presenting the figure of
+Charles of Burgundy, and his defeat and death in the battle with the Swiss
+at Nancy.
+
+
+POWERS OVERTASKED.--And now new misfortunes were to come upon him. In 1826
+he had lost his wife: his sorrows weighed upon him, and his superhuman
+exertions were too much for his strength. In 1829 he was seized with a
+nervous attack, accompanied by hemorrhages of a peculiar kind. In
+February, 1830, a slight paralysis occurred, from which he speedily
+recovered; this was soon succeeded by another; and it was manifest that
+his mind was giving way. His last novel, _Count Robert of Paris_, was
+begun in 1830, as one of a fourth series of _The Tales of My Landlord_: it
+bears manifest marks of his failing powers, but is of value for the
+historic stores which it draws from the Byzantine historians, and
+especially from the unique work of Anna Comnena: "I almost wish," he said,
+"I had named it Anna Comnena." A slight attack of apoplexy in November,
+1830, was followed by a severer one in the spring of 1831. Even then he
+tried to write, and was able to produce _Castle Dangerous_. With that the
+powerful pen ended its marvellous work. The manly spirit still chafed that
+his debts were not paid, and could not be, by the labor of his hands.
+
+
+FRUITLESS JOURNEY.--In order to divert his mind, and, as a last chance for
+health, a trip to the Mediterranean was projected. The Barham frigate was
+placed by the government at his disposal; and he wandered with a party of
+friends to Malta, Naples, Pompeii, Paestum, and Rome. But feeling the end
+approaching, he exclaimed, "Let us to Abbotsford:" for the final hour he
+craved the _grata quies patriæ_; to which an admiring world has added the
+remainder of the verse--_sed et omnis terra sepulchrum_. It was not a
+moment too soon: he travelled northward to the Rhine, down that river by
+boat, and reached London "totally exhausted;" thence, as soon as he could
+be moved, he was taken to Abbotsford.
+
+
+RETURN AND DEATH.--There he lingered from July to September, and died
+peacefully on the 21st of the latter month, surrounded by his family and
+lulled to repose by the rippling of the Tweed. Among the noted dead of
+1832, including Goethe, Cuvier, Crabbe, and Mackintosh, he was the most
+distinguished; and all Scotland and all the civilized world mourned his
+loss.
+
+
+HIS FAME.--At Edinburgh a colossal monument has been erected to his
+memory, within which sits his marble figure. Numerous other memorial
+columns are found in other cities, but all Scotland is his true monument,
+every province and town of which he has touched with his magic pen.
+Indeed, Scotland may be said to owe to him a new existence. In the words
+of Lord Meadowbank,--who presided at the Theatrical Fund dinner in 1827,
+and who there made the first public announcement of the authorship of the
+Waverley novels,--Scott was "the mighty magician who rolled back the
+current of time, and conjured up before our living senses the men and
+manners of days which have long since passed away ... It is he who has
+conferred a new reputation on our national character, and bestowed on
+Scotland an imperishable name."
+
+Besides his poetry and novels, he wrote very much of a miscellaneous
+character for the reviews, and edited the works of the poets with valuable
+introductions and congenial biographies. Most of his fictions are
+historical in plot and personages; and those which deal with Scottish
+subjects are enriched by those types of character, those descriptions of
+manners--national and local--and those peculiarities of language, which
+give them additional and more useful historical value. It has been justly
+said that, by his masterly handling of historical subjects, he has taught
+the later historians how to write, how to give vivid and pictorial effects
+to what was before a detail of chronology or a dry schedule of philosophy.
+His critical powers may be doubted: he was too kind and genial for a
+critic; and in reading contemporary authors seems to have endued their
+inferior works with something of his own fancy.
+
+The _Life of Scott_, by his son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart, is one of the most
+complete and interesting biographies in the language. In it the student
+will find a list of all his works, with the dates of their production; and
+will wonder that an author who was so rapid and so prolific could write so
+much that was of the highest excellence. If not the greatest genius of his
+age, he was its greatest literary benefactor; and it is for this reason
+that we have given so much space to the record of his life and works.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY: BYRON AND MOORE.
+
+
+   Early Life of Byron. Childe Harold and Eastern Tales. Unhappy Marriage.
+   Philhellenism and Death. Estimate of his Poetry. Thomas Moore.
+   Anacreon. Later Fortunes. Lalla Rookh. His Diary. His Rank as Poet.
+
+
+
+In immediate succession after Scott comes the name of Byron. They were
+both great lights of their age; but the former may be compared to a planet
+revolving in regulated and beneficent beauty through an unclouded sky;
+while the latter is more like a comet whose lurid light came flashing upon
+the sight in wild and threatening career.
+
+Like Scott, Byron was a prolific poet; and he owes to Scott the general
+suggestion and much of the success of his tales in verse. His powers of
+description were original and great: he adopted the new romantic tone,
+while in his more studied works he was an imitator and a champion of a
+former age, and a contemner of his own.
+
+
+EARLY LIFE OF BYRON.--The Honorable George Gordon Byron, afterwards Lord
+Byron, was born in London on the 22d of January, 1788. While he was yet an
+infant, his father--Captain Byron--a dissipated man, deserted his mother;
+and she went with her child to live upon a slender pittance at Aberdeen.
+She was a woman of peculiar disposition, and was unfortunate in the
+training of her son. She alternately petted and quarrelled with him, and
+taught him to emulate her irregularities of temper. On account of an
+accident at his birth, he had a malformation in one of his feet, which,
+producing a slight limp in his gait through life, rendered his sensitive
+nature quite unhappy, the signs of which are to be discerned in his drama,
+_The Deformed Transformed_. From the age of five years he went to school
+at Aberdeen, and very early began to exhibit traits of generosity,
+manliness, and an imperious nature: he also displayed great quickness in
+those studies which pleased his fancy.
+
+In 1798, when he was eleven years old, his grand-uncle, William, the fifth
+Lord Byron, died, and was succeeded in the title and estates by the young
+Gordon Byron, who was at once removed with his mother to Newstead Abbey.
+In 1801 he was sent to Harrow, where he was well esteemed by his comrades,
+but was not considered forward in his studies.
+
+He seems to have been of a susceptible nature, for, while still a boy, he
+fell in love several times. His third experience in this way was
+undoubtedly the strongest of his whole life. The lady was Miss Mary
+Chaworth, who did not return his affection. His last interview with her he
+has powerfully described in his poem called _The Dream_. From Harrow he
+went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he lived an idle and
+self-indulgent life, reading discursively, but not studying the prescribed
+course. As early as November, 1806, before he was nineteen, he published
+his first volume, _Poems on Various Occasions_, for private distribution,
+which was soon after enlarged and altered, and presented to the public as
+_Hours of Idleness, a Series of Poems Original and Translated, by George
+Gordon, Lord Byron, A Minor_. These productions, although by no means
+equal to his later poems, are not without merit, and did not deserve the
+exceedingly severe criticism they met with from the _Edinburgh Review_.
+The critics soon found that they had bearded a young lion: in his rage, he
+sprang out upon the whole literary craft in a satire, imitated from
+Juvenal, called _The English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, in which he
+ridicules and denounces the very best poets of the day furiously but most
+uncritically. That his conduct was absurd and unjust, he himself allowed
+afterwards; and he attempted to call in and destroy all the copies of this
+work.
+
+
+CHILDE HAROLD AND EASTERN TALES.--In March, 1809, he took his seat in the
+House of Lords, where he did not accomplish much. He took up his residence
+at Newstead Abbey, his ancestral seat, most of which was in a ruinous
+condition; and after a somewhat disorderly life there, he set out on his
+continental tour, spending some time at Lisbon, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Malta,
+and in Greece. On his return, after two years' absence, he brought a
+summary of his travels in poetical form,--the first part of _Childe
+Harold_; and also a more elaborated poem entitled _Hints from Horace_.
+Upon the former he set little value; but he thought the latter a noble
+work. The world at once reversed his decision. The satire in the Latin
+vein is scarcely read; while to the first cantos of _Childe Harold_ it was
+due that, in his own words, "he woke up one morning and found himself
+famous." As fruits of the eastern portion of his travels, we have the
+romantic tale, _The Giaour_, published in 1811, and _The Bride of Abydos_,
+which appeared in 1813. The popularity of these oriental stories was
+mainly due to their having been conceived on the spots they describe. In
+1814 he issued _The Corsair_, perhaps the best of these sensational
+stories; and with singular versatility, in the same year, inspired by the
+beauty of the Jewish history, he produced _The Hebrew Melodies_, some of
+which are fervent, touching, and melodious. Late in the same year _Lara_
+was published, in the same volume with Mr. Rogers's _Jacqueline_, which it
+threw completely into the shade. Thus closed one distinct period of his
+life and of his authorship. A change came over the spirit of his dream.
+
+
+UNHAPPY MARRIAGE.--In 1815, urged by his friends, and thinking it due to
+his position, he married Miss Milbanke; but the union was without
+affection on either side, and both were unhappy. One child, a daughter,
+was born to them; and a year had hardly passed when they were separated,
+by mutual consent and for reasons never truly divulged; and which, in
+spite of modern investigations, must remain mysterious. He was licentious,
+extravagant, of a violent temper: his wife was of severe morals, cold, and
+unsympathetic. We need not advance farther into the horrors recently
+suggested to the world. The blame has rested on Byron; and, at the time,
+the popular feeling was so strong, that it may be said to have driven him
+from England. It awoke in him a dark misanthropy which returned English
+scorn with an unnatural hatred. He sojourned at various places on the
+continent. At Geneva he wrote a third canto of _Childe Harold_, and the
+touching story of Bonnivard, entitled _The Prisoner of Chillon_, and other
+short poems.
+
+In 1817 he was at Venice, where he formed a connection with the Countess
+Guiccioli, to the disgrace of both. In Venice he wrote a fourth canto of
+_Childe Harold_, the story of _Mazeppa_, the first two cantos of _Don
+Juan_, and two dramas, _Marino Faliero_ and _The Two Foscari_.
+
+For two years he lived at Ravenna, where he wrote some of his other
+dramas, and several cantos of _Don Juan_. In 1821 he removed to Pisa;
+thence, after a short stay, to Genoa, still writing dramas and working at
+_Don Juan_.
+
+
+PHILHELLENISM: HIS DEATH.--The end of his misanthropy and his debaucheries
+was near; but his story was to have a ray of sunset glory--his death was
+to be connected with a noble effort and an exhibition of philanthropic
+spirit which seem in some degree to palliate his faults. Unlike some
+writers who find in his conduct only a selfish whim, we think that it
+casts a beautiful radiance upon the early evening of a stormy life. The
+Greeks were struggling for independence from Turkish tyranny: Byron threw
+himself heart and soul into the movement, received a commission from the
+Greek government, recruited a band of Suliotes, and set forth gallantly to
+do or die in the cause of Grecian freedom: he died, but not in battle. He
+caught a fever of a virulent type, from his exposure, and after very few
+days expired, on the 19th of April, 1824, amid the mourning of the nation.
+Of this event, Macaulay--no mean or uncertain critic--could say, in his
+epigrammatical style: "Two men have died within our recollection, who, at
+a time of life at which few people have completed their education, had
+raised themselves, each in his own department, to the height of glory. One
+of them died at Longwood; the other at Missolonghi."
+
+
+ESTIMATE OF HIS POETRY.--In giving a brief estimate of his character and
+of his works, we may begin by saying that he represents, in clear
+lineaments, the nobleman, the traveller, the poet, and the debauchee, of
+the beginning of the nineteenth century. In all his works he unconsciously
+depicts himself. He is in turn Childe Harold, Lara, the Corsair, and Don
+Juan. He affected to despise the world's opinion so completely that he has
+made himself appear worse than he really was--more profane, more
+intemperate, more licentious. It is equally true that this tendency, added
+to the fact that he was a handsome peer, had much to do with the immediate
+popularity of his poems. There was also a paradoxical vanity, which does
+not seem easily reconcilable with his misanthropy, that thus led him to
+reproduce himself in a new dress in his dramas and tales. He paraded
+himself as if, after all, he did value the world's opinion.
+
+That he was one of the new romantic poets, with, however, a considerable
+tincture of the transition school, may be readily discerned in his works:
+his earlier poems are full of the conceits of the artificial age. His
+_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_ reminds one of the _MacFlecknoe_ of
+Dryden and _The Dunciad_ of Pope, without being as good as either. When
+he began that original and splendid portrait of himself, and transcript
+of his travels, _Childe Harold_, he imitated Spenser in form and in
+archaism. But he was possessed by the muse: the man wrote as the spirit
+within dictated, as the Pythian priestess is fabled to have uttered her
+oracles. _Childe Harold_ is a stream of intuitive, irrepressible poetry;
+not art, but overflowing nature: the sentiments good and bad came welling
+forth from his heart. His descriptive powers are great but peculiar.
+Travellers find in _Childe Harold_ lightning glimpses of European scenery,
+art, and nature, needing no illustrations, almost defying them. National
+conditions, manners, customs, and costumes, are photographed in his
+verses:--the rapid rush to Waterloo; a bull-fight in Spain; the women of
+Cadiz or Saragossa; the Lion of St. Mark; the eloquent statue of the Dying
+Gladiator; "Fair Greece, sad relic of departed worth;" the address to the
+ocean; touches of love and hate; pictures of sorrow, of torture, of death.
+Everywhere thought and glance are powerfully concentrated, and we find the
+poem to be journal, history, epic, and autobiography. His felicity of
+expression is so great, that, as we come upon the happy conceptions
+exquisitely rendered, we are inclined to say of each, as he has said of
+the Egeria of Muna:
+
+                         ... whatsoe'er thy birth,
+    Thou wert a beautiful thought and softly bodied forth.
+
+Of his dramas which are founded upon history, we cannot say so much; they
+are dramatic only in form: some of them are spectacular, like
+_Sardanapalus_, which is still presented upon the stage on account of its
+scenic effects. In _Manfred_ we have a rare insight into his nature, and
+_Cain_ is the vehicle for his peculiar, dark sentiments on the subject of
+religion.
+
+_Don Juan_ is illustrative not only of the poet, but of the age; there was
+a generation of such men and women. But quite apart from its moral, or
+rather immoral, character, the poem is one of the finest in our
+literature: it is full of wonderful descriptions, and exhibits a splendid
+mastery of language, rhythm, and rhyme: a glorious epic with an inglorious
+hero, and that hero Byron himself.
+
+As a man he was an enigma to the world, and doubtless to himself: he was
+bad, but he was bold. If he was vindictive, he was generous; if he was
+misanthropic and sceptical, it was partly because he despised shams: in
+all his actions, we see that implicit working out of his own nature, which
+not only conceals nothing, but even exaggerates his own faults. His
+antecedents were bad;--his father was a villain; his grand-uncle a
+murderer; his mother a woman of violent temper; and himself, with all this
+legacy, a man of powerful passions. If evil is in any degree to be
+palliated because it is hereditary, those who most condemn it in the
+abstract, may still look with compassionate leniency upon the career of
+Lord Byron.
+
+
+THOMAS MOORE.--Emphatically the creature of his age, Moore wrote
+sentimental songs in melodious language to the old airs of Ireland, and
+used them as an instrument to excite the Irish people in the struggle they
+were engaged in against English misgovernment. But his songs were true
+neither to tradition nor to nature; they placed before the ardent Celtic
+fancy an Irish glory and grandeur entirely different from the reality. Nor
+had he in any degree caught the bardic spirit. His lyre was attuned to
+reach the ear rather than the heart; his scenes are in enchanted lands;
+his _dramatis personæ_ tread theatrical boards; his thunder is a
+melo-dramatic roll; his lightning is pyrotechny; his tears are either
+hypocritical or maudlin; and his laughter is the perfection of genteel
+comedy.
+
+Thomas Moore was born in Dublin, on the 28th of May, 1779: he was a
+diminutive but precocious child, and was paraded by his father and mother,
+who were people in humble life, as a reciter of verse; and as an early
+rhymer also. His first poem was printed in a Dublin magazine, when he was
+fourteen years old. In 1794 he entered Trinity College, Dublin; and,
+although never considered a good scholar, he was graduated in 1798, when
+he was nineteen years old.
+
+
+ANACREON.--The first work which brought him into notice, and which
+manifests at once the precocity of his powers and the peculiarity of his
+taste, was his translation of the _Odes of Anacreon_. He had begun this
+work while at college, but it was finished and published in London,
+whither he had gone after leaving college, to enter the Middle Temple, in
+order to study law. With equal acuteness and adaptation to character, he
+dedicated the poems to the Prince of Wales, an anacreontic hero. As might
+be expected, with such a patron, the volume was a success. In 1801 he
+published another series of erotic poems, under the title _The Poetical
+Works of the late Thomas Little_. This gained for him, in Byron's line,
+the name of "the young Catullus of his day"; and, at the instance of Lord
+Moira, he was appointed poet-laureate, a post he filled only long enough
+to write one birthday ode. What seemed a better fortune came in the shape
+of an appointment as Registrar of the Admiralty Court of Bermuda. He went
+to the island; remained but a short time; and turned over the uncongenial
+duties of the post to a deputy, who subsequently became a defaulter, and
+involved Moore to a large amount. Returning from Bermuda, he travelled in
+the United States and Canada; not without some poetical record of his
+movements. In 1806 he published his _Epistles, Odes, and Other Poems_,
+which called down the righteous wrath of the Edinburgh Review: Jeffrey
+denounced the book as "a public nuisance," and "a corrupter of public
+morals." For this harsh judgment, Moore challenged him; but the duel was
+stopped by the police. This hostile meeting was turned to ridicule by
+Byron in the lines:
+
+    When Little's leadless pistols met his eye,
+    And Bow-street myrmidons stood laughing by.
+
+
+LATER FORTUNES.--Moore was now the favorite--the poet and the dependent of
+the nobility; and his versatile pen was principally employed to amuse and
+to please. He soon began that series of _Irish Melodies_ which he
+continued to augment with new pieces for nearly thirty years.
+
+Always of a theatrical turn, he acted well in private drama, in which the
+gentlemen were amateurs, and the female parts were personated by
+professional actresses. Thus playing in a cast with Miss Dyke, the
+daughter of an Irish actor, Moore fell in love with her, and married her
+on the 25th of March, 1811.
+
+With a foolish lack of judgment, he lost his hopes of preferment, by
+writing satires against the regent; but as a means of livelihood, he
+engaged to write songs for Powers, at a salary of £500 per annum, for
+seven years.
+
+
+LALLA ROOKH.--The most acceptable offering to fame, and the most
+successful pecuniary venture, was his _Lalla Rookh_. The East was becoming
+known to the English; and the fancy of the poet could convert the glimpses
+of oriental things into charming pictures. Long possessed with the purpose
+to write an Eastern story in verse, Moore set to work with laudable
+industry to read books of travels and history, in order to form a strong
+and sensible basis for his poetical superstructure. The work is a
+collection of beautiful poems, in a delicate setting of beautiful prose.
+The princess Lalla Rookh journeys, with great pomp, to become the bride of
+the youthful king of Bokkara, and finds among her attendants a handsome
+young poet, who beguiles the journey by singing to her these tales in
+verse. The dangers of the process became manifest--the king of Bokkara is
+forgotten, and the heart of the unfortunate princess is won by the beauty
+and the minstrelsy of the youthful poet. What is her relief and her joy to
+find on her arrival the unknown poet seated upon the throne as the king,
+who had won her heart as an humble bard!
+
+This beautiful and popular work was published in 1817; and for it Moore
+received from his publishers, the Longmans, £3000.
+
+In the same year Moore took a small cottage at Sloperton on the estate of
+the Marquis of Lansdowne, which, with some interruptions of travel, and a
+short residence in Paris, continued to be his residence during his life.
+Improvident in money matters, he was greatly troubled by his affairs in
+Bermuda;--the amount for which he became responsible by the defalcation of
+his deputy was £6000; which, however, by legal cleverness, was compromised
+for a thousand guineas.
+
+
+HIS DIARY.--It is very fortunate, for a proper understanding of Moore's
+life, that we have from this time a diary which is invaluable to the
+biographer. In 1820 he went to Paris, where he wasted his time and money
+in fashionable dissipation, and produced nothing of enduring value. Here
+he sketched an Egyptian story, versified in _Alciphron_, but enlarged in
+the prose romance called _The Epicurean_.
+
+On a short tour he visited Venice, where he received, as a gift from Lord
+Byron, his autobiographical memoirs, which contained so much that was
+compromising to others, that they were never published--at least in that
+form. They were withdrawn from the Murrays, in whose hands he had placed
+them, upon the death of Byron in 1824, and destroyed. A short visit to
+Ireland led to his writing the _Memoirs of Captain Rock_, a work which
+attained an unprecedented popularity in Ireland.
+
+In 1825 he published his _Life of Sheridan_, which is rather a friendly
+panegyric than a truthful biography.
+
+During three years--from 1827 to 1830--he was engaged upon the _Life of
+Byron_, which concealed more truth than it divulged. But in all these
+years, his chief dependence for daily bread was upon his songs and glees,
+squibs for newspapers and magazines, and review articles.
+
+In 1831 he made another successful hit in his _Life of Lord Edward
+Fitzgerald_, a rebel of '98, which was followed in 1833 by _The Travels of
+an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion_.
+
+In 1835, through the agency of Lord John Russel, the improvident poet
+received a pension of £300. It came in a time of need; for he was getting
+old, and his mind moved more sluggishly. His infirmities made him more
+domestic; but his greater trials were still before him. His sons were
+frivolous spendthrifts; one for whom he had secured a commission in the
+army behaved ill, and drew upon his impoverished father again and again
+for money: both died young. This cumulation of troubles broke him down; he
+had a cerebral attack in December, 1849, and lived helpless and broken
+until the 26th of February, 1852, when he expired without suffering.
+
+
+HIS POETRY.--In most cases, the concurrence of what an author has written
+will present to us the mental and moral features of the man. It is
+particularly true in the case of Moore. He appears to us in Protean
+shapes, indeed, but not without an affinity between them. Small in
+stature, of jovial appearance; devoted to the gayest society; not very
+earnest in politics; a Roman Catholic in name, with but little practical
+religion, he pandered at first to a frivolous public taste, and was even
+more corrupt than the public morals.
+
+Not so apparently as Pope an artificial poet, he had few touches of
+nature. Of lyric sentiment he has but little; but we must differ from
+those who deny to him rare lyrical expression, and happy musical
+adaptations. His songs one can hardly _read_; we feel that they must be
+sung. He has been accused, too violently, by Maginn of plagiarism: this,
+of course, means of phrases and ideas. In our estimate of Moore, it counts
+but little; his rare rhythm and exquisite cadences are not plagiarized;
+they are his own, and his chief merit.
+
+He abounds in imagery of oriental gorgeousness; and if, in personality,
+he may be compared to his own Peri, or one of "the beautiful blue damsel
+flies" of that poem, he has given to his unfriendly critics a judgment of
+his own style, in a criticism made by Fadladeen of the young poet's story
+to Lalla Rookh;--"it resembles one of those Maldivian boats--a slight,
+gilded thing, sent adrift without rudder or ballast, and with nothing but
+vapid sweets and faded flowers on board." "The effect of the whole," says
+one of his biographers, speaking of Lalla Rookh, "is much the same as that
+of a magnificent ballet, on which all the resources of the theatre have
+been lavished, and no expense spared in golden clouds, ethereal light,
+gauze-clad sylphs, and splendid tableaux."
+
+Moore has been felicitously called "the poet of all circles," a phrase
+which shows that he reflected the general features of his age. At no time
+could the license of _Anacreon_, or the poems of Little, have been so well
+received as when "the first gentleman in Europe" set the example of
+systematic impurity. At no time could _Irish Melodies_ have had such a
+_furore_ of adoption and applause, as when _Repeal_ was the cry, and the
+Irish were firing their minds by remembering "the glories of Brian the
+Brave;" that Brian Boroimhe who died in the eleventh century, after
+defeating the Danes in twenty-five battles.
+
+Moore's _Biographies_, with all their faults, are important social
+histories. _Lalla Rookh_ has a double historical significance: it is a
+reflection--like _Anastasius_ and _Vathek_, like _Thalaba_ and _The Curse
+of Kehama_, like _The Giaour_ and _The Bride of Abydos_--of English
+conquest, travel, and adventure in the East. It is so true to nature in
+oriental descriptions and allusions, that one traveller declared that to
+read it was like riding on a camel; but it is far more important to
+observe that the relative conditions of England and the Irish Roman
+Catholics are symbolized in the Moslem rule over the Ghebers, as
+delineated in _The Fire Worshippers_. In his preface to that poem, Moore
+himself says: "The cause of tolerance was again my inspiring theme; and
+the spirit that had spoken in the melodies of Ireland soon found itself at
+home in the East."
+
+In an historic view of English Literature, the works of Moore, touching
+almost every subject, must always be of great value to the student of his
+period: there he will always have his prominent place. But he is already
+losing his niche in public favor as a poet proper; better taste, purer
+morals, truer heart-songs, and more practical views will steadily supplant
+him, until, with no power to influence the present, he shall stand only as
+a charming relic of the past.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY (CONTINUED).
+
+
+   Robert Burns. His Poems. His Career. George Crabbe. Thomas Campbell.
+   Samuel Rogers. P. B. Shelley. John Keats. Other Writers.
+
+
+
+ROBERT BURNS.
+
+
+If Moore was, in the opinion of his age, an Irish prodigy, Burns is, for
+all time, a Scottish marvel. The one was polished and musical, but
+artificial and insidiously immoral; the other homely and simple, but
+powerful and effective to men of all classes in society. The one was the
+poet of the aristocracy; the other the genius whose sympathies were with
+the poor. One was most at home in the palaces of the great; and the other,
+in the rude Ayrshire cottage, or in the little sitting-room of the
+landlord in company with Souter John and Tam O'Shanter. As to most of his
+poems, Burns was really of no distinct school, but seems to stand alone,
+the creature of circumstance rather than of the age, in an unnatural and
+false position, compared by himself to the daisy he uprooted with his
+ploughshare:
+
+    Even thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate,
+    That fate is thine--no distant date;
+    Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate,
+                       Full on thy bloom,
+    Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight
+                       Shall be thy doom!
+
+His life was uneventful. He was the son of a very poor man who was
+gardener to a gentleman at Ayr. He was born in Alloway on the 25th of
+January, 1759. His early education was scanty; but he read with avidity
+the few books on which he could lay his hands, among which he particularly
+mentions, in his short autobiography, _The Spectator_, the poems of Pope,
+and the writings of Sterne and Thomson. But the work which he was to do
+needed not even that training: he drew his simple subjects from
+surrounding nature, and his ideas came from his heart rather than his
+head. Like Moore, he found the old tunes or airs of the country, and set
+them to new words--words full of sentiment and sense.
+
+
+HIS POEMS.--Most of his poems are quite short, and of the kind called
+fugitive, except that they will not fly away. _The Cotter's Saturday
+Night_ is for men of all creeds, a pastoral full of divine philosophy. His
+_Address to the Deil_ is a tender thought even for the Prince of Darkness,
+whom, says Carlyle, his kind nature could not hate with right orthodoxy.
+His poems on _The Louse, The Field-Mouse's Nest_, and _The Mountain
+Daisy_, are homely meditations and moral lessons, and contain counsels for
+all hearts. In _The Twa Dogs_ he contrasts, in fable, the relative
+happiness of rich and poor. In the beautiful song
+
+    Ye banks and braes of bonnie Doun,
+
+he expresses that hearty sympathy with nature which is one of the most
+attractive features of his character. His _Bruce's Address_ stirs the
+blood, and makes one start up into an attitude of martial advance. But his
+most famous poem--drama, comedy, epic, and pastoral--is _Tam o' Shanter_:
+it is a universal favorite; and few travellers leave Scotland without
+standing at the window of "Alloway's auld haunted kirk," walking over the
+road upon which Meg galloped, pausing over "the keystane of the brigg"
+where she lost her tail; and then returning, full of the spirit of the
+poem, to sit in Tam's chair, and drink ale out of the same silver-bound
+wooden bicker, in the very room of the inn where Tam and the poet used to
+get "unco fou," while praising "inspiring bold John Barley-corn." Indeed,
+in the words of the poor Scotch carpenter, met by Washington Irving at
+Kirk Alloway, "it seems as if the country had grown more beautiful since
+Burns had written his bonnie little songs about it."
+
+
+HIS CAREER.--The poet's career was sad. Gifted but poor, and doomed to
+hard work, he was given a place in the excise. He went to Edinburgh, and
+for a while was a great social lion; but he acquired a horrid thirst for
+drink, which shortened his life. He died in Dumfries, at the early age of
+thirty-seven. His allusions to his excesses are frequent, and many of them
+touching. In his praise of _Scotch Drink_ he sings _con amore_. In a
+letter to Mr. Ainslie, he epitomizes his failing: "Can you, amid the
+horrors of penitence, regret, headache, nausea, and all the rest of the
+hounds of hell that beset a poor wretch who has been guilty of the sin of
+drunkenness,--can you speak peace to a troubled soul."
+
+Burns was a great letter-writer, and thought he excelled in that art; but,
+valuable as his letters are, in presenting certain phases of his literary
+and personal character, they display none of the power of his poetry, and
+would not alone have raised him to eminence. They are in vigorous and
+somewhat pedantic English; while most of his poems are in that Lowland
+Scottish language or dialect which attracts by its homeliness and pleases
+by its _couleur locale_. It should be stated, in conclusion, that Burns is
+original in thought and presentation; and to this gift must be added a
+large share of humor, and an intense patriotism. Poverty was his grim
+horror. He declared that it killed his father, and was pursuing him to the
+grave. He rose above the drudgery of a farmer's toil, and he found no
+other work which would sustain him; and yet this needy poet stands to-day
+among the most distinguished Scotchmen who have contributed to English
+Literature.
+
+
+GEORGE CRABBE.--Also of the transition school; in form and diction
+adhering to the classicism of Pope, but, with Thomson, restoring the
+pastoral to nature, the poet of the humble poor;--in the words of Byron,
+"Pope in worsted stockings," Crabbe was the delight of his time; and Sir
+Walter Scott, returning to die at Abbotsford, paid him the following
+tribute: he asked that they would read him something amusing, "Read me a
+bit of Crabbe." As it was read, he exclaimed, "Capital--excellent--very
+good; Crabbe has lost nothing."
+
+George Crabbe was born on December 24th, 1754, at Aldborough, Suffolk. His
+father was a poor man; and Crabbe, with little early education, was
+apprenticed to a surgeon, and afterwards practised; but his aspirations
+were such that he went to London, with three pounds in his pocket, for a
+literary venture. He would have been in great straits, had it not been for
+the disinterested generosity of Burke, to whom, although an utter
+stranger, he applied for assistance. Burke aided him by introducing him to
+distinguished literary men; and his fortune was made. In 1781 he published
+_The Library_, which was well received. Crabbe then took orders, and was
+for a little time curate at Aldborough, his native place, while other
+preferment awaited him. In 1783 he appeared under still more favorable
+auspices, by publishing _The Village_, which had a decided success. Two
+livings were then given him; and he, much to his credit, married his early
+love, a young girl of Suffolk. In _The Village_ he describes homely scenes
+with great power, in pentameter verse. The poor are the heroes of his
+humble epic; and he knew them well, as having been of them. In 1807
+appeared _The Parish Register_, in 1810 _The Borough_, and in 1812 his
+_Tales in Verse_,--the precursor, in the former style, however, of
+Wordsworth's lyrical stories. All these were excellent and very popular,
+because they were real, and from his own experience. _The Tales of the
+Hall_, referring chiefly to the higher classes of society, are more
+artificial, and not so good. His pen was most at home in describing
+smugglers, gipsies, and humble villagers, and in delineating poverty and
+wretchedness; and thus opening to the rich and titled, doors through which
+they might exercise their philanthropy and munificence. In this way Crabbe
+was a reformer, and did great good; although his scenes are sometimes
+revolting, and his pathos too exacting. As a painter of nature, he is true
+and felicitous; especially in marine and coast views, where he is a
+pre-Raphaelite in his minuteness. Byron called him "Nature's sternest
+painter, but the best." He does not seem to write for effect, and he is
+without pretension; so that the critics were quite at fault; for what they
+mainly attack is not the poet's work so much as the consideration whether
+his works come up to his manifesto. Crabbe died in 1832, on the 3d of
+February, being one of the famous dead of that fatal year.
+
+Crabbe's poems mark his age. At an earlier time, when literature was for
+the fashionable few, his subjects would have been beneath interest; but
+the times had changed; education had been more diffused, and readers were
+multiplied. Goldsmith's _Deserted Village_ had struck a new chord, upon
+which Crabbe continued to play. Of his treatment of these subjects it must
+be said, that while he holds a powerful pen, and portrays truth vividly,
+he had an eye only for the sadder conditions of life, and gives pain
+rather than excites sympathy in the reader. Our meaning will be best
+illustrated by a comparison of _The Village_ of Crabbe with _The Deserted
+Village_ of Goldsmith, and the pleasure with which we pass from the
+squalid scenes of the former to the gentler sorrows and sympathies of the
+latter.
+
+
+THOMAS CAMPBELL.--More identified with his age than any other poet, and
+yet forming a link between the old and the new, was Campbell. Classical
+and correct in versification, and smothering nature with sonorous prosody,
+he still had the poetic fire, and an excellent power of poetic criticism.
+He was the son of a merchant, and was born at Glasgow on the 27th of July,
+1777. He thus grew up with the French revolution, and with the great
+progress of the English nation in the wars incident to it. He was
+carefully educated, and was six years at the University of Glasgow, where
+he received prizes for composition. He went later to Germany, after being
+graduated, to study Greek literature with Heyne. After some preliminary
+essays in verse, he published the _Pleasures of Hope_ in 1799, before he
+was twenty-two years old. It was one of the greatest successes of the age,
+and has always since been popular. His subject was one of universal
+interest; his verse was high-sounding; and his illustrations modern--such
+as the fall of Poland--_Finis Poloniæ_; and although there is some
+turgidity, and some want of unity, making the work a series of poems
+rather than a connected one, it was most remarkable for a youth of his
+age. It was perhaps unfortunate for his future fame; for it led the world
+to expect other and better things, which were not forthcoming. Travelling
+on the continent in the next year, 1800, he witnessed the battle of
+Hohenlinden from the monastery of St. Jacob, and wrote that splendid,
+ringing battle-piece, which has been so often recited and parodied. From
+that time he wrote nothing in poetry worthy of note, except songs and
+battle odes, with one exception. Among his battle-pieces which have never
+been equalled are _Ye Mariners of England_, _The Battle of the Baltic_,
+and _Lochiel's Warning_. His _Exile of Erin_ has been greatly admired, and
+was suspected at the time of being treasonable; the author, however, being
+entirely innocent of such an intention, as he clearly showed.
+
+Besides reviews and other miscellanies, Campbell wrote _The Annals of
+Great Britain, from the Accession of George III. to the Peace of Amiens_,
+which is a graceful but not valuable work. In 1805 he received a pension
+of £200 per annum.
+
+In 1809 he published his _Gertrude of Wyoming_--the exception referred
+to--a touching story, written with exquisite grace, but not true to the
+nature of the country or the Indian character. Like _Rasselas_, it is a
+conventional English tale with foreign names and localities; but as an
+English poem it has great merit; and it turned public attention to the
+beautiful Valley of Wyoming, and the noble river which flows through it.
+
+As a critic, Campbell had great acquirements and gifts. These were
+displayed in his elaborate _Specimens of the British Poets_, published in
+1819, and in his _Lectures on Poetry_ before the Surrey Institution in
+1820. In 1827 he was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow; but
+afterwards his literary efforts were by no means worthy of his reputation.
+Few have read his _Pilgrim of Glencoe_; and all who have, are pained by
+its manifestation of his failing powers. In fact, his was an unfinished
+fame--a brilliant beginning, but no continuance. Sir Walter Scott has
+touched it with a needle, when he says, "Campbell is in a manner a bugbear
+to himself; the brightness of his early success is a detriment to all his
+after efforts. He is afraid of the shadow which his own fame casts before
+him." Byron placed him in the second category of the greatest living
+English poets; but Byron was no critic.
+
+He also published a _Life of Petrarch_, and a _Life of Frederick the
+Great_; and, in 1830, he edited the _New Monthly Magazine_. He died at
+Boulogne, June 15th, 1844, after a long period of decay in mental power.
+
+
+SAMUEL ROGERS.--Rogers was a companion or consort to Campbell, although
+the two men were very different personally. As Campbell had borrowed from
+Akenside and written _The Pleasures of Hope_, Rogers enriched our
+literature with _The Pleasures of Memory_, a poem of exquisite
+versification, more finished and unified than its pendent picture;
+containing neither passion nor declamation, but polish, taste, and
+tenderness.
+
+Rogers was born in a suburb of London, in 1762. His father was a banker;
+and, although well educated, the poet was designed to succeed him, as he
+did, being until his death a partner in the same banking-house. Early
+enamored of poetry by reading Beattie's _Minstrel_, Rogers devoted all his
+spare time to its cultivation, and with great and merited success.
+
+In 1786 he produced his _Ode to Superstition_, after the manner of Gray,
+and in 1792 his _Pleasures of Memory_, which was enthusiastically
+received, and which is polished to the extreme. In 1812 appeared a
+fragment, _The Voyage of Columbus_, and in 1814 _Jacqueline_, in the same
+volume with Byron's _Lara_. _Human Life_ was published in 1819. It is a
+poem in the old style, (most of his poems are in the rhymed pentameter
+couplet;) but in 1822 appeared his poem of _Italy_, in blank verse, which
+has the charm of originality in presentation, freshness of personal
+experience, picturesqueness in description, novelty in incident and story,
+scholarship, and taste in art criticism. In short, it is not only the best
+of his poems, but it has great merit besides that of the poetry. The story
+of Ginevra is a masterpiece of cabinet art, and is universally
+appreciated. With these works Rogers contented himself. Rich and
+distinguished, his house became a place of resort to men of distinction
+and taste in art: it was filled with articles of _vertu_; and Rogers the
+poet lived long as Rogers the _virtuoso_. His breakfast parties were
+particularly noted. His long, prosperous, and happy life was ended on the
+18th December, 1855, at the age of ninety-two.
+
+The position of Rogers may be best illustrated in the words of Sir J.
+Mackintosh, in which he says: "He appeared at the commencement of this
+literary revolution, without paying court to the revolutionary tastes, or
+seeking distinction by resistance to them." His works are not destined to
+live freshly in the course of literature, but to the historical student
+they mark in a very pleasing manner the characteristics of his age.
+
+
+PERCY B. SHELLEY.--Revolutions never go backward; and one of the greatest
+characters in this forward movement was a gifted, irregular, splendid,
+unbalanced mind, who, while taking part in it, unconsciously, as one of
+many, stands out also in a very singular individuality.
+
+Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on the 4th of August, 1792, at Fieldplace,
+in Sussex, England. He was the eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley, and of
+an ancient family, traced back, it is said, to Sir Philip Sidney. When
+thirteen years old he was sent to Eton, where he began to display his
+revolutionary tendencies by his resistance to the fagging system; and
+where he also gave some earnest in writing of his future powers. At the
+age of sixteen he entered University College, Oxford, and appeared as a
+radical in most social, political, and religious questions. On account of
+a paper entitled _The Necessity of Atheism_, he was expelled from the
+university and went to London. In 1811 he made a runaway match with Miss
+Harriet Westbrook, the daughter of the keeper of a coffee-house, which
+brought down on him the wrath of his father. After the birth of two
+children, a separation followed; and he eloped with Miss Godwin in 1814.
+His wife committed suicide in 1816; and then the law took away from him
+the control of his children, on the ground that he was an atheist.
+
+After some time of residence in England, he returned to Italy, where soon
+after he met with a tragical end. Going in an open boat from Leghorn to
+Spezzia, he was lost in a storm on the Mediterranean: his body was washed
+on shore near the town of Via Reggio, where his remains were burned in
+the presence of Lord Byron, Leigh Hunt, and others. The ashes were
+afterwards buried in the Protestant cemetery at Rome in July, 1822.
+
+Shelley's principles were irrational and dangerous. He was a
+transcendentalist of the extreme order, and a believer in the
+perfectability of human nature. His works are full of his principles. The
+earliest was _Queen Mab_, in which his profanity and atheism are clearly
+set forth. It was first privately printed, and afterwards published in
+1821. This was followed by _Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude_, in 1816.
+In this he gives his own experience in the tragical career of the hero.
+His longest and most pretentious poem was _The Revolt of Islam_, published
+in 1819. It is in the Spenserian stanza. Also, in the same year, he
+published _The Cenci_, a tragedy, a dark and gloomy story on what should
+be a forbidden subject, but very powerfully written. In 1820 he also
+published _The Prometheus Unbound_, which is full of his irreligious
+views. His remaining works were smaller poems, among which may be noted
+_Adonais_, and the odes _To the Skylark_ and _The Cloud_.
+
+In considering his character, we must first observe the power of his
+imagination; it was so strong and all-absorbing, that it shut out the real
+and the true. He was a man of extreme sensibility; and that sensibility,
+hurt by common contact with things and persons around him, made him morbid
+in morality and metaphysics. He was a polemic of the fiercest type; and
+while he had an honest desire for reform of the evils that he saw about
+him, it is manifest that he attacked existing institutions for the very
+love of controversy. Bold, retired, and proud, without a spice of vanity,
+if he has received harsh judgment from one half the critical world, who
+had at least the claim that they were supporting pure morals and true
+religion, his character has been unduly exalted by the other half, who
+have mistaken reckless dogmatism for true nobility of soul. The most
+charitable judgment is that of Moir, who says: "It is needless to disguise
+the fact--and it accounts for all--his mind was diseased; he never knew,
+even from boyhood, what it was to breathe the atmosphere of healthy
+life--to have the _mens sana in corpore sano_."
+
+But of his poetical powers we must speak in a different manner. What he
+has left, gives token that, had he lived, he would have been one of the
+greatest modern poets. Thoroughly imbued with the Greek poetry, his
+verse-power was wonderful, his language stately and learned without
+pedantry, his inspiration was that of nature in her grandest moods, his
+fancy always exalted; and he presents the air of one who produces what is
+within him from an intense love of his art, without regard to the opinion
+of the world around him,--which, indeed, he seems to have despised more
+thoroughly than any other poet has ever done. Byron affected to despise
+it; Shelley really did.
+
+We cannot help thinking that, had he lived after passing through the fiery
+trial of youthful passions and disordered imagination, he might have
+astonished the world with the grand spectacle of a convert to the good and
+true, and an apostle in the cause of both. Of him an honest thinker has
+said,--and there is much truth in the apparent paradox,--"No man who was
+not a fanatic, had ever more natural piety than he; and his supposed
+atheism is a mere metaphysical crotchet in which he was kept by the
+affected scorn and malignity of dunces."[37]
+
+
+JOHN KEATS.--Another singular illustration of eccentricity and abnormal
+power in verse is found in the brief career of John Keats, the son of the
+keeper of a livery-stable in London, who was born on the 29th October,
+1795.
+
+Keats was a sensitive and pugnacious youth; and in 1810, after a very
+moderate education, he was apprenticed to a surgeon; but the love of
+poetry soon interfered with the surgery, and he began to read, not without
+the spirit of emulation, the works of the great poets--Chaucer, Spenser,
+Shakspeare, and Milton. After the issue of a small volume which attracted
+little or no attention, he published his _Endymion_ in 1818, which, with
+some similarity in temperament, he inscribed to the memory of Thomas
+Chatterton. It is founded upon the Greek mythology, and is written in a
+varied measure. Its opening line has been a familiar quotation since:
+
+    A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
+
+It was assailed by all the critics; but particularly, although not
+unfairly, by Jeffrey, in the _Edinburgh Review_. An article in
+_Blackwood_, breathing the spirit of British caste, had the bad taste to
+tell the young apothecary to go back to his galley-pots. The excessive
+sensibility of Keats received a great shock from this treatment; but we
+cannot help thinking that too much stress has been laid upon this in
+saying that he was killed by it. This was more romantic than true. He was
+by inheritance consumptive, and had lost a brother by that disease. Add to
+this that his peculiar passions and longings took the form of fierce
+hypochondria.
+
+With a decided originality, he was so impressible that there are in his
+writings traces of the authors whom he was reading, if he did not mean to
+make them models of style.
+
+In 1820 he published a volume containing _Lamia_, _Isabella_, and _The Eve
+of St. Agnes_, and _Hyperion_, a fragment, which was received with far
+greater favor by the reviewers. Keats was self-reliant, and seems to have
+had something of that magnificent egotism which is not infrequently
+displayed by great minds.
+
+The judicious verdict at last pronounced upon him may be thus epitomized:
+he was a poet with fine fancy, original ideas, felicity of expression, but
+full of faults due to his individuality and his youth; and his life was
+not spared to correct these. In 1820 a hemorrhage of brilliant arterial
+blood heralded the end. He himself said, "Bring me a candle; let me see
+this blood;" and when it was brought, added, "I cannot be deceived in that
+color; that drop is my death-warrant: I must die." By advice he went to
+Italy, where he grew rapidly worse, and died on the 23d of February, 1821,
+having left this for his epitaph: "Here lies one whose name was writ in
+water." Thus dying at the age of twenty-four, he must be judged less for
+what he was, than as an earnest of what he would have been. _The Eve of
+St. Agnes_ is one of the most exquisite poems in any language, and is as
+essentially allied to the simplicity and nature of the modern school of
+poetry as his _Endymion_ is to the older school. Keats took part in what a
+certain writer has called "the reaction against the barrel-organ style,
+which had been reigning by a kind of sleepy, divine right for half a
+century."
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE PERIOD.
+
+
+In consonance with the Romantic school of Poetry, and as contributors to
+the prose fiction of the period of Scott, Byron, and Moore, a number of
+gifted women have made good their claim to the favor of the reading world,
+and have left to us productions of no mean value. First among these we
+mention Mrs. FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS, 1794-1835: early married to Captain
+Hemans, of the army, she was not happy in the conjugal state, and lived
+most of her after-life in retirement, separated from her husband. Her
+style is harmonious, and her lyrical power excellent; she makes melody of
+common-places; and the low key in which her poetry is pitched made her a
+favorite with the multitude. There is special fervor in her religious
+poems. Most of her writings are fugitive and occasional pieces. Among the
+longer poems are _The Forest Sanctuary_, _Dartmoor_, (a lyric poem,) and
+_The Restoration of the works of Art to Italy_. _The Siege of Valencia_
+and _The Vespers of Palermo_ are plays on historical subjects. There is a
+sameness in her poetry which tires; but few persons can be found who do
+not value highly such a descriptive poem as _Bernardo del Carpio_,
+conceived in the very spirit of the Spanish Ballads, and such a sad and
+tender moralizing as that found in _The Hour of Death_:
+
+    Leaves have their time to fall,
+      And flowers to wither, at the north-wind's breath,
+    And stars to set--but all,
+      Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!
+
+Such poems as these will live when the greater part of what she has
+written has been forgotten, because its ministry has been accomplished.
+
+_Mrs. Caroline Elizabeth Norton_, (born in 1808, still living:) she is the
+daughter of Thomas Sheridan, and the grand-daughter of the famous R. B.
+Sheridan. She married the Hon. Mr. Norton, and, like Mrs. Hemans, was
+unhappy in her union. As a poet, she has masculine gifts combined with
+feminine grace and tenderness. Her principal poems are _The Sorrows of
+Rosalie_, _The Undying One_, (founded on the legend of _The Wandering
+Jew_,) and _The Dream_. Besides these her facile pen has produced a
+multitude of shorter pieces, which have been at once popular. Her claims
+to enduring fame are not great, and she must be content with a present
+popularity.
+
+_Letitia Elizabeth Landon_, 1802-1839: more gifted, and yet not as well
+trained as either of the preceding, Miss Landon (L. E. L.) has given vent
+to impassioned sentiment in poetry and prose. Besides many smaller pieces,
+she wrote _The Improvisatrice_, _The Troubadour_, _The Golden Violet_, and
+several prose romances, among which the best are _Romance and Reality_,
+and _Ethel Churchill_. She wrote too rapidly to finish with elegance; and
+her earlier pieces are disfigured by this want of finish, and by a lack of
+cool judgment; but her later writings are better matured and more correct.
+She married Captain Maclean, the governor of Cape Coast Castle, in Africa,
+and died there suddenly, from an overdose of strong medicine which she was
+accustomed to take for a nervous affection.
+
+_Maria Edgeworth_, 1767-1849: she was English born, but resided most of
+her life in Ireland. Without remarkable genius, she may be said to have
+exercised a greater influence over her period than any other woman who
+lived in it. There is an aptitude and a practical utility in her stories
+which are felt in all circles. Her works for children are delightful and
+formative. Every one has read and re-read with pleasure the interesting
+and instructive stories contained in _The Parents' Assistant_. And what
+these are to the children, her novels are to those of larger growth. They
+are eighteen in number, and are illustrative of the society, fashion, and
+morals of the day; and always inculcate a good moral. Among them we may
+particularize _Forester_, _The Absentee_, and _The Modern Griselda_. All
+critics, even those who deny her great genius, agree in their estimate of
+the moral value of her stories, every one of which is at once a
+portraiture of her age and an instructive lesson to it. The feminine
+delicacy with which she offers counsel and administers reproof gives a
+great charm to, and will insure the permanent popularity of, her
+productions.
+
+_Jane Austen_, 1775-1817: as a novelist she occupied a high place in her
+day, but her stories are gradually sinking into an historic repose, from
+which the coming generations will not care to disturb them. _Pride and
+Prejudice_ and _Sense and Sensibility_ are perhaps the best of her
+productions, and are valuable as displaying the society and the nature
+around her with delicacy and tact.
+
+_Mary Ferrier_, 1782-1855: like Miss Austen, she wrote novels of existing
+society, of which _The Marriage_ and _The Inheritance_ are the best known.
+They were great favorites with Sir Walter Scott, who esteemed Miss
+Ferrier's genius highly: they are little read at the present time.
+
+_Robert Pollok_, 1799-1827: a Scottish minister, who is chiefly known by
+his long poem, cast in a Miltonic mould, entitled _The Course of Time_. It
+is singularly significant of religious fervor, delicate health, youthful
+immaturity, and poetic yearnings. It abounds in startling effects, which
+please at first from their novelty, but will not bear a calm, critical
+analysis. On its first appearance, _The Course of Time_ was immensely
+popular; but it has steadily lost favor, and its highest flights are
+"unearthly flutterings" when compared with the powerful soarings of
+Milton's imagination and the gentle harmonies of Cowper's religious muse.
+Pollok died early of consumption: his youth and his disease account for
+the faults and defects of his poem.
+
+_Leigh Hunt_, 1784-1859: a novelist, a poet, an editor, a critic, a
+companion of literary men, Hunt occupies a distinct position among the
+authors of his day. Wielding a sensible and graceful rather than a
+powerful pen, he has touched almost every subject in the range of our
+literature, and has been the champion and biographer of numerous literary
+friends. He was the companion of Byron, Shelley, Keats, Lamb, Coleridge,
+and many other authors. He edited at various times several radical
+papers--_The Examiner_, _The Reflector_, _The Indicator_, and _The
+Liberal_; for a satire upon the regent, published in the first, he was
+imprisoned for two years. Among his poems _The Story of Rimini_ is the
+best. His _Legend of Florence_ is a beautiful drama. There are few pieces
+containing so small a number of lines, and yet enshrining a full story,
+which have been as popular as his _Abou Ben Adhem_. Always cheerful,
+refined and delicate in style, appreciative of others, Hunt's place in
+English literature is enviable, if not very exalted; like the atmosphere,
+his writings circulate healthfully and quietly around efforts of greater
+poets than himself.
+
+_James Hogg_, 1770-1835: a self-taught rustic, with little early
+schooling, except what the shepherd-boy could draw from nature, he wrote
+from his own head and heart without the canons and the graces of the
+Schools. With something of the homely nature of Burns, and the Scottish
+romance of Walter Scott, he produced numerous poems which are stamped with
+true genius. He catered to Scottish feeling, and began his fame by the
+stirring lines beginning;
+
+    My name is Donald McDonald,
+    I live in the Highlands so grand.
+
+His best known poetical works are _The Queen's Wake_, containing seventeen
+stories in verse, of which the most striking is that of _Bonny Kilmeny_.
+He was always called "The Ettrick Shepherd." Wilson says of _The Queen's
+Wake_ that "it is a garland of fresh flowers bound with a band of rushes
+from the moor;" a very fitting and just view of the work of one who was at
+once poet and rustic.
+
+_Allan Cunningham_, 1785-1842; like Hogg, in that as a writer he felt the
+influence of both Burns and Scott, Cunningham was the son of a gardener,
+and a self-made man. In early life he was apprenticed to a mason. He wrote
+much fugitive poetry, among which the most popular pieces are, _A Wet
+Sheet and a Flowing Sea_, _Gentle Hugh Herries_, and _It's Hame and it's
+Hame_. Among his stories are _Traditional Tales of the Peasantry_, _Lord
+Roldan_, and _The Maid of Elwar_. His position for a time, as clerk and
+overseer of Chantrey's establishment, gave him the idea of writing _The
+Lives of Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects_. He was a
+voluminous author; his poetry is of a high lyrical order, and true to
+nature; but his prose will not retain its place in public favor: it is at
+once diffuse and obscure.
+
+_Thomas Hope_, 1770-1831: an Amsterdam merchant, who afterwards resided in
+London, and who illustrated the progress of knowledge concerning the East
+by his work entitled, _Anastasius, or Memoirs of a Modern Greek_.
+Published anonymously, it excited a great interest, and was ascribed by
+the public to Lord Byron. The intrigues and adventures of the hero are
+numerous and varied, and the book has great literary merit; but it is
+chiefly of historical value in that it describes persons and scenes in
+Greece and Turkey, countries in which Hope travelled at a time when few
+Englishmen visited them.
+
+_William Beckford_, 1760-1844: he was the son of an alderman, who became
+Lord Mayor of London. After a careful education, he found himself the
+possessor of a colossal fortune. He travelled extensively, and wrote
+sketches of his travels. His only work of importance is that called
+_Vathek_, in which he describes the gifts, the career, and the fate of the
+Caliph of that name, who was the grandson of the celebrated Haroun al
+Raschid. His palaces are described in a style of Oriental gorgeousness;
+his temptations, his lapses from virtue, his downward progress, are
+presented with dramatic power; and there is nothing in our literature more
+horribly real and terror-striking than the _Hall of Eblis_,--that hell
+where every heart was on fire, where "the Caliph Vathek, who, for the sake
+of empty pomp and forbidden power, had sullied himself with a thousand
+crimes, became a prey to grief without end and remorse without
+mitigation." Many of Beckford's other writings are blamed for their
+voluptuous character; the last scene in _Vathek_ is, on the other hand, a
+most powerful and influential sermon. Beckford was eccentric and unsocial:
+he lived for some time in Portugal, but returned to England, and built a
+luxurious palace at Bath.
+
+_William Roscoe_, 1753-1831: a merchant and banker of Liverpool. He is
+chiefly known by his _Life of Lorenzo de Medici_, and _The Life and
+Pontificate of Leo X._, both of which contained new and valuable
+information. They are written in a pleasing style, and with a liberal and
+charitable spirit as to religious opinions. Since they appeared, history
+has developed new material and established more exacting canons, and the
+studies of later writers have already superseded these pleasing works.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+WORDSWORTH, AND THE LAKE SCHOOL.
+
+
+   The New School. William Wordsworth. Poetical Canons. The Excursion and
+   Sonnets. An Estimate. Robert Southey. His Writings. Historical Value.
+   S. T. Coleridge. Early Life. His Helplessness. Hartley and H. N.
+   Coleridge.
+
+
+
+THE NEW SCHOOL.
+
+
+In the beginning of the year 1820 George III. died, after a very long--but
+in part nominal--reign of fifty-nine years, during a large portion of
+which he was the victim of insanity, while his son, afterwards George IV.,
+administered the regency of the kingdom.
+
+George III. did little, either by example or by generosity, to foster
+literary culture: his son, while nominally encouraging authors, did much
+to injure the tone of letters in his day. But literature was now becoming
+independent and self-sustaining: it needed to look no longer wistfully for
+a monarch's smile: it cared comparatively little for the court: it issued
+its periods and numbers directly to the English people: it wrote for them
+and of them; and when, in 1830, the last of the Georges died, after an
+ill-spent life, in which his personal pleasures had concerned him far more
+than the welfare of his people, former prescriptions and prejudices
+rapidly passed away; and the new epoch in general improvement and literary
+culture, which had already begun its course, received a marvellous
+impulsion.
+
+The great movement, in part unconscious, from the artificial rhetoric of
+the former age towards the simplicity of nature, was now to receive its
+strongest propulsion: it was to be preached like a crusade; to be reduced
+to a system, and set forth for the acceptance of the poetical world: it
+was to meet with criticism, and even opprobrium, because it had the
+arrogance to declare that old things had entirely passed away, and that
+all things must conform themselves to the new doctrine. The high-priest of
+this new poetical creed was Wordsworth: he proposed and expounded it; he
+wrote according to its tenets; he defended his illustrations against the
+critics by elaborate prefaces and essays. He boldly faced the clamor of a
+world in arms; and what there was real and valuable in his works has
+survived the fierce battle, and gathered around him an army of proselytes,
+champions, and imitators.
+
+
+WORDSWORTH.--William Wordsworth was the son of the law-agent to the Earl
+of Lonsdale; he was born at Cockermouth, Cumberland, in 1770. It was a
+gifted family. His brother, Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, was Master of
+Trinity College. Another, the captain of an East Indiaman, was lost at sea
+in his own ship. He had also a clever sister, who was the poet's friend
+and companion as long as she lived.
+
+Wordsworth and his companions have been called the Lake Poets, because
+they resided among the English lakes. Perhaps too much has been claimed
+for the Lake country, as giving inspiration to the poets who lived there:
+it is beautiful, but not so surpassingly so as to create poets as its
+children. The name is at once arbitrary and convenient.
+
+Wordsworth was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, which he entered
+in 1787; but whenever he could escape from academic restraints, he
+indulged his taste for pedestrian excursions: during these his ardent mind
+became intimate and intensely sympathetic with nature, as may be seen in
+his _Evening Walk_, in the sketch of the skater, and in the large
+proportion of description in all his poems.
+
+It is truer of him than perhaps of any other author, that the life of the
+man is the best history of the poet. All that is eventful and interesting
+in his life may be found translated in his poetry. Milton had said that
+the poet's life should be a grand poem. Wordsworth echoed the thought:
+
+    If thou indeed derive thy light from Heaven,
+    Then to the measure of that Heaven-born light,
+    Shine, Poet! in thy place, and be content.
+
+He was not distinguished at college; the record of his days there may be
+found in _The Prelude_, which he calls _The Growth of a Poet's Mind_. He
+was graduated in 1791, with the degree of B.A., and went over to France,
+where he, among others, was carried away with enthusiasm for the French
+Revolution, and became a thorough Radical. That he afterwards changed his
+political views, should not be advanced in his disfavor; for many ardent
+and virtuous minds were hoping to see the fulfilment of recent predictions
+in greater freedom to man. Wordsworth erred in a great company, and from
+noble sympathies. He returned to England in 1792, with his illusions
+thoroughly dissipated. The workings of his mind are presented in _The
+Prelude_.
+
+In the same year he published _Descriptive Sketches_, and _An Evening
+Walk_, which attracted little attention. A legacy of £900 left him by his
+friend Calvert, in 1795, enabled the frugal poet to devote his life to
+poetry, and particularly to what he deemed the emancipation of poetry from
+the fetters of the mythic and from the smothering ornaments of rhetoric.
+
+In Nov., 1797, he went to London, taking with him a play called _The
+Borderers_: it was rejected by the manager. In the autumn of 1798, he
+published his _Lyrical Ballads_, which contained, besides his own verses,
+a poem by an anonymous friend. The poem was _The Ancient Mariner_; the
+friend, Coleridge. In the joint operation, Wordsworth took the part based
+on nature; Coleridge illustrated the supernatural. The _Ballads_ were
+received with undisguised contempt; nor, by reason of its company, did
+_The Ancient Mariner_ have a much better hearing. Wordsworth preserved his
+equanimity, and an implicit faith in himself.
+
+After a visit to Germany, he settled in 1799 at Grasmere, in the Lake
+country, and the next year republished the _Lyrical Ballads_ with a new
+volume, both of which passed to another edition in 1802. With this
+edition, Wordsworth ran up his revolutionary flag and nailed it to the
+mast.
+
+
+POETICAL CANONS.--It would be impossible as well as unnecessary to attempt
+an analysis of even the principal poems of so voluminous a writer; but it
+is important to state in substance the poetical canons he laid down. They
+may be found in the prefaces to the various editions of his _Ballads_, and
+may be thus epitomized:
+
+I. He purposely chose his incidents and situations from common life,
+because in it our elementary feelings coexist in a state of simplicity.
+
+II. He adopts the _language_ of common life, because men hourly
+communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is
+originally derived; and because, being less under the influence of social
+vanity, they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated
+expressions.
+
+III. He asserts that the language of poetry is in no way different, except
+in respect to metre, from that of good prose. Poetry can boast of no
+celestial _ichor_ that distinguishes her vital juices from those of prose:
+the same human blood circulates through the veins of them both. In works
+of imagination and sentiment, in proportion as ideas and feelings are
+valuable, whether the composition be in prose or verse, they require and
+exact one and the same language.
+
+Such are the principal changes proposed by Wordsworth; and we find Herder,
+the German poet and metaphysician, agreeing with him in his estimate of
+poetic language. Having thus propounded his tenets, he wrote his earlier
+poems as illustrations of his views, affecting a simplicity in subject and
+diction that was sometimes simply ludicrous. It was an affected
+simplicity: he was simple with a purpose; he wrote his poems to suit his
+canons, and in that way his simplicity became artifice.
+
+Jeffrey and other critics rose furiously against the poems which
+inculcated such doctrines. "This will never do" were the opening words of
+an article in the _Edinburgh Review_. One of the _Rejected Addresses_,
+called _The Baby's Début, by W. W._, (spoken in the character of Nancy
+Lake, eight years old, who is drawn upon the stage in a go-cart,) parodies
+the ballads thus:
+
+    What a large floor! 'tis like a town;
+    The carpet, when they lay it down,
+      Won't hide it, I'll be bound:
+    And there's a row of lamps, my eye!
+    How they do blaze: I wonder why
+      They keep them on the ground?
+
+And this, Jeffrey declares, is a flattering imitation of Wordsworth's
+style.
+
+The day for depreciating Wordsworth has gone by; but calmer critics must
+still object to his poetical views in their entireness. In binding all
+poetry to his _dicta_, he ignores that _mythus_ in every human mind, that
+longing after the heroic, which will not be satisfied with the simple and
+commonplace. One realm in which Poetry rules with an enchanted sceptre is
+the land of reverie and day-dream,--a land of fancy, in which genius
+builds for itself castles at once radiant and, for the time, real; in
+which the beggar is a king, the poor man a Crœsus, the timid man a hero:
+this is the fairy-land of the imagination. Among Wordsworth's poems are a
+number called _Poems of the Imagination_. He wrote learnedly about the
+imagination and fancy; but the truth is, that of all the great
+poets,--and, in spite of his faults, he is a great poet,--there is none so
+entirely devoid of imagination. What has been said of the heroic may be
+applied to wit, so important an element in many kinds of poetry; he
+ignores it because he was without it totally. If only humble life and
+commonplace incidents and unfigured rhetoric and bald language are the
+proper materials for the poetry, what shall be said of all literature,
+ancient and modern, until Wordsworth's day?
+
+
+THE EXCURSION AND SONNETS.--With his growing fame and riper powers, he had
+deviated from his own principles, especially of language; and his peaceful
+epic, _The Excursion_, is full of difficult theology, exalted philosophy,
+and glowing rhetoric. His only attempt to adhere to his system presents
+the incongruity of putting these subjects into the lips of men, some of
+whom, the Scotch pedler for example, are not supposed to be equal to their
+discussion. In his language, too, he became far more polished and
+melodious. The young writer of the _Lyrical Ballads_ would have been
+shocked to know that the more famous Wordsworth could write
+
+    A golden lustre slept upon the hills;
+
+or speak of
+
+    A pupil in the many-chambered school,
+    Where superstition weaves her airy dreams.
+
+_The Excursion_, although long, is unfinished, and is only a portion of
+what was meant to be his great poem--_The Recluse_. It contains poetry of
+the highest order, apart from its mannerism and its improbable narrative;
+but the author is to all intents a different man from that of the
+_Ballads_: as different as the conservative Wordsworth of later years was
+from the radical youth who praised the French Revolution of 1791. As a
+whole, _The Excursion_ is accurate, philosophic, and very dull, so that
+few readers have the patience to complete its perusal, while many enjoy
+its beautiful passages.
+
+To return to the events of his life. In 1802 he married; and, after
+several changes of residence, he finally purchased a place called
+Rydal-mount in 1813, where he spent the remainder of his long, learned,
+and pure life. Long-standing dues from the Earl of Lonsdale to his father
+were paid; and he received the appointment of collector at Whitehaven and
+stamp distributor for Cumberland. Thus he had an ample income, which was
+increased in 1842 by a pension of £300 per annum. In 1843 he was made
+poet-laureate. He died in 1850, a famous poet, his reputation being due
+much more to his own clever individuality than to the poetic principles he
+asserted.
+
+His ecclesiastical sonnets compare favorably with any that have been
+written in English. Landor, no friend of the poet, says: "Wordsworth has
+written more fine sonnets than are to be met with in the language
+besides."
+
+
+AN ESTIMATE.--The great amount of verse Wordsworth has written is due to
+his estimate of the proper uses of poetry. Where other men would have
+written letters, journals, or prose sketches, his ready metrical pen wrote
+in verse: an excursion to England or Scotland, _Yarrow Visited and
+Revisited_, journeys in Germany and Italy, are all in verse. He exhibits
+in them all great humanity and benevolence, and is emphatically and
+without cant the poet of religion and morality. Coleridge--a poet and an
+attached friend, perhaps a partisan--claims for him, in his _Biographia
+Literaria_, "purity of language, freshness, strength, _curiosa felicitas_
+of diction, truth to nature in his imagery, imagination in the highest
+degree, but faulty fancy." We have already ventured to deny him the
+possession of imagination: the rest of his friend's eulogium is not
+undeserved. He had and has many ardent admirers, but none more ardent than
+himself. He constantly praised his own verses, and declared that they
+would ultimately conquer all prejudices and become universally popular--an
+opinion that the literary world does not seem disposed to adopt.
+
+
+ROBERT SOUTHEY.--Next to Wordsworth, and, with certain characteristic
+differences, of the same school, but far beneath him in poetical power, is
+Robert Southey, who was born at Bristol, August 12, 1774. He was the son
+of a linen-draper in that town. He entered Balliol College, Oxford, in
+1792, but left without taking his degree. In 1794 he published a radical
+poem on the subject of _Wat Tyler_, the sentiments of which he was
+afterwards very willing to repudiate. With the enthusiastic instinct of a
+poet, he joined with Wordsworth and Coleridge in a scheme called
+_Pantisocrasy_; that is, they were to go together to the banks of the
+Susquehanna, in a new country of which they knew nothing except by
+description; and there they were to realize a dream of nature in the
+golden age--a Platonic republic, where everything was to be in common, and
+from which vice and selfishness were to be forever excluded. But these
+young neo-platonists had no money, and so the scheme was given up.
+
+In 1795 he married Miss Fricker, a milliner of Bristol, and made a voyage
+to Lisbon, where his uncle was chaplain to the British Factory. He led an
+unsettled life until 1804, when he established himself at Keswick in the
+Lake country, where he spent his life. He was a literary man and nothing
+else, and perhaps one of the most industrious writers that ever held a
+literary pen. Much of the time, indeed, he wrote for magazines and
+reviews, upon whatever subject was suggested to him, to win his daily
+bread.
+
+
+HIS WRITINGS.--After the publication of _Wat Tyler_ he wrote an epic poem
+called _Joan of Arc_, in 1796, which was crude and severely criticized.
+After some other unimportant essays, he inaugurated his purpose of
+illustrating the various oriental mythologies, by the publication of
+_Thalaba the Destroyer_, which was received with great disfavor at the
+time, and which first coupled his name with that of Wordsworth as of the
+school of Lake poets. It is in irregular metre, which at first has the
+charm of variety, but which afterwards loses its effect, on account of its
+broken, disjointed versification. In 1805 appeared _Madoc_--a poem based
+upon the subject of early Welsh discoveries in America. It is a long poem
+in two parts: the one descriptive of _Madoc in Wales_ and the other of
+_Madoc in Aztlan_. Besides many miscellaneous works in prose, we notice
+the issue, in 1810, of _The Curse of Kehama_--the second of the great
+mythological poems referred to.
+
+Among his prose works must be mentioned _The Chronicle of the Cid_, _The
+History of Brazil_, _The Life of Nelson_, and _The History of the
+Peninsular War_. A little work called _The Doctor_ has been greatly liked
+in America.
+
+Southey wrote innumerable reviews and magazine articles; and, indeed,
+tried his pen at every sort of literary work. His diction--in prose, at
+least--is almost perfect, and his poetical style not unpleasing. His
+industry, his learning, and his care in production must be acknowledged;
+but his poems are very little read, and, in spite of his own prophecies,
+are doomed to the shelf rather than retained upon the table. Like
+Wordsworth, he was one of the most egotistical of men; he had no greater
+admirer than Robert Southey; and had his exertions not been equal to his
+self-laudation, he would have been intolerable.
+
+The most singular instance of perverted taste and unmerited eulogy is to
+be found in his _Vision of Judgment_, which, as poet-laureate, he produced
+to the memory of George the Third. The severest criticism upon it is Lord
+Byron's _Vision of Judgment_--reckless, but clever and trenchant. The
+consistency and industry of Southey's life caused him to be appointed
+poet-laureate upon the death of Pye; and in 1835, having declined a
+baronetcy, he received an annual pension of £300. Having lost his first
+wife in 1837, he married Miss Bowles, the poetess, in 1839; but soon after
+his mind began to fail, and he had reached a state of imbecility which
+ended in death on the 21st of March, 1843. In 1837, at the age of
+sixty-three, he collected and edited his complete poetical works, with
+copious and valuable historical notes.
+
+
+HISTORICAL VALUE.--It is easy to see in what manner Southey, as a literary
+man, has reflected the spirit of the age. Politically, he exhibits
+partisanship from Radical to Tory, which may be clearly discerned by
+comparing his _Wat Tyler_ with his _Vision of Judgment_ and his _Odes_. As
+to literary and poetic canons, his varied metre, and his stories in the
+style of Wordsworth, show that he had abandoned all former schools. In his
+histories and biographies he is professedly historical; and in his epics
+he shows that greater range of learned investigation which is so
+characteristic of that age. The _Curse of Kehama_ and _Thalaba_ would have
+been impossible in a former age. He himself objected to be ranked with the
+Lakers; but Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge have too much in common,
+notwithstanding much individual difference, not to be classed together as
+innovators and asserters, whether we call them Lakers or something else.
+
+It was on the occasion of his publishing _Thalaba_, that his name was
+first coupled with that of Wordsworth. His own words are, "I happened to
+be residing at Keswick when Mr. Wordsworth and I began to be acquainted.
+Mr. Coleridge also had resided there; and this was reason enough for
+classing us together as a school of poets." There is not much external
+resemblance, it is true, between _Thalaba_ and the _Excursion_; but the
+same poetical motives will cause both to remain unread by the
+multitude--unnatural comparisons, recondite theology, and a great lack of
+common humanity. That there was a mutual admiration is found in Southey's
+declaration that Wordsworth's sonnets contain the profoundest poetical
+wisdom, and that the _Preface_ is the quintessence of the philosophy of
+poetry.
+
+
+SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.--More individual, more eccentric, less
+commonplace, in short, a far greater genius than either of his fellows,
+Coleridge accomplished less, had less system, was more visionary and
+fragmentary than they: he had an amorphous mind of vast proportions. The
+man, in his life and conversation, was great; the author has left little
+of value which will last when the memory of his person has disappeared. He
+was born on the 21st of October, 1772, at Ottery St. Mary. His father was
+a clergyman and vicar of the parish. He received his education at Christ's
+Hospital in London, where, among others, he had Charles Lamb as a comrade,
+and formed with him a friendship which lasted as long as they both lived.
+
+
+EARLY LIFE.--There he was an erratic student, but always a great reader;
+and while he was yet a lad, at the age of fourteen, he might have been
+called a learned man.
+
+He had little self-respect, and from stress of poverty he intended to
+apprentice himself to a shoemaker; but friends who admired his learning
+interfered to prevent this, and he was sent with a scholarship to Jesus
+College, Cambridge, in 1791. Like Wordsworth and Southey, he was an
+intense Radical at first; and on this account left college without his
+degree in 1793. He then enlisted as a private in the 15th Light Dragoons;
+but, although he was a favorite with his comrades, whose letters he wrote,
+he made a very poor soldier. Having written a Latin sentence under his
+saddle on the stable wall, his superior education was recognized; and he
+was discharged from the service after only four months' duty. Eager for
+adventure, he joined Southey and Lloyd in their scheme of pantisocracy,
+to which we have already referred; and when that failed for want of money,
+he married the sister-in-law of Southey--Miss Fricker, of Bristol. He was
+at this time a Unitarian as well as a Radical, and officiated frequently
+as a Unitarian minister. His sermons were extremely eloquent. He had
+already published some juvenile poems, and a drama on the fall of
+Robespierre, and had endeavored to establish a periodical called _The
+Watchman_. He was always erratic, and dependent upon the patronage of his
+friends; in short, he always presented the sad spectacle of a man who
+could not take care of himself.
+
+
+HIS WRITINGS.--After a residence at Stowey, in Somersetshire, where he
+wrote some of his finest poems, among which were the first part of
+_Christabel_, _The Ancient Mariner_, and _Remorse_, a tragedy, he was
+enabled, through the kindness of friends, to go, in 1798, to Germany,
+where he spent fourteen months in the study of literature and metaphysics.
+In the year 1800 he returned to the Lake country, where he for some time
+resided with Southey at Keswick; Wordsworth being then at Grasmere. Then
+was established as a fixed fact in English literature the Lake school of
+poetry. These three poets acted and reacted upon each other. From having
+been great Radicals they became Royalists, and Coleridge's Unitarian
+belief was changed into orthodox churchmanship. His translation of
+Schiller's _Wallenstein_ should rather be called an expansion of that
+drama, and is full of his own poetic fancies. After writing for some time
+for the _Morning Post_, he went to Malta as the Secretary to the Governor
+in 1804, at a salary of £800 per annum. But his restless spirit soon drove
+him back to Grasmere, and to desultory efforts to make a livelihood.
+
+In 1816 he published the two parts of _Christabel_, an unfinished poem,
+which, for the wildness of the conceit, exquisite imagery, and charming
+poetic diction, stands quite alone in English literature. In a periodical
+called _The Friend_, which he issued, are found many of his original
+ideas; but it was discontinued after twenty-seven numbers. His _Biographia
+Literaria_, published in 1817, contains valuable sketches of literary men,
+living and dead, written with rare critical power.
+
+In his _Aids to Reflection_, published in 1825, are found his metaphysical
+tenets; his _Table-Talk_ is also of great literary value; but his lectures
+on Shakspeare show him to have been the most remarkable critic of the
+great dramatist whom the world has produced.
+
+It has already been mentioned that when the first volume of Wordsworth's
+_Lyrical Ballads_ was published, _The Ancient Mariner_ was included in it,
+as a poem by an anonymous friend. It had been the intention of Coleridge
+to publish another poem in the second volume; but it was considered
+incongruous, and excluded. That poem was the exquisite ballad entitled
+_Love_, or _Genevieve_.
+
+
+HIS HELPLESSNESS.--With no home of his own, he lived by visiting his
+friends; left his wife and children to the support of others, and seemed
+incapable of any other than this shifting and shiftless existence. This
+natural imbecility was greatly increased during a long period by his
+constant use of opium, which kept him, a greater portion of his life, in a
+world of dreams. He was fortunate in having a sincere and appreciative
+friend in Mr. Gilman, surgeon, near London, to whose house he went in
+1816; and where, with the exception of occasional visits elsewhere, he
+resided until his death in 1834. If the Gilmans needed compensation for
+their kindness, they found it in the celebrity of their visitor; even
+strangers made pilgrimages to the house at Highgate to hear the rhapsodies
+of "the old man eloquent." Coleridge once asked Charles Lamb if he had
+ever heard him preach, referring to the early days when he was a Unitarian
+preacher. "I never heard you do anything else," was the answer he
+received. He was the prince of talkers, and talked more coherently and
+connectedly than he wrote: drawing with ease from the vast stores of his
+learning, he delighted men of every degree. While of the Lake school of
+poetry, and while in some sort the creature of his age and his
+surroundings, his eccentricities gave him a rare independence and
+individuality. A giant in conception, he was a dwarf in execution; and
+something of the interest which attaches to a _lusus naturæ_ is the chief
+claim to future reputation which belongs to S. T. C.
+
+
+HARTLEY COLERIDGE, his son, (1796-1849,) inherited much of his father's
+talents; but was an eccentric, deformed, and, for a time, an intemperate
+being. His principal writings were monographs on various subjects, and
+articles for Blackwood. HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE, (1800-1843,) a nephew and
+son-in-law of the poet, was also a gifted man, and a profound classical
+scholar. His introduction to the study of the great classic poets,
+containing his analysis of Homer's epics, is a work of great merit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+THE REACTION IN POETRY.
+
+
+   Alfred Tennyson. Early Works. The Princess. Idyls of the King.
+   Elizabeth B. Browning. Aurora Leigh. Her Faults. Robert Browning. Other
+   Poets.
+
+
+
+TENNYSON AND THE BROWNINGS.
+
+
+ALFRED TENNYSON.--It is the certain fate of all extravagant movements,
+social or literary, to invite criticism and opposition, and to be followed
+by reaction. The school of Wordsworth was the violent protest against what
+remained of the artificial in poetry; but it had gone, as we have seen, to
+the other extreme. The affected simplicity, and the bald diction which it
+inculcated, while they raised up an army of feeble imitators, also
+produced in the ranks of poetry a vindication of what was good in the old;
+new theories, and a very different estimate of poetical subjects and
+expression. The first poet who may be looked upon as leading the
+reactionary party is Alfred Tennyson. He endeavored out of all the schools
+to synthesize a new one. In many of his descriptive pieces he followed
+Wordsworth: in his idyls, he adheres to the romantic school; in his
+treatment and diction, he stands alone.
+
+
+EARLY EFFORTS.--He was the son of a clergyman of Lincolnshire, and was
+born at Somersby, in 1810. After a few early and almost unknown efforts in
+verse, the first volume bearing his name was issued in 1830, while he was
+yet an under-graduate at Cambridge: it had the simple title--_Poems,
+chiefly Lyrical_. In their judgment of this new poet, the critics were
+almost as much at fault as they had been when the first efforts of
+Wordsworth appeared; but for very different reasons. Wordsworth was simple
+and intensely realistic. Tennyson was mystic and ideal: his diction was
+unusual; his little sketches conveyed an almost hidden moral; he seemed to
+inform the reader that, in order to understand his poetry, it must be
+studied; the meaning does not sparkle upon the surface; the language
+ripples, the sense flows in an undercurrent. His first essays exhibit a
+mania for finding strange words, or coining new ones, which should give
+melody, to his verse. Whether this was a process of development or not, he
+has in his later works gotten rid of much of this apparent mannerism,
+while he has retained, and even improved, his harmony. He exhibits a rare
+power of concentration, as opposed to the diffusiveness of his
+contemporaries. Each of his smaller poems is a thought, briefly, but
+forcibly and harmoniously, expressed. If it requires some exertion to
+comprehend it, when completely understood it becomes a valued possession.
+
+It is difficult to believe that such poems as _Mariana_ and _Recollections
+of the Arabian Nights_ were the production of a young man of twenty.
+
+In 1833 he published his second volume, containing additional poems, among
+which were _Enone_, _The May Queen_, _The Lotos-Eaters_, and _A Dream of
+Fair Women_. _The May Queen_ became at once a favorite, because every one
+could understand it: it touched a chord in every heart; but his rarest
+power of dreamy fancy is displayed in such pieces as _The Arabian Nights_
+and the _Lotos-Eaters_. No greater triumph has been achieved in the realm
+of fancy than that in the court of good Haroun al Raschid, and amid the
+Lotos dreams of the Nepenthe coast. These productions were not received
+with the favor which they merited, and so he let the critics alone for
+nine years. In 1842 he again appeared in print, with, among other poems,
+the exquisite fragment of the _Morte d'Arthur_, _Godiva_, _St. Agnes_,
+_Sir Galahad_, _Lady Clara Vere de Vere_, _The Talking Oak_, and chief,
+perhaps, of all, _Locksley Hall_. In these poems he is not only a poet,
+but a philosopher. Each of these is an extended apothegm, presenting not
+only rules of life, but mottoes and maxims for daily use. They are
+soliloquies of the nineteenth century, and representations of its men and
+conditions.
+
+
+THE PRINCESS.--In 1847 he published _The Princess, a Medley_--a pleasant
+and suggestive poem on woman's rights, in which exquisite songs are
+introduced, which break the monotony of the blank verse, and display his
+rare lyric power. The _Bugle Song_ is among the finest examples of the
+adaptation of sound to sense in the language; and there is nothing more
+truthful and touching than the short verses beginning,
+
+    Home they brought her warrior dead.
+
+Arthur Hallam, a gifted son of the distinguished historian, who was
+betrothed to Tennyson's sister, died young; and the poet has mourned and
+eulogized him in a long poem entitled _In Memoriam_. It contains one
+hundred and twenty-nine four-lined stanzas, and is certainly very musical
+and finished; but it is rather the language of calm philosophy elaborately
+studied, than that of a poignant grief. It is not, in our judgment, to be
+compared with his shorter poems, and is generally read and overpraised
+only by his more ardent admirers, who discover a crystal tear of genuine
+emotion in every stanza.
+
+
+IDYLS OF THE KING.--The fragment on the death of Arthur, already
+mentioned, foreshadowed a purpose of the poet's mind to make the legends
+of that almost fabulous monarch a vehicle for modern philosophy in English
+verse. In 1859 appeared a volume containing the _Idyls of the King_. They
+are rather minor epics than idyls. The simple materials are taken from the
+Welsh and French chronicles, and are chiefly of importance in that they
+cater to that English taste which finds national greatness typified in
+Arthur. It had been a successful stratagem with Spenser in _The Fairy
+Queen_, and has served Tennyson equally well in the _Idyls_. It unites the
+ages of fable and of chivalry; it gives a noble lineage to heroic deeds.
+The best is the last--_Guinevere_--almost the perfection of pathos in
+poetry. The picturesqueness of his descriptions is evinced by the fact
+that Gustave Doré has chosen these _Idyls_ as a subject for illustration,
+and has been eminently successful in his labor.
+
+_Maud_, which appeared in 1855, notwithstanding some charming lyrical
+passages, may be considered Tennyson's failure. In 1869 he completed _The
+Idyls_ by publishing _The Coming of Arthur_, _The Holy Grail_, and
+_Pelleas and Etteare_. He also finished the _Morte d'Arthur_, and put it
+in its proper place as _The Passing of Arthur_.
+
+Tennyson was appointed poet-laureate upon the death of Wordsworth, in
+1850, and receives besides a pension of £200. He lived for a long time in
+great retirement at Farringford, on the Isle of Wight; but has lately
+removed to Petersfield, in Hampshire. It may be reasonably doubted whether
+this hermit-life has not injured his poetical powers; whether, great as he
+really is, a little inhalation of the air of busy every-day life would not
+have infused more of nature and freshness into his verse. Among his few
+_Odes_ are that on the death of the Duke of Wellington, the dedication of
+his poems to the Queen, and his welcome to Alexandra, Princess of Wales,
+all of which are of great excellence. His _Charge of the Light Brigade_,
+at Balaclava, while it gave undue currency to that stupid military
+blunder, must rank as one of the finest battle-lyrics in the language.
+
+The poetry of Tennyson is eminently representative of the Victorian age.
+He has written little; but that little marks a distinct era in
+versification--great harmony untrammelled by artificial _correctness_; and
+in language, a search for novelty to supply the wants and correct the
+faults of the poetic vocabulary. He is national in the _Idyls_;
+philosophic in _The Two Voices_, and similar poems. The _Princess_ is a
+gentle satire on the age; and though, in striving for the reputation of
+originality, he sometimes mistakes the original for the beautiful, he is
+really the laurelled poet of England in merit as well as in title.
+
+
+ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.--The literary usher is now called upon to cry
+with the herald of the days of chivalry--_Place aux dames_. A few ladies,
+as we have seen, have already asserted for themselves respectable
+positions in the literary ranks. Without a question as to the relative
+gifts of mind in man and woman, we have now reached a name which must rank
+among those of the first poets of the present century--one which
+represents the Victorian age as fully and forcibly as Tennyson, and with
+more of novelty than he. Nervous in style, elevated in diction, bold in
+expression, learned and original, Mrs. Browning divides the poetic renown
+of the period with Tennyson. If he is the laureate, she was the
+acknowledged queen of poetry until her untimely death.
+
+Miss Elizabeth Barrett was born in London, in 1809. She was educated with
+great care, and began to write at a very early age. A volume, entitled
+_Essays on Mind, with Other Poems_, was published when she was only
+seventeen. In 1833 she produced _Prometheus Bound_, a translation of the
+drama of Æschylus from the original Greek, which exhibited rare classical
+attainments; but which she considered so faulty that she afterwards
+retranslated it. In 1838 appeared _The Seraphim, and other Poems_; and in
+1839, _The Romaunt of the Page_. Not long after, the rupture of a
+blood-vessel brought her to the verge of the grave; and while she was
+still in a precarious state of health, her favorite brother was drowned.
+For several years she lived secluded, studying and composing when her
+health permitted; and especially drawing her inspiration from original
+sources in Greek and Hebrew. In 1844 she published her collected poems in
+two volumes. Among these was _Lady Geraldine's Courtship_: an exquisite
+story, the perusal of which is said to have induced Robert Browning to
+seek her acquaintance. Her health was now partially restored; and they
+were married in 1846. For some time they resided at Florence, in a
+congenial and happy union. The power of passionate love is displayed in
+her _Sonnets from the Portuguese_, which are among the finest in the
+language. Differing in many respects from those of Shakspeare, they are
+like his in being connected by one impassioned thought, and being, without
+doubt, the record of a heart experience.
+
+Thoroughly interested in the social and political conditions of struggling
+Italy, she gave vent to her views and sympathies in a volume of poems,
+entitled _Casa Guidi Windows_. Casa Guidi was the name of their residence
+in Florence, and the poems vividly describe what she saw from its
+windows--divers forms of suffering, injustice, and oppression, which
+touched the heart of a tender woman and a gifted poet, and compelled it to
+burst forth in song.
+
+
+AURORA LEIGH.--But by far the most important work of Mrs. Browning is
+_Aurora Leigh_: a long poem in nine books, which appeared in 1856, in
+which the great questions of the age, social and moral, are handled with
+great boldness. It is neither an epic, nor an idyl, nor a tale in verse:
+it combines features of them all. It presents her clear convictions of
+life and art, and is full of philosophy, largely expressed in the language
+of irony and sarcasm. She is an inspired advocate of the intellectual
+claims of woman; and the poem is, in some degree, an autobiography: the
+identity of the poet and the heroine gives a great charm to the narrative.
+There are few finer pieces of poetical inspiration than the closing scene,
+where the friend and lover returns blind and helpless, and the woman's
+heart, unconquered before, surrenders to the claims of misfortune as the
+champion of love. After a happy life with her husband and an only child,
+sent for her solace, this gifted woman died in 1863.
+
+
+HER FAULTS.--It is as easy to criticize Mrs. Browning's works as to admire
+them; but our admiration is great in spite of her faults: in part because
+of them, for they are faults of a bold and striking individuality. There
+is sometimes an obscurity in her fancies, and a turgidity in her language.
+She seems to transcend the poet's license with a knowledge that she is
+doing so. For example:
+
+    We will sit on the throne of a purple sublimity,
+    And grind down men's bones to a pale unanimity.
+
+And again, in speaking of Goethe, she says:
+
+    His soul reached out from far and high,
+    And fell from inner entity.
+
+Her rhymes are frequently and arrogantly faulty: she seems to scorn the
+critics; she writes more for herself than for others, and infuses all she
+writes with her own fervent spirit: there is nothing commonplace or
+lukewarm. She is so strong that she would be masculine; but so tender that
+she is entirely feminine: at once one of the most vigorous of poets and
+one of the best of women. She has attained the first rank among the
+English poets.
+
+
+ROBERT BROWNING.--As a poet of decided individuality, which has gained for
+him many admirers, Browning claims particular mention. His happy marriage
+has for his fame the disadvantage that he gave his name to a greater
+poet; and it is never mentioned without an instinctive thought of her
+superiority. Many who are familiar with her verses have never read a line
+of her husband. This is in part due to a mysticism and an intense
+subjectivity, which are not adapted to the popular comprehension. He has
+chosen subjects unknown or uninteresting to the multitude of readers, and
+treats them with such novelty of construction and such an affectation of
+originality, that few persons have patience to read his poems.
+
+Robert Browning was born, in 1812, at Camberwell; and after a careful
+education, not at either of the universities, (for he was a dissenter,) he
+went at the age of twenty to Italy, where he eagerly studied the history
+and antiquity to be found in the monasteries and in the remains of the
+mediæval period. He also made a study of the Italian people. In 1835 he
+published a drama called _Paracelsus_, founded upon the history of that
+celebrated alchemist and physician, and delineating the conditions of
+philosophy in the fifteenth century. It is novel, antique, and
+metaphysical: it exhibits the varied emotions of human sympathy; but it is
+eccentric and obscure, and cannot be popular. He has been called the poet
+for poets; and this statement seems to imply that he is not the poet for
+the great world.
+
+In 1837 he published a tragedy called _Strafford_; but his Italian culture
+seems to have spoiled his powers for portraying English character, and he
+has presented a stilted Strafford and a theatrical Charles I.
+
+In 1840 appeared _Sordello_, founded upon incidents in the history of that
+Mantuan poet Sordello, whom Dante and Virgil met in purgatory; and who,
+deserting the language of Italy, wrote his principal poems in the
+Provençal. The critics were so dissatisfied with this work, that Browning
+afterwards omitted it in the later editions of his poems. In 1843 he
+published a tragedy entitled _A Blot on the 'Scutcheon_, and a play
+called _The Dutchess of Cleves_. In 1850 appeared _Christmas Eve_ and
+_Easter Day_. Concerning all these, it may be said that it is singular and
+sad that a real poetic gift, like that of Browning, should be so shrouded
+with faults of conception and expression. What leads us to think that many
+of these are an affectation, is that he has produced, almost with the
+simplicity of Wordsworth, those charming sketches, _The Good News from
+Ghent to Aix_, and _An Incident at Ratisbon_.
+
+Among his later poems we specially commend _A Death in the Desert_, and
+_Pippa Passes_, as less obscure and more interesting than any, except the
+lyrical pieces just mentioned. It is difficult to show in what manner
+Browning represents his age. His works are only so far of a modern
+character that they use the language of to-day without subsidizing its
+simplicity, and abandon the old musical couplet without presenting the
+intelligible if commonplace thought which it used to convey.
+
+
+
+OTHER POETS OF THE LATEST PERIOD.
+
+
+_Reginald Heber_, 1783-1826: a godly Bishop of Calcutta. He is most
+generally known by one effort, a little poem, which is a universal
+favorite, and has preached, from the day it appeared, eloquent sermons in
+the cause of missions--_From Greenland's Icy Mountains_. Among his other
+hymns are _Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning_, and _The Son of
+God goes forth to War_.
+
+_Barry Cornwall_, born 1790: this is a _nom de plume_ of _Bryan Proctor_,
+a pleasing, but not great poet. His principal works are _Dramatic Scenes_,
+_Mirandola_, a tragedy, and _Marcian Colonna_. His minor poems are
+characterized by grace and fluency. Among these are _The Return of the
+Admiral_; _The Sea, the Sea, the Open Sea_; and _A Petition to Time_. He
+also wrote essays and tales in prose--a _Life of Edmund Keane_, and a
+_Memoir of Charles Lamb_. His daughter, _Adelaide Anne Proctor_, is a
+gifted poetess, and has written, among other poems, _Legends and Lyrics_,
+and _A Chaplet of Verses_.
+
+_James Sheridan Knowles_, 1784-1862: an actor and dramatist. He left the
+stage and became a Baptist minister. His plays were very successful upon
+the stage. Among them, those of chief merit are _The Hunchback_,
+_Virginius and Caius Gracchus_, and _The Wife, a Tale of Mantua_.
+
+_Jean Ingelow_, born 1830: one of the most popular of the later English
+poets. _The Song of Seven_, and _My Son's Wife Elizabeth_, are extremely
+pathetic, and of such general application that they touch all hearts. The
+latter is the refrain of _High Tide on the Coast of Lancashire_. She has
+published, besides, several volumes of stories for children, and one
+entitled _Studies for Stories_.
+
+_Algernon Charles Swinburne_, born 1843: he is principally and very
+favorably known by his charming poem _Atalanta in Calydon_. He has also
+written a somewhat heterodox and licentious poem entitled _Laus Veneris_,
+_Chastelard_, and _The Song of Italy_; besides numerous minor poems and
+articles for magazines. He is among the most notable and prolific poets of
+the age; and we may hope for many and better works from his pen.
+
+_Richard Harris Barham_, 1788-1845: a clergyman of the Church of England,
+and yet one of the most humorous of writers. He is chiefly known by his
+_Ingoldsby Legends_, which were contributed to the magazines. They are
+humorous tales in prose and verse; the latter in the vein of Peter Pindar,
+but better than those of Wolcot, or any writer of that school. Combined
+with the humorous and often forcible, there are touches of pathos and
+terror which are extremely effective. He also wrote a novel called _My
+Cousin Nicholas_.
+
+_Philip James Bailey_, born 1816: he published, in 1839, _Festus_, a poem
+in dramatic form, having, for its _dramatis personæ_, God in his three
+persons, Lucifer, angels, and man. Full of rare poetic fancy, it repels
+many by the boldness of its flight in the consideration of the
+incomprehensible, which many minds think the forbidden. _The Angel World_
+and _The Mystic_ are of a similar kind; but his last work, _The Age, a
+Colloquial Satire_ is on a mundane subject and in a simpler style.
+
+_Charles Mackay_, born 1812: principally known by his fugitive pieces,
+which contain simple thoughts on pleasant language. His poetical
+collections are called _Town Lyrics_ and _Egeria_.
+
+_John Keble_, 1792-1866: the modern George Herbert; a distinguished
+clergyman. He was Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and produced, besides
+_Tracts for the Times_, and other theological writings, _The Christian
+Year_, containing a poem for every Sunday and holiday in the
+ecclesiastical year. They are devout breathings in beautiful verse, and
+are known and loved by great numbers out of his own communion. Many of
+them have been adopted as hymns in many collections.
+
+_Martin Farquhar Tupper_, born 1810: his principal work is _Proverbial
+Philosophy_, in two series. It was unwontedly popular; and Tupper's name
+was on every tongue. Suddenly, the world reversed its decision and
+discarded its favorite; so that, without having done anything to warrant
+the desertion, Tupper finds himself with but very few admirers, or even
+readers: so capricious is the _vox populi_. The poetry is not without
+merit; but the world cannot forgive itself for having rated it too high.
+
+_Matthew Arnold_, born 1822: the son of Doctor Arnold of Rugby. He has
+written numerous critical papers, and was for some time Professor of
+Poetry at Oxford. _Sorab and Rustam_ is an Eastern tale in verse, of great
+beauty. His other works are _The Strayed Reveller_, and _Empedocles on
+Etna_. More lately, an Inspector of Schools, he has produced several works
+on education, among which are _Popular Education in France_ and _The
+Schools and Universities of the Continent_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+THE LATER HISTORIANS.
+
+
+   New Materials. George Grote. History of Greece. Lord Macaulay. History
+   of England. Its Faults. Thomas Carlyle. Life of Frederick II. Other
+   Historians.
+
+
+
+NEW MATERIALS.
+
+
+Nothing more decidedly marks the nineteenth century than the progress of
+history as a branch of literature. A wealth of material, not known before,
+was brought to light, increasing our knowledge and reversing time-honored
+decisions upon historic points. Countries were explored and their annals
+discovered. Expeditions to Egypt found a key to hieroglyphs; State papers
+were arranged to the hand of the scholar; archives, like those of
+Simancas, were thrown open. The progress of Truth, through the extension
+of education, unmasked ancient prescriptions and prejudices: thus, where
+the chronicle remained, philosophy was transformed; and it became evident
+that the history of man in all times must be written anew, with far
+greater light to guide the writer than the preceding century had enjoyed.
+Besides, the world of readers became almost as learned as the historian
+himself, and he wrote to supply a craving and a demand such as had never
+before existed. A glance at the labors of the following historians will
+show that they were not only annalists, but reformers in the full sense of
+the word: they re-wrote what had been written before, supplying defects
+and correcting errors.
+
+
+GEORGE GROTE.--This distinguished writer was born near London, in 1794. He
+was the son of a banker, and received his education at the Charter House.
+Instead of entering one of the universities, he became a clerk in his
+father's banking-house. Early imbued with a taste for Greek literature, he
+continued his studies with great zeal; and was for many years collecting
+the material for a history of Greece. The subject was quietly and
+thoroughly digested in his mind before he began to write. A member of
+Parliament from 1832 to 1841, he was always a strong Whig, and was
+specially noted for his championship of the vote by ballot. There was no
+department of wholesome reform which he did not sustain. He opposed the
+corn laws, which had become oppressive; he favored the political rights of
+the Jews, and denounced prescriptive evils of every kind.
+
+
+HISTORY OF GREECE.--In 1846 he published the first volume of his _History
+of Greece from the Earliest Period to the Death of Alexander the Great_:
+the remaining volumes appeared between that time and 1856. The work was
+well received by critics of all political opinions; and the world was
+astonished that such a labor should have been performed by any writer who
+was not a university man. It was a luminous ancient history, in a fresh
+and racy modern style: the review of the mythology is grand; the political
+conditions, the manners and customs of the people, the military art, the
+progress of law, the schools of philosophy, are treated with remarkable
+learning and clearness. But he as clearly exhibits the political condition
+of his own age, by the sympathy which he displays towards the democracy of
+Athens in their struggles against the tenets and actions of the
+aristocracy. The historian writes from his own political point of view;
+and Grote's history exhibits his own views of reform as plainly as that of
+Mitford sets forth his aristocratic proclivities. Thus the English
+politics of the age play a part in the Grecian history.
+
+There were several histories of Greece written not long before that of
+Grote, which may be considered as now set aside by his greater accuracy
+and better style. Among these the principal are that of JOHN GILLIES,
+1747-1836, which is learned, but statistical and dry; that of CONNOP
+THIRLWALL, born 1797, Bishop of St. David's, which was greatly esteemed by
+Grote himself; and that of WILLIAM MITFORD, 1744-1827, to correct the
+errors and supply the deficiencies of which, Grote's work was written.
+
+
+LORD MACAULAY.--Thomas Babington Macaulay was born at Rothley, in
+Leicestershire, on the 25th of October, 1800. His father, Zachary
+Macaulay, a successful West Indian merchant, devoted his later life to
+philanthropy. His mother was Miss Selina Mills, the daughter of a
+bookseller of Bristol. After an early education, chiefly conducted at
+home, he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1818, where he
+distinguished himself as a debater, and gained two prize poems and a
+scholarship. He was graduated in 1822, and afterwards continued his
+studies; producing, during the next four years, several of his stirring
+ballads. He began to write for the Edinburgh Review in 1825. In 1830 he
+entered Parliament, and was immediately noted for his brilliant oratory in
+advocating liberal principles. In 1834 he was sent to India, as a member
+of the Supreme Council; and took a prominent part in preparing an Indian
+code of laws. This code was published on his return to England, in 1838;
+but it was so kind and considerate to the natives, that the martinets in
+India defeated its adoption. From his return until 1847, he had a seat in
+Parliament as member for Edinburgh; but in the latter year his support of
+the grant to the Maynooth (Roman Catholic) College so displeased his
+constituents, that in the next election he lost his seat.
+
+During all these busy years he had been astonishing and delighting the
+reading world by his truly brilliant papers in the _Edinburgh Review_,
+which have been collected and published as _Miscellanies_. The subjects
+were of general interest; their treatment novel and bold; the learning
+displayed was accurate and varied; and the style pointed, vigorous, and
+harmonious. The papers upon _Clive_ and _Hastings_ are enriched by his
+intimate knowledge of Indian affairs, acquired during his residence in
+that country. His critical papers are severe and satirical, such as the
+articles on _Croker's Boswell_, and on _Mr. Robert Montgomery's Poems_.
+His unusual self-reliance as a youth led him to great vehemence in the
+expression of his opinions, as well as into errors of judgment, which he
+afterwards regretted. The radicalism which is displayed in his essay on
+_Milton_ was greatly modified when he came to treat of kindred subjects in
+his History.
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND.--He had long cherished the intention of writing
+the history of England, "from the accession of James II. down to a time
+which is within the memory of men still living." The loss of his election
+at Edinburgh gave him the leisure necessary for carrying out this purpose.
+In 1848 he published the first and second volumes, which at once achieved
+an unprecedented popularity. His style had lost none of its brilliancy;
+his reading had been immense; his examination of localities was careful
+and minute. It was due, perhaps, to this growing fame, that the electors
+of Edinburgh, without any exertion on his part, returned him to Parliament
+in 1852. In 1855 the third and fourth volumes of his History appeared,
+bringing the work down to the peace of Ryswick, in 1697. All England
+applauded the crown when he was elevated to the peerage, in 1857, as Baron
+Macaulay of Rothley.
+
+It was now evident that Macaulay had deceived himself as to the magnitude
+of his subject; at least, he was never to finish it. He died suddenly of
+disease of the heart, on the 28th of December, 1859; and all that remained
+of his History was a fragmentary volume, published after his death by his
+sister, Lady Trevelyan, which reaches the death of William III., in 1702.
+
+
+ITS FAULTS.--The faults of Macaulay's History spring from the character of
+the man: he is always a partisan or a bitter enemy. His heroes are angels;
+those whom he dislikes are devils; and he pursues them with the ardor of a
+crusader or the vendetta of a Corsican. The Stuarts are painted in the
+darkest colors; while his eulogy of William III. is fulsome and false. He
+blackens the character of Marlborough for real faults indeed; but for such
+as Marlborough had in common with thousands of his contemporaries. If, as
+has been said, that great captain deserved the greatest censure as a
+statesman and warrior, it is equally true, paradoxical as it may seem,
+that he deserved also the greatest praise in both capacities. Macaulay has
+fulminated the censure and withheld the praise.
+
+What is of more interest to Americans, he loses no opportunity of
+attacking and defaming William Penn; making statements which have been
+proved false, and attributing motives without reason or justice.
+
+His style is what the French call the _style coupé_,--short sentences,
+like those of Tacitus, which ensure the interest by their recurring
+shocks. He writes history with the pen of a reviewer, and gives verdicts
+with the authority of a judge. He seems to say, Believe the autocrat; do
+not venture to philosophize.
+
+His poetry displays tact and talent, but no genius; it is pageantry in
+verse. His _Lays of Ancient Rome_ are scholarly, of course, and pictorial
+in description, but there is little of nature, and they are theatrical
+rather than dramatic; they are to be declaimed rather than to be read or
+sung.
+
+In society, Macaulay was a great talker--he harangued his friends; and
+there was more than wit in the saying of Sidney Smith, that his
+conversation would have been improved by a few "brilliant flashes of
+silence."
+
+But in spite of his faults, if we consider the profoundness of his
+learning, the industry of his studies, and the splendor of his style, we
+must acknowledge him as the most distinguished of English historians. No
+one has yet appeared who is worthy to complete the magnificent work which
+he left unfinished.
+
+
+THOMAS CARLYLE.--A literary brother of a very different type, but of a
+more distinct individuality, is Carlyle, who was born in Dumfries-shire,
+Scotland, in 1795. He was the eldest son of a farmer. After a partial
+education at home, he entered the University of Edinburgh, where he was
+noted for his attainments in mathematics, and for his omnivorous reading.
+After leaving the university he became a teacher in a private family, and
+began to study for the ministry, a plan which he soon gave up.
+
+His first literary effort was a _Life of Schiller_, issued in numbers of
+the _London Magazine_, in 1823-4. He turned his attention to German
+literature, in the knowledge of which he has surpassed all other
+Englishmen. He became as German as the Germans.
+
+In 1826 he married, and removed to Craigen-Puttoch, on a farm, where, in
+isolation and amid the wildness of nature, he studied, and wrote articles
+for the _Edinburgh Review_, the _Foreign Quarterly_, and some of the
+monthly magazines. His study of the German, acting upon an innate
+peculiarity, began to affect his style very sensibly, as is clearly seen
+in the singular, introverted, parenthetical mode of expression which
+pervades all his later works. His earlier writings are in ordinary
+English, but specimens of _Carlylese_ may be found in his _Sartor
+Resartus_, which at first appalled the publishers and repelled the general
+reader. Taking man's clothing as a nominal subject, he plunges into
+philosophical speculations with which clothes have nothing to do, but
+which informed the world that an original thinker and a novel and curious
+writer had appeared.
+
+In 1834 he removed to Chelsea, near London, where he has since resided. In
+1837, he published his _French Revolution_, in three volumes,--_The
+Bastile_, _The Constitution_, _The Guillotine_. It is a fiery, historical
+drama rather than a history; full of rhapsodies, startling rhetoric,
+disconnected pictures. It has been fitly called "a history in flashes of
+lightning." No one could learn from it the history of that momentous
+period; but one who has read the history elsewhere, will find great
+interest in Carlyle's wild and vivid pictures of its stormy scenes.
+
+In 1839 he wrote, in his dashing style, upon _Chartism_, and about the
+same time read a course of lectures upon _Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the
+Heroic in History_, in which he is an admirer of will and impulse, and
+palliates evil when found in combination with these.
+
+In 1845 he edited _The Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell_, and in
+his extravagant eulogies worships the hero rather than the truth.
+
+
+FREDERICK II.--In 1858 appeared the first two volumes of _The Life of
+Frederick the Great_, and since that time he has completed the work. This
+is doubtless his greatest effort. It is full of erudition, and contains
+details not to be found in any other biography of the Prussian monarch;
+but so singularly has he reasoned and commented upon his facts, that the
+enlightened reader often draws conclusions different from those which the
+author has been laboring to establish. While the history shows that, for
+genius and success, Frederick deserved to be called the Great, Carlyle
+cannot make us believe that he was not grasping, selfish, a dissembler,
+and an immoral man.
+
+The author's style has its admirers, and is a not unpleasing novelty and
+variety to lovers of plain English; but it wearies in continuance, and one
+turns to French or German with relief. The Essays upon _German
+Literature_, _Richter_, and _The Niebelungen Lied_ are of great value to
+the young student. Such tracts as _Past and Present_, and _The Latter-Day
+Pamphlets_, have caused him to be called the "Censor of the Age." He is
+too eccentric and prejudiced to deserve the name in its best meaning. If
+he fights shams, he sometimes mistakes windmills and wine-skins for
+monsters, and, what is worse, if he accost a shepherd or a milkmaid, they
+at once become _Amadis de Gaul_ and _Dulcinea del Toboso_. In spite of
+these prejudices and peculiarities, Carlyle will always be esteemed for
+his arduous labors, his honest intentions, and his boldness in expressing
+his opinions. His likes and dislikes find ready vent in his written
+judgments, and he cares for neither friend nor foe, in setting forth his
+views of men and events. On many subjects it must be said his views are
+just. There are fields in which his word must be received with authority.
+
+
+
+OTHER HISTORIANS OF THE LATEST PERIOD.
+
+
+_John Lingard_, 1771-1851: a Roman Catholic priest. He was a man of great
+probity and worth. His chief work is _A History of England_, from the
+first invasion of the Romans to the accession of William and Mary. With a
+natural leaning to his own religious side in the great political
+questions, he displays great industry in collecting material, beauty of
+diction, and honesty of purpose. His history is of particular value, in
+that it stands among the many Protestant histories as the champion of the
+Roman Catholics, and gives an opportunity to "hear the other side," which
+could not have had a more respectable advocate. In all the great
+controversies, the student of English history must consult Lingard, and
+collate his facts and opinions with those of the other historians. He
+wrote, besides, numerous theological and controversial works.
+
+_Patrick Fraser Tytler_, 1791-1849: the author of _A History of Scotland
+from Alexander III. to James VI. (James I. of England)_, and _A History of
+England during the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary_. His _Universal History_
+has been used as a text-book, and in style and construction has great
+merit, although he does not rise to the dignity of a philosophic
+historian.
+
+_Sir William Francis Patrick Napier_, 1785-1866: a distinguished soldier,
+and, like Cæsar, a historian of the war in which he took part. His
+_History of the War in the Peninsula_ stands quite alone. It is clear in
+its strategy and tactics, just to the enemy, and peculiar but effective in
+style. It was assailed by several military men, but he defended all his
+positions in bold replies to their strictures, and the work remains as
+authority upon the great struggle which he relates.
+
+_Lord Mahon_, Earl of Stanhope, born 1805: his principal work is a
+_History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles_.
+He had access to much new material, and from the Stuart papers has drawn
+much of interest with reference to that unfortunate family. His view of
+the conduct of Washington towards Major André has been shown to be quite
+untenable. He also wrote a _History of the War of Succession in Spain_.
+
+_Henry Thomas Buchle_, 1822-1862: he was the author of a _History of
+Civilization_, of which he published two volumes, the work remaining
+unfinished at the time of his death. For bold assumptions, vigorous style,
+and great reading, this work must be greatly admired; but all his theories
+are based on second principles, and Christianity, as a divine institution,
+is ignored. It startled the world into admiration, but has not retained
+the place in popular esteem which it appeared at first to make for itself.
+He is the English _Comte_, without the eccentricity of his model.
+
+_Sir Archibald Alison_, 1792-1867: he is the author of _The History of
+Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration
+of the Bourbons_, and a continuation from 1815 to 1852. It may be doubted
+whether even the most dispassionate scholar can write the history of
+contemporary events. We may be thankful for the great mass of facts he has
+collated, but his work is tinctured with his high Tory principles; his
+material is not well digested, and his style is clumsy.
+
+_Agnes Strickland_, born 1806: after several early attempts Miss
+Strickland began her great task, which she executed nobly--_The Queens of
+England_. Accurate, philosophic, anecdotal, and entertaining, this work
+ranks among the most valuable histories in English. If the style is not so
+nervous as that of masculine writers, there is a ready intuition as to the
+rights and the motives of the queens, and a great delicacy combined with
+entire lack of prudery in her treatment of their crimes. The library of
+English history would be singularly incomplete without Miss Strickland's
+work. She also wrote _The Queens of Scotland_, and _The Bachelor Kings of
+England_.
+
+_Henry Hallam_, 1778-1859: the principal works of this judicious and
+learned writer are _A View of Europe during the Middle Ages_, _The
+Constitutional History of England_, and _An Introduction to the Literature
+of Europe_ in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. With
+the skill of an advocate he combines the calmness of a judge; and he has
+been justly called "the accurate Hallam," because his facts are in all
+cases to be depended on. By his clear and illustrative treatment of dry
+subjects, he has made them interesting; and his works have done as much to
+instruct his age as those of any writer. Later researches in literature
+and constitutional history may discover more than he has presented, but he
+taught the new explorers the way, and will always be consulted with
+profit, as the representative of this varied learning during the first
+half of the nineteenth century.
+
+_James Anthony Froude_, born 1818: an Oxford graduate, Mr. Froude
+represents the Low Church party in a respectable minority. His chief work
+is _A History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of
+Elizabeth_. With great industry, and the style of a successful novelist in
+making his groups and painting his characters, he has written one of the
+most readable books published in this period. He claimed to take his
+authorities from unpublished papers, and from the statute-books, and has
+endeavored to show that Henry VIII. was by no means a bad king, and that
+Elizabeth had very few faults. His treatment of Anne Boleyn and Mary Queen
+of Scots is unjust and ignoble. Not content with publishing what has been
+written in their disfavor, with the omniscience of a romancer, he asserts
+their motives, and produces thoughts which they never uttered. A race of
+powerful critics has sprung forth in defence of Mary, and Mr. Froude's
+inaccuracies and injustice have been clearly shown. To novel readers who
+are fond of the sensational, we commend his work: to those who desire
+historic facts and philosophies, we proclaim it to be inaccurate,
+illogical, and unjust in the highest degree.
+
+_Sharon Turner_, 1768-1847: among many historical efforts, principally
+concerning England in different periods, his _History of the Anglo-Saxons_
+stands out prominently as a great work. He was an eccentric scholar, and
+an antiquarian, and he found just the place to delve in when he undertook
+that history. The style is not good--too epigrammatic and broken; but his
+research is great, his speculations bold, and his information concerning
+the numbers, manners, arts, learning, and other characters of the
+Anglo-Saxons, immense. The student of English history must read Turner for
+a knowledge of the Saxon period.
+
+_Thomas Arnold_, 1795-1832: widely known and revered as the Great
+Schoolmaster. He was head-master at Rugby, and influenced his pupils more
+than any modern English instructor. Accepting the views of Niebuhr, he
+wrote a work on _Roman History_ up to the close of the second Punic war.
+But he is more generally known by his historical lectures delivered at
+Oxford, where he was Professor of Modern History. A man of original views
+and great honesty of purpose, his influence in England has been
+strengthened by the excellent biography written by his friend Dean
+Stanley.
+
+_William Hepworth Dixon_, born 1821: he was for some time editor of _The
+Athenæum_. In historic biography he appears as a champion of men who have
+been maligned by former writers. He vindicates _William Penn_ from the
+aspersions of Lord Macaulay, and _Bacon_ from the charges of meanness and
+corruption.
+
+_Charles Merivale_, born 1808: he is a clergyman, and a late Fellow of
+Cambridge, and is favorably known by his admirable work entitled, _The
+History of the Romans under the Empire_. It forms an introduction to
+Gibbon, and displays a thorough grasp of the great epoch, varied
+scholarship, and excellent taste. His analyses of Roman literature are
+very valuable, and his pictures of social life so vivid that we seem to
+live in the times of the Cæsars as we read.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE LATER NOVELISTS AS SOCIAL REFORMERS.
+
+
+   Bulwer. Changes in Writing. Dickens's Novels. American Notes. His
+   Varied Powers. Second Visit to America. Thackeray. Vanity Fair. Henry
+   Esmond. The Newcomes. The Georges. Estimate of his Powers.
+
+
+
+The great feature in the realm of prose fiction, since the appearance of
+the works of Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett, had been the Waverley
+novels of Sir Walter Scott; but these apart, the prose romance had not
+played a brilliant part in literature until the appearance of Bulwer, who
+began, in his youth, to write novels in the old style; but who underwent
+several organic changes in modes of thought and expression, and at last
+stood confessed as the founder of a new school.
+
+
+BULWER.--Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer was a younger son of General
+Bulwer of Heydon Hall, Norfolk, England. He was born, in 1806, to wealth
+and ease, but was early and always a student. Educated at Cambridge, he
+took the Chancellor's prize for a poem on _Sculpture_. His first public
+effort was a volume of fugitive poems, called _Weeds and Wild Flowers_, of
+more promise than merit. In 1827 he published _Falkland_, and very soon
+after _Pelham, or the Adventures of a Gentleman_. The first was not
+received favorably; but _Pelham_ was at once popular, neither for the
+skill of the plot nor for its morality, but because it describes the
+character, dissipations, and good qualities of a fashionable young man,
+which are always interesting to an English public. Those novels that
+immediately followed are so alike in general features that they may be
+called the Pelham series. Of these the principal are _The Disowned_,
+_Devereux_, and _Paul Clifford_--the last of which throws a sentimental,
+rosy light upon the person and adventures of a highwayman; but it is too
+unreal to have done as much injury as the _Pirate's Own Book_, or the
+_Adventures of Jack Sheppard_. It may be safely asserted that _Paul
+Clifford_ never produced a highwayman. Of the same period is _Eugene
+Aram_, founded upon the true story of a scholar who was a murderer--a
+painful subject powerfully handled.
+
+In 1831 Bulwer entered Parliament, and seems to have at once commenced a
+new life. With his public duties he combined severe historical study; and
+the novels he now produced gave witness of his riper and better learning.
+Chief among these were _Rienzi_, and _The Last Days of Pompeii_. The
+former is based upon the history of that wonderful and unfortunate man
+who, in the fourteenth century, attempted to restore the Roman republic,
+and govern it like an ancient tribune. The latter is a noble production:
+he has caught the very spirit of the day in which Pompeii was submerged by
+the lava-flood; his characters are masterpieces of historic delineation;
+he handles like an adept the conflicting theologies, Christian, Roman, and
+Egyptian; and his natural scenes--Vesuvius in fury, the Bay of Naples in
+the lurid light, the crowded amphitheatre, and the terror which fell on
+man and beast, gladiator and lion--are _chef-d'Å“uvres_ of Romantic art.
+
+
+CHANGES IN WRITING.--For a time he edited _The New Monthly Magazine_, and
+a change came over the spirit of his novels. This was first noticed in his
+_Ernest Maltravers_, and the sequel, _Alice, or the Mysteries_, which are
+marked by sentimental passion and mystic ideas. In _Night and Morning_ he
+is still mysterious: a blind fate seems to preside over his characters,
+robbing the good of its free merit and condoning the evil.
+
+In 1838 he was made a baronet. His versatile pen now turned to the drama;
+and although he produced nothing great, his _Lady of Lyons_, _Richelieu_,
+_Money_, and _The Sea Captain_ have always since been favorites upon the
+stage, subsidizing the talents of actors like Macready, Kean, and Edwin
+Booth.
+
+We must now chronicle another change, from the mystic to the supernatural,
+as displayed in _Zanoni_ and _Lucretia_, and especially in _A Strange
+Story_, which is the strangest of all. It was at the same period that he
+wrote _The Last of the Barons_, or the story of Warwick the king-maker,
+and _Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings_. Both are valuable to the
+student of English history as presenting the fruits of his own historic
+research.
+
+The last and most decided, and, we may add, most beneficial, change in
+Bulwer as a writer, was manifested in his publication of the _Caxtons_,
+the chief merit of which is as an usher of the novels which were to
+follow. Pisistratus Caxton is the modern Tristram Shandy, and becomes the
+putative editor of the later novels. First of these is _My Novel, or
+Varieties of English Life_. It is an admirable work: it inculcates a
+better morality, and a sense of Christian duty, at which Pelham would have
+laughed in scorn. Like it, but inferior to it, is _What Will He do with
+It?_ which has an interesting plot, an elevated style, and a rare human
+sympathy.
+
+Among other works, which we cannot mention, he wrote _The New Timon_, and
+_King Arthur_, in poetry, and a prose history entitled _Athens, its Rise
+and Fall_.
+
+Without the highest genius, but with uncommon scholarship and great
+versatility, Bulwer has used the materials of many kinds lying about him,
+to make marvellous mosaics, which imitate very closely the finest efforts
+of word-painting of the great geniuses of prose fiction.
+
+
+CHARLES DICKENS.--Another remarkable development of the age was the use
+of prose fiction, instead of poetry, as the vehicle of satire in the cause
+of social reform. The world consents readily to be amused, and it likes to
+be amused at the expense of others; but it soon tires of what is simply
+amusing or satirical unless some noble purpose be disclosed. The novels of
+former periods had interested by the creation of character and scenes; and
+there had been numerous satires prompted by personal pique. It is the
+glory of this latest age that it demands what shall so satirize the evil
+around it in men, in classes, in public institutions, that the evil shall
+recoil before the attack, and eventually disappear. Chief among such
+reformers are Dickens and Thackeray.
+
+Charles Dickens, the prince of modern novelists, was born at Landsport,
+Portsmouth, England, in 1812. His father was at the time a clerk in the
+Pay Department of the Navy, but afterwards became a reporter of debates in
+Parliament. After a very hard early life and an only tolerable education,
+young Dickens made some progress in the study of law; but soon undertook
+his father's business as reporter, in which he struggled as he has made
+David Copperfield to do in becoming proficient.
+
+His first systematic literary efforts were as a daily writer and reporter
+for _The True Sun_; he then contributed his sketches of life and
+character, drawn from personal observation, to the _Morning Chronicle_:
+these were an earnest of his future powers. They were collected as
+_Sketches by Boz_, in two volumes, and published in 1836.
+
+
+PICKWICK.--In 1837 he was asked by a publisher to prepare a series of
+comic sketches of cockney sportsmen, to illustrate, as well as to be
+illustrated by, etchings by Seymour. This yoking of two geniuses was a
+trammel to both; but the suicide of Seymour dissolved the connection, and
+Dickens had free play to produce the _Pickwick Papers_, by Boz, which were
+illustrated, as he proceeded, by H. K. Browne (Phiz). The work met and
+has retained an unprecedented popularity. Caricature as it was, it
+caricatured real, existent oddities; everything was probable; the humor
+was sympathetic if farcical, the assertion of humanity bold, and the
+philosophy of universal application. He had touched our common nature in
+all ranks and conditions; he had exhibited men and women of all types; he
+had exposed the tricks of politics and the absurdity of elections; the
+snobs of society were severely handled. He was the censor of law courts,
+the exposer of swindlers, the dread of cockneys, the friend of rustics and
+of the poor; and he has displayed in the principal character, that of the
+immortal Pickwick, the power of a generous, simple-hearted, easily
+deceived, but always philanthropic man, who comes through all his trials
+without bating a jot of his love for humanity and his faith in human
+nature. But the master-work of his plastic hand was Sam Weller, whose wit
+and wisdom pervaded both hemispheres, and is as potent to excite laughter
+to-day as at the first.
+
+In this work he began that assault, not so much on shams as upon
+prominent, unblushing evil, which he carried on in some form or other in
+all his later works; and which was to make him prominent among the
+reformers and benefactors of his age. He was at once famous, and his pen
+was in demand to amuse the idle and to aid the philanthropic.
+
+
+NICHOLAS NICKLEBY.--The _Pickwick Papers_ were in their intention a series
+of sketches somewhat desultory and loosely connected. His next work was
+_Nicholas Nickleby_, a complete story, in which he was entirely
+successful. Wonderful in the variety and reality of his characters, his
+powerful satire was here principally directed against the private
+boarding-schools in England, where unloved children, exiled and forgotten,
+were ill fed, scantily clothed, untaught, and beaten. Do-the-boys' Hall
+was his type, and many a school prison under that name was fearfully
+exposed and scourged. The people read with wonder and applause; these
+haunts of cruelty were scrutinized, some of them were suppressed; and
+since Nicholas Nickleby appeared no such school can live, because Squeers
+and Smike are on every lip, and punishment awaits the tyrant.
+
+Our scope will not permit a review of his numerous novels. In _Oliver
+Twist_ he denounces the parish system in its care of orphans, and throws a
+Drummond light upon the haunts of crime in London.
+
+_The Old Curiosity Shop_ exposes the mania of gaming, and seems to have
+been a device for presenting the pathetic pictures of _Little Nell_ and
+her grandfather, the wonderful and rapid learning of the marchioness, and
+the uncommon vitality of Mr. Richard Swiveller; and also the compound of
+will and hideousness in Quilp.
+
+He affected to find in the receptacle of Master Humphrey's clock, his
+_Barnaby Rudge_, a very dramatic picture of the great riot incited by Lord
+George Gordon in 1780, which, in its gathering, its fury, and its easy
+dispersion, was not unlike that of Wat Tyler. Dickens's delineations are
+eminently historic, and present a better notion of the period than the
+general history itself.
+
+
+AMERICAN NOTES.--In 1841 Dickens visited America, where he was received by
+the public with great enthusiasm, and annoyed, as the author of his
+biography says, by many individuals. On his return to England, he produced
+his _American Notes for General Circulation_. They were sarcastic,
+superficial, and depreciatory, and astonished many whose hospitalities he
+had received. But, in 1843, he published _Martin Chuzzlewit_, in which
+American peculiarities are treated with the broadest caricature. The
+_Notes_ might have been forgiven; but the novel excited a great and just
+anger in America. His statements were not true; his pictures were not
+just; his prejudice led him to malign a people who had received him with
+a foolish hospitality. He had eaten and drunk at the hands of the men whom
+he abused, and his character suffered more than that of his intended
+victims. In taking a few foibles for his caricature, he had left our
+merits untold, and had been guilty of the implication that we had none,
+although he knew that there were as elegant gentlemen, as refined ladies,
+and as cultivated society in America as the best in England. But a truce
+to reproaches; he has been fully forgiven.
+
+His next novel was _Dombey and Son_, in which he attacks British pomp and
+pride of state in the haughty merchant. It is full of character and of
+pathos. Every one knows, as if they had appeared among us, the proud and
+rigid Dombey, J. B. the sly, the unhappy Floy, the exquisite Toots, the
+inimitable Nipper, Sol Gills the simple, and Captain Cuttle with his hook
+and his notes.
+
+This was followed by _David Copperfield_, which is, to some extent, an
+autobiography describing the struggles of his youth, his experience in
+acquiring short-hand to become a reporter, and other vicissitudes of his
+own life. In it there is an attack upon the system of model prisons; but
+the chief interest is found in his wonderful portraitures of varied and
+opposite characters: the Peggottys, Steerforth, the inimitable Micawber,
+Betsy Trotwood; Agnes, the lovely and lovable; Mr. Dick, with such noble
+method in his madness; Dora, the child-wife; the simple Traddles, and
+Uriah Heep, the 'umble intriguer and villain.
+
+_Bleak House_ is a tremendous onslaught upon the Chancery system, and is
+said to have caused a modification of it; his knowledge of law gave him
+the power of an expert in detailing and dissecting its enormities.
+
+_Little Dorrit_ presents the heartlessness of society, and is besides a
+full and fearful picture of the system of imprisonment for debt. For
+variety, power, and pathos, it is one of his best efforts.
+
+_A Tale of Two Cities_ is a gloomy but vivid story of the French
+Revolution, which has by no means the popularity of his other works.
+
+In _Hard Times_, a shorter story, he has shown the evil consequences of a
+hard, statistical, cramming education, in which the sympathies are
+repressed, and the mind made a practical machine. The failure of Gradgrind
+has warned many a parent from imitating him.
+
+_Great Expectations_ failed to fulfil the promise of the name; but Joe
+Gargery is as original a character as any he had drawn.
+
+His last completed story is _Our Mutual Friend_, which, although unequal
+to his best novels, has still original characters and striking scenes. The
+rage for rising in the social scale ruins the Veneerings, and Podsnappery
+is a well-chosen name far the heartless dogmatism which rules in English
+society.
+
+Besides these splendid works, we must mention the delight he has given,
+and the good he has done in expanding individual and public charity, by
+his exquisite Christmas stories, of which _The Chimes_, _The Christmas
+Carol_, and _The Cricket on the Hearth_ are the best.
+
+His dramatic power has been fully illustrated by the ready adaptations of
+his novels to the stage; they are, indeed, in scenes, personages, costume,
+and interlocution, dramas in all except the form; and he himself was an
+admirable actor.
+
+
+HIS VARIED POWERS.--His tenderness is touching, and his pathos at once
+excites our sympathy. He does not tell us to feel or to weep, but he shows
+us scenes like those in the life of Smike, and in the sufferings and death
+of Little Nell, which so simply appeal to the heart that we are for the
+time forgetful of the wand which conjures them before us.
+
+Dickens is bold in the advocacy of truth and in denouncing error; he is
+the champion of honest poverty; he is the foe of class pretension and
+oppression; he is the friend of friendless children; the reformer of
+those whom society has made vagrants. Without many clear assertions of
+Christian doctrine, but with no negation of it, he believes in doing good
+for its own sake,--in self-denial, in the rewards which virtue gives
+herself. His faults are few and venial. His merry life smacks too much of
+the practical joke and the punch-bowl; he denounces cant in the
+self-appointed ministers of the gospel, but he is not careful to draw
+contrasted pictures of good pastors. His opinion seems to be based upon a
+human perfectibility. But for rare pictures of real life he has never been
+surpassed; and he has instructed an age, concerning itself, wisely,
+originally, and usefully. He has the simplicity of Goldsmith, and the
+truth to nature of Fielding and Smollett, without a spice of
+sentimentalism or of impurity; he has brought the art of prose fiction to
+its highest point, and he has left no worthy successor. He lived for years
+separated from his wife on the ground of incompatibility, and, during his
+later years at Gadshill, twenty miles from London, to avoid the
+dissipations and draughts upon his time in that city.
+
+
+SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA.--In 1868 he again visited America, to read
+portions of his own works. He was well received by the public; but society
+had learned its lesson on his former visit, and he was not overwhelmed
+with a hospitality he had so signally failed to appreciate. And if we had
+learned better, he had vastly improved; the genius had become a gentleman.
+His readings were a great pecuniary success, and at their close he made an
+amend which was graceful and proper; so that when he departed from our
+shores his former errors were fully condoned, and he left an admiring
+hemisphere behind him.
+
+In the glow of health, and while writing, in serial numbers, a very
+promising novel entitled _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_, he was struck by
+apoplexy, in June, 1870, and in a few hours was dead. England has hardly
+experienced a greater loss. All classes of men mourned when he was buried
+in Westminster Abbey, in the poets' corner, among illustrious writers,--a
+prose-poet, none of whom has a larger fame than he; a historian of his
+time of greater value to society than any who distinctively bear the
+title. His characters are drawn from life; his own experience is found in
+_Nicholas Nickleby_ and _David Copperfield_; _Micawber_ is a caricature of
+his own father. _Traddles_ is said to represent his friend Talfourd.
+_Skimpole_ is supposed to be an original likeness of Leigh Hunt, and
+William and Daniel Grant, of Manchester, were the originals of the
+_Brothers Cheeryble_.
+
+
+WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.--Dickens gives us real characters in the garb
+of fiction; but Thackeray uses fiction as the vehicle of social
+philosophy. Great name, second only to Dickens; he is not a story-teller,
+but an eastern Cadi administering justice in the form of apologue. Dickens
+is eminently dramatic; Thackeray has nothing dramatic, neither scene nor
+personage. He is Democritus the laughing philosopher, or Jupiter the
+thunderer; he arraigns vice, pats virtue on the shoulder, shouts for
+muscular Christianity, uncovers shams,--his personages are only names.
+Dickens describes individuals; Thackeray only classes: his men and women
+are representatives, and, with but few exceptions, they excite our sense
+of justice, but not our sympathy; the principal exception is _Colonel
+Newcome_, a real individual creation upon whom Thackeray exhausted his
+genius, and he stands alone.
+
+Thackeray was born in Calcutta, of an old Yorkshire family, in 1811. His
+father was in the civil service, and he was sent home, when a child of
+seven, for his education at the Charter House in London. Thence he was
+entered at Cambridge, but left without being graduated. An easy fortune of
+£20,000 led him to take life easily; he studied painting with somewhat of
+the desultory devotion he has ascribed to Clive Newcome, and, like that
+worthy, travelled on the Continent. Partly by unsuccessful investments,
+and partly by careless living, his means were spent, and he took up
+writing as a profession. The comic was his forte, and his early pieces,
+written under the pseudonym of Michael Angelo Fitzmarsh and George Fitz
+Boodle, are broadly humorous, but by no means in his later finished style.
+_The Great Hoggarty Diamond_ (1841) did not disclose his full powers.
+
+In 1841, _Punch_, a weekly comic illustrated sheet, was begun, and it
+opened to Thackeray a field which exactly suited him. Short scraps of
+comedy, slightly connected sketches, and the weekly tale of brick, chimed
+with his humor, and made him at once a favorite. The best of these serial
+contributions were _The Snob Papers_: they are as fine specimens of
+humorous satire as exist in the language. But these would not have made
+him famous, as they did not disclose his power as a novelist.
+
+
+VANITY FAIR.--This was done by his _Vanity Fair_, which was published, in
+monthly numbers, between 1846 and 1848. It was at once popular, and is the
+most artistic of all his works. He called it a novel without a hero, and
+he is right; the mind repudiates all aspirants for the post, and settles
+upon poor Major Sugar-Plums as the best man in it. He could not have said
+_without a heroine_, for does not the world since ring with the fame of
+Becky Sharpe, the cleverest and wickedest little woman in England? The
+virtuous reader even is sorry that Becky must come to grief, as, with a
+proper respect to morality, the novelist makes her.
+
+Never had the Vanity Fair of European society received so scathing a
+dissection; and its author was immediately recognized as one of the
+greatest living satirists and novelists. If he adheres more to the old
+school of Fielding, who was his model, in his plots and handling of the
+story, he was evidently original in his satire.
+
+In 1847, upon the completion of this work, he began his _History of
+Pendennis_, in serial numbers, in which he presents the hero, Arthur
+Pendennis, as an average youth of the day, full of faults and foibles, but
+likewise generous and repentant. Here he enlists the sympathies which one
+never feels for perfection; and here, too, he portrays female loveliness
+and endurance in his Mrs. Pendennis and Laura. Arthur is a purer Tom Jones
+and Laura a superior Sophia Western.
+
+In 1851 he gave a course of lectures, repeated in America the next year,
+on "the English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century." There was no one
+better fitted to write such a course; he felt with them and was of them.
+But if this enabled him to present them sympathetically, it also caused
+him to overrate them, and in some cases to descend to the standpoint of
+their own partial views. He is wrong in his estimate of Swift, and too
+eulogistic of Addison; but he is thoroughly English in both.
+
+
+HENRY ESMOND.--The study of history necessary to prepare these led to his
+undertaking a novel on the time of Queen Anne, entitled _The History of
+Henry Esmond, Esq., written by himself_. His appreciation of the age is
+excellent; but the book, leaving for the most part the comic field in
+which he was most at home, is drier and less read than his others; as an
+historical presentation a great success, with rare touches of pathos; as a
+work of fiction not equal to his other stories. The comic muse assumes a
+tragic, or at least a very sombre, dress. We have a portraiture of Queen
+Anne in her last days, and a sad picture of him who, to the Protestant
+succession, was the pretender, and to the hopeful Jacobites, James III.
+The character of Marlborough is given with but little of what was really
+meritorious in that great captain.
+
+His novel of _Pendennis_ gave him, after the manner of Bulwer's _Caxton_,
+an editor in _Arthur Pendennis_, who presents us _The Newcomes, Memoirs of
+a Most Respectable Family_, which he published in a serial form,
+completing it in 1855.
+
+
+THE NEWCOMES.--In that work we have the richest culture, the finest
+satire, and the rarest social philosophy. The character--the hero by
+pre-eminence--is Colonel Newcome, a nobleman of nature's creation,
+generous, simple, a yearningly affectionate father, a friend to all the
+poor and afflicted, one of the best men ever delineated by a novelist; few
+hearts are so hard as not to be touched by the story of his death in his
+final retirement at the Charter House. When, surrounded by weeping
+friends, he heard the bell, "a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face,
+and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said 'Adsum,' and fell
+back: it was the word we used at school when names were called; and, lo!
+he, whose heart was that of a little child, had answered to his name, and
+stood in the presence of the Master."
+
+
+THE GEORGES.--While he was writing _The Newcomes_, he had prepared a
+course of four lectures on the _Four Georges_, kings of England, with
+which he made his second visit to the United States, and which he
+delivered in the principal cities, to make a fund for his daughters and
+for his old age. It was entirely successful, and he afterwards read them
+in England and Scotland. They are very valuable historically, as they give
+us the truth with regard to men whose reigns were brilliant and on the
+whole prosperous, but who themselves, with the exception of the third of
+the name, were as bad men as ever wore crowns. George III. was continent
+and honest, but a maniac, and Mr. Thackeray has treated him with due
+forbearance and eulogy.
+
+In 1857, Mr. Thackeray was a candidate for Parliament from Oxford, but
+was defeated by a small majority; his conduct in the election was so
+magnanimous, that his defeat may be regarded as an advantage to his
+reputation.
+
+In the same year he began _The Virginians_, which may be considered his
+failure; it is historically a continuation of _Esmond_,--some of the
+English characters, the Esmonds in Virginia, being the same as in that
+work. But his presentation and estimate of Washington are a caricature,
+and his sketch of General James Wolfe, the hero of Quebec, is tame and
+untrue to life. His descriptions of Virginia colonial life are unlike the
+reality; but where he is on his own ground, describing English scenes and
+customs in that day, he is more successful. To paint historical characters
+is beyond the power of his pencil, and his Doctor Johnson is not the man
+whom Boswell has so successfully presented.
+
+In 1860 he originated the _Cornhill Magazine_, to which his name gave
+unusual popularity: it attained a circulation of one hundred
+thousand--unprecedented in England. In that he published _Lovel the
+Widower_, which was not much liked, and a charming reproduction of the
+Newcomes,--for it is nothing more,--entitled _The Adventures of Philip on
+His Way through the World_. Philip is a more than average Englishman, with
+a wicked father and rather a stupid wife; but "the little sister" is a
+star--there is no finer character in any of his works. _Philip_, in spite
+of its likeness to _The Newcomes_, is a delightful book.
+
+With an achieved fame, a high position, a home which he had just built at
+Kensington, a large income, he seemed to have before him as prosperous an
+old age as any one could desire, when, such are the mysteries of
+Providence, he was found dead in his room on the morning of December 24,
+1863.
+
+
+ESTIMATE OF HIS POWERS.--Thackeray's excellences are manifest: he was the
+master of idiomatic English, a great moralist and reformer, and the king
+of satire, all the weapons of which he managed with perfect skill. He had
+a rapier for aristocratic immunities of evil, arrows to transfix
+prescriptions and shams; and with snobs (we must change the figure) he
+played as a cat does with a mouse, torturing and then devouring. In the
+words of Miss Bronté, "he was the first social regenerator of the day, the
+very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the
+warped system of things." But this was his chief and glorious strength: in
+the truest sense, he was a satirist and a humorist, but not a novelist; he
+could not create character. His dramatic persons do not speak for
+themselves; he tells us what they are and do. His mission seems to have
+been to arraign and demolish evil rather than to applaud good, and thus he
+enlists our sinless anger as crusaders rather than our sympathy as
+philanthropists. In Dickens we are sometimes disposed to skip a little, in
+our ardor, to follow the plot and find the dénouement. In Thackeray we
+read every word, for it is the philosophy we want; the plot and personages
+are secondary, as indeed he considered them; for he often tells us, in the
+time of greatest depression of his hero, that it will all come out right
+at the end,--that Philip will marry Charlotte, and have a good income,
+while the poor soul is wrestling with the _res augusta domi_. Dickens and
+Thackeray seemed to draw from each other in their later works; the former
+philosophizing more in his _Little Dorrit_ and _Our Mutual Friend_, and
+the latter attempting more of the descriptive in _The Newcomes_ and
+_Philip_. Of minor pieces we may mention his _Rebecca_ and _Rowena_, and
+his _Kickleburys on the Rhine_; his _Essay on Thunder_ and _Small Beer_;
+his _Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo_, in 1846, and his
+published collection of smaller sketches called _The Roundabout Papers_.
+That Thackeray was fully conscious of the dignity of his functions may be
+gathered from his own words in _Henry Esmond_. "I would have history
+familiar rather than heroic, and think Mr. Hogarth and Mr. Fielding.
+[and, we may add, Mr. Thackeray,] will give our children a much better
+idea of the manners of that age in England than the _Court Gazette_ and
+the newspapers which we get thence." At his death he left an unfinished
+novel, entitled _Dennis Duval_. A gifted daughter, who was his kind
+amanuensis. Miss ANNE E. THACKERAY, has written several interesting tales,
+among which are _The Village on the Cliff_ and _The Story of Elizabeth_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+THE LATER WRITERS.
+
+
+   Charles Lamb. Thomas Hood. Thomas de Quincey. Other Novelists. Writers
+   on Science and Philosophy.
+
+
+CHARLES LAMB.--This distinguished writer, although not a novelist like
+Dickens and Thackeray, in the sense of having produced extensive works of
+fiction, was, like them, a humorist and a satirist, and has left
+miscellaneous works of rare merit. He was born in London, and was the son
+of a servant to one of the Benches of the Inner Temple; he was educated at
+Christ's Hospital, where he became the warm friend of Coleridge. In 1792
+he received an appointment as clerk in the South Sea House, which he
+retained until 1825, when, owing to the distinction he had obtained in the
+world of letters, he was permitted to retire with a pension of £450. He
+describes his feelings on this happy release from business, in his essay
+on _The Superannuated Man_. He was an eccentric man, a serio-comic
+character, whose sad life is singularly contrasted with his irrepressible
+humor. His sister, whom he has so tenderly described as Bridget Elia, in a
+fit of insanity killed their mother with a carving-knife, and Lamb devoted
+himself to her care.
+
+He was a poet, and left quaint and beautiful album verses and minor
+pieces. As a dramatist, he is known by his tragedy _John Woodvil_, and the
+farce _Mr. H----_, neither of which was a success. But he has given us in
+his _Specimens of Old English Dramatists_ the result of great reading and
+rare criticism.
+
+But it is chiefly as a writer of essays and short stories that he is
+distinguished. The _Essays of Elia_, in their vein, mark an era in the
+literature; they are light, racy, seemingly dashed off, but really full of
+his reading of the older English authors. Indeed, he is so quaint in
+thought and style, that he seems an anachronism--a writer of the
+Elizabethan period returned to life in this century. He bubbles over with
+puns, jests, and repartees; and although not popular in the sense of
+reaching the multitude, he is the friend and companion of congenial
+readers. Among his essays, we may mention the stories of _Rosamund Gray_
+and _Old Blind Margaret_. _Dream Children_ and _The Child Angel_ are those
+of greatest power; but every one he has written is charming. His sly hits
+at existing abuses are designed to laugh them away. He was the favorite of
+his literary circle, and as a talker had no superior. After a life of
+care, not unmingled with pleasures, he died in 1834. Lamb's letters are
+racy, witty, idiomatic, and unlabored; and, as most of them are to
+colleagues in literature and on subjects of social and literary interest,
+they are important aids in studying the history of his period.
+
+
+THOMAS HOOD.--The greatest humorist, the best punster, and the ablest
+satirist of his age, Hood attacked the social evils around him with such
+skill and power that he stands forth as a philanthropist. He was born in
+London in 1798, and, after a limited education, he began to learn the art
+of engraving; but his pen was more powerful than his burin. He soon began
+to contribute to the _London Magazine_ his _Whims and Oddities_; and, in
+irregular verse, satirized the would-be great men of the time, and the
+eccentric legislation they proposed in Parliament. These short poems are
+full of puns and happy _jeux de mots_, and had a decided effect in
+frustrating the foolish plans. After this he published _National Tales_,
+in the same comic vein; but also produced his exquisite serious pieces,
+_The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies_, _Hero and Leander_, and others, all
+of which are striking and tasteful. In 1838 he commenced _The Comic
+Annual_, which appeared for several years, brimful of mirth and fun. He
+was editor of various magazines,--_The New Monthly_, and _Hood's
+Magazine_. For _Punch_ he wrote _The Song of the Shirt_, and _The Bridge
+of Sighs_. No one can compute the good done by both; the hearts touched;
+the pockets opened. The sewing women were better paid, more cared for,
+elevated in the social scale; and many of them saved from that fate which
+is so touchingly chronicled in _The Bridge of Sighs_. Hood was a true poet
+and a great poet. _Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg_ is satire, story,
+epic, comedy, in one.
+
+If he owed to Smollett's _Humphrey Clinker_ the form of his _Up the
+Rhine_, he has equalled Smollett in the narrative, in the variety of
+character, and in the admirable cacography of Martha Penny. His
+caricatures fasten facts in the memory, and every tourist up the Rhine
+recognizes Hood's personages wherever he lands.
+
+After a life of ill-health and pecuniary struggle, Hood died, greatly
+lamented, on the 3d of May, 1845, and left no successor to wield his
+subtle pen.
+
+
+THOMAS DE QUINCEY (1785-1859).--This singular author, and very learned and
+original thinker, owes much of his reputation to the evil habit of
+opium-eating, which affected his personal life and authorship. His most
+popular work is _The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_, which
+interests the reader by its curious pictures of the abnormal conditions in
+which he lived and wrote. He abandoned this noxious practice in the year
+1820. He produced much which he did not publish; and his writings all
+contain a suggestion of strength and scholarship, a surplus beyond what he
+has given to the world. There are numerous essays and narratives, among
+which his paper entitled _Murder considered as One of the Fine Arts_ is
+especially notable. His prose is considered a model of good English.
+
+The death of Dickens and Thackeray left England without a novelist of
+equal fame and power, but with a host of scholarly and respectable pens,
+whose productions delight the popular taste, and who are still in the tide
+of busy authorship.
+
+Our purpose is already accomplished, and we might rest without the
+proceeding beyond the middle of the century; but it will be proper to make
+brief mention of those, some of whom have already departed, but many of
+whom still remain, and are producing new works, who best illustrate the
+historical value and teachings of English literature, and whose writings
+will be read in the future for their delineations of the habits and
+conditions of the present period.
+
+
+
+OTHER NOVELISTS.
+
+
+_Captain Frederick Marryat_, of the Royal Navy, 1792-1848: in his sea
+novels depicts naval life with rare fidelity, and with, a roystering
+joviality which makes them extremely entertaining. The principal of these
+are _Frank Mildmay_, _Newton Forster_, _Peter Simple_, and _Midshipman
+Easy_. His works constitute a truthful portrait of the British Navy in the
+beginning of the eighteenth century, and have influenced many
+high-spirited youths to choose a maritime profession.
+
+_George P. R. James_, 1806-1860: is the author of nearly two hundred
+novels, chiefly historical, which have been, in their day, popular. It was
+soon found, however, that he repeated himself, and the sameness of
+handling began to tire his readers. His "two travellers," with whom he
+opens his stories, have become proverbially ridiculous. But he has
+depicted scenes in modern history with skill, and especially in French
+history. His _Richelieu_ is a favorite; and in his _Life of Charlemagne_
+he has brought together the principal events in the career of that
+distinguished monarch with logical force and historical accuracy.
+
+_Benjamin d'Israeli_, born 1805: is far more famous as a persevering,
+acute, and able statesman than as a novelist. In proof of this, having
+surmounted unusual difficulties, he has been twice Chancellor of the
+Exchequer and once Prime Minister of England. Among his earlier novels,
+which are pictures of existing society, are: _Vivian Gray_, _Contarini
+Fleming_, _Coningsby_, and _Henrietta Temple_. In _The Wondrous Tale of
+Alroy_ he has described the career of that singular claimant to the
+Jewish Messiahship. _Lothair_, which was published in 1869, is the story
+of a young nobleman who was almost enticed to enter the Roman Catholic
+Church. The descriptions of society are either very much overwrought or
+ironical; but his knowledge of State craft and Church craft renders the
+book of great value to the history of religious polemics. His father,
+_Isaac d'Israeli_, is favorably known as the author of _The Curiosities of
+Literature_, _The Amenities of Literature_, and _The Quarrels of Authors_.
+
+_Charles Lever_, 1806-1872: he was born in Dublin, and, after a partial
+University career, studied medicine. He has embodied his experience of
+military life in several striking but exaggerated works,--among these are:
+_The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer_, _Charles O'Malley_, and _Jack
+Hinton_. He excels in humor and in picturesque battle-scenes, and he has
+painted the age in caricature. Of its kind, _Charles O'Malley_ stands
+pre-eminent: the variety of character is great; all classes of military
+men figure in the scenes, from the Duke of Wellington to the inimitable
+Mickey Free. He was for some time editor of the _Dublin University
+Magazine_, and has written numerous other novels, among which are: _Roland
+Cashel_, _The Knight of Gwynne_, and _The Dodd Family Abroad_; and, last
+of all, _Lord Kilgobbin_.
+
+_Charles Kingsley_, born 1809: this accomplished clergyman, who is a canon
+of Chester, is among the most popular English writers,--a poet, a
+novelist, and a philosopher. He was first favorably known by a poetical
+drama on the story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, entitled _The Saint's
+Tragedy_. Among his other works are: _Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet_;
+_Hypatia, the Story of a Virgin Martyr_; _Andromeda; Westward Ho! or the
+Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh_; _Two Years Ago_; and _Hereward, the Last
+of the English_. This last is a very vivid historical picture of the way
+in which the man of the fens, under the lead of this powerful outlaw, held
+out against William the Conqueror. The busy pen of Kingsley has produced
+numerous lectures, poems, reviews, essays, and some plain and useful
+sermons. He is now Professor of Modern History at Cambridge.
+
+_Charlotte Bronté_, 1816-1855: if of an earlier period, this gifted woman
+would demand a far fuller mention and a more critical notice than can be
+with justice given of a contemporary. She certainly wrote from the depths
+of her own consciousness. _Jane Eyre_, her first great work, was received
+with intense interest, and was variously criticized. The daughter of a
+poor clergyman at Haworth, and afterwards a teacher in a school at
+Brussels, with little knowledge of the world, she produced a powerful book
+containing much curious philosophy, and took rank at once among the first
+novelists of the age. Her other works, if not equal to _Jane Eyre_, are
+still of great merit, and deal profoundly with the springs of human
+action. They are: _The Professor_, _Villette_, and _Shirley_. Her
+characters are portraits of the men and women around her, painted from
+life; and she speaks boldly of motives and customs which other novelists
+have touched very delicately. She had two gifted sisters, who were also
+successful novelists; but who died young. Miss Bronté died a short time
+after her marriage to Mr. Nichol, her father's curate. _Mrs. Elizabeth
+Gaskell_, her near friend, and the author of a successful novel called
+_Mary Barton_, has written an interesting biography of Mrs. Nichol.
+
+_George Eliot_, born 1820: under this pseudonym, Miss Evans has written
+several works of great interest. Among these are: _Adam Bede_; _The Mill
+on the Floss_; _Romola_, an Italian story; _Felix Holt_; and _Silas
+Marner_. Simple, and yet eminently dramatic in scene, character, and
+interlocution, George Eliot has painted pictures from middle and common
+life, and is thus the exponent of a large humanity. She is now the wife of
+the popular author, G. H. Lewes.
+
+_Dinah Maria Muloch_ (Mrs. Craik), born 1826: a versatile writer. She is
+best known by her novels entitled _John Halifax_ and _The Ogilvies_.
+
+_Wilkie Collins_, born 1824: he is the son of a landscape-painter, and is
+renowned for his curious and well-concealed plots, phantom-like
+characters, and striking effects. Among his novels the best known are:
+_Antonina_, _The Dead Secret_, _The Woman in White_, _No Name_,
+_Armadale_, _The Moonstone_, and _Man and Wife_. There is a sameness in
+these works; and yet it is evident that the author has put his invention
+on the rack to create new intrigues, and to mystify his reader from the
+beginning to the end of each story.
+
+_Charles Reade_, born 1814: he is one of the most prolific writers of the
+day, as well as one of the most readable in all that he has written. He
+draws many impassioned scenes, and is as sensuous in literature as Rubens
+in art. Among his principal works are: _White Lies_, _Love Me Little, Love
+Me Long_; _The Cloister and The Hearth_; _Hard Cash_, and _Griffith
+Gaunt_, which convey little, if any, practical instruction. His _Never Too
+Late to Mend_ is of great value in displaying the abuses of the prison
+system in England; and his _Put Yourself in His Place_ is a very powerful
+attack upon the Trades' Unions. A singular epigrammatic style keeps up the
+interest apart from the story.
+
+_Mary Russell Mitford_, 1786-1855: she was a poet and a dramatist, but is
+chiefly known by her stories. In the collection called _Our Village_, she
+has presented beautiful and simple pictures of English country life which
+are at once touching and instructive.
+
+_Charlotte Mary Yonge_, born 1823: among the many interesting works of
+this author, _The Heir of Redclyff_ is the first and best. This was
+followed by _Daisy Chain_, _Heartsease_, _The Clever Woman of the Family_,
+and numerous other works of romance and of history,--all of which are
+valuable for their high tone of moral instruction and social manners.
+
+_Anthony Trollope_, born 1815: he and his brother, Thomas Adolphus
+Trollope, are sons of that Mrs. Frances Trollope who abused our country in
+her work entitled _The Domestic Manners of the Americans_, in terms that
+were distasteful even to English critics. Anthony Trollope is a successful
+writer of society-novels, which, without being of the highest order, are
+faithful in their portraitures. Among those which have been very popular
+are: _Barchester Towers_, _Framley Parsonage_, _Doctor Thorne_, and _Orley
+Farm_, He travelled in the United States, and has published a work of
+discernment entitled _North America_. His brother Thomas is best known by
+his _History of Florence to the Fall of the Republic_.
+
+
+_Thomas Hughes_, born 1823: the popular author of _Tom Brown's School-Days
+at Rugby_, and _Tom Brown at Oxford_,--books which display the workings of
+these institutions, and set up a standard for English youth. The first is
+the best, and has made him famous.
+
+
+
+WRITERS ON SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.
+
+
+Although these do not come strictly within the scope of English
+literature, they are so connected with it in the composition of general
+culture, and give such a complexion to the age, that it is well to mention
+the principal names.
+
+_Sir William Hamilton_, 1788-1856: for twenty years Professor of Logic and
+Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. His voluminous lectures on
+both these subjects were edited, after his death, by Mansel and Veitch,
+and have been since of the highest authority.
+
+_William Whewell_, 1795-1866: for some time Master of Trinity College,
+Cambridge. He has written learnedly on many subjects: his most valuable
+works are: _A History of the Inductive Sciences_, _The Elements of
+Morality_, and _The Plurality of Worlds_. Of Whewell it has been pithily
+said, that "science was his forte, and omniscience his foible."
+
+_Richard Whately, D.D._, 1787-1863: he was appointed in 1831 Archbishop
+of Dublin and Kildare, in Ireland. His chief works are: _Elements of
+Logic_, _Elements of Rhetoric_, and _Lectures on Political Economy_. He
+gave a new impetus to the study of Logic and Rhetoric, and presented the
+formal logic of Aristotle anew to the world; thus marking a distinct epoch
+in the history of that much controverted science.
+
+_John Ruskin_, born 1819: he ranks among the most original critics in art;
+but is eccentric in his opinions. His powers were first displayed in his
+_Modern Painters_. In his _Seven Lamps of Architecture_ he has laid down
+the great fundamental principles of that art, among the forms of which the
+Gothic claims the pre-eminence. These are further carried out in _The
+Stones of Venice_. He is a transcendentalist and a pre-Raphaelite, and
+exceedingly dogmatic in stating his views. His descriptive powers are very
+great.
+
+_Hugh Miller_, 1802-1856: an uneducated mechanic, he was a brilliant
+genius and an observant philosopher. His best works are: _The Old Red
+Sandstone_, _Footprints of the Creator_, and _The Testimonies of the
+Rocks_. He shot himself in a fit of insanity.
+
+_John Stuart Mill_, born 1806: the son of James Mill, the historian of
+India. He was carefully educated, and has written on many subjects. He is
+best known by his _System of Logic_; his work on _Political Economy_; and
+his _Treatise on Liberty_. Each of these topics being questions of
+controversy, Mr. Mill states his views strongly in respect to opposing
+systems, and is very clear in the expression of his own dogmas.
+
+_Thomas Chalmers, D.D._, 1780-1847: this distinguished divine won his
+greatest reputation as an eloquent preacher. He was for some time
+Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of St. Andrew's, and wrote
+on _Natural Theology_, _The Evidences of Christianity_, and some lectures
+on _Astronomy_. But all his works are glowing sermons rather than
+philosophical treatises.
+
+_Richard Chevenix Trench, D.D._, born 1807: the present Archbishop of
+Dublin. He has written numerous theological works of popular value, among
+which are _Notes on the Parables, and on Miracles_. He has also published
+two series of charming lectures on English philology, entitled _The Study
+of Words_ and _English Past and Present_. They are suggestive and
+discursive rather than philosophical, but have incited many persons to
+pursue this delightful study.
+
+_Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D._, born 1815: Dean of Westminster. He was
+first known by his excellent biography of Dr. Arnold of Rugby; but has
+since enriched biblical literature by his lectures on _The Eastern Church_
+and on _The Jewish Church_. He accompanied the Prince of Wales on his
+visit to Palestine, and was not only eager in collecting statistics, but
+has reproduced them with poetic power.
+
+_Nicholas Wiseman, D.D._, 1802-1865: the head of the Roman Catholic Church
+in England. Cardinal Wiseman has written much on theological and
+ecclesiastical questions; but he is best known to the literary world by
+his able lectures on _The Connection between Science and Revealed
+Religion_, which are additionally valuable because they have no sectarian
+character.
+
+_Charles Darwin_, born 1809: although he began his career at an early age,
+his principal works are so immediately of the present time, and his
+speculations are so involved in serious controversies, that they are not
+within the scope of this work. His principal works are: _The Origin of
+Species by means of Natural Selection_, and _The Descent of Man_. His
+facts are curious and very carefully selected; but his conclusions have
+been severely criticized.
+
+_Frederick Max Müller_, born 1823: a German by birth. He is a professional
+Oxford, and has done more to popularize the Science of Language than any
+other writer. He has written largely on Oriental linguistics, and has
+given two courses of lectures on _The Science of Language_, which have
+been published, and are used as text-books. His _Chips from a German
+Workshop_ is a charming book, containing his miscellaneous articles in
+reviews and magazines.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+ENGLISH JOURNALISM.
+
+
+   Roman News Letters. The Gazette. The Civil War. Later Divisions. The
+   Reviews. The Monthlies. The Dailies. The London Times. Other
+   Newspapers.
+
+
+ROMAN NEWS LETTERS.--English serials and periodicals, from the very time
+of their origin, display, in a remarkable manner, the progress both of
+English literature and of English history, and form the most striking
+illustration that the literature interprets the history. In using the
+caption, "journalism," we include all forms of periodical
+literature--reviews, magazines, weekly and daily papers. The word
+journalism is, in respect to many of them, a misnomer, etymologically
+considered: it is a French corruption of _diurnal_, which, from the Latin
+_dies_, should mean a daily paper; but it is now generally used to include
+all periodicals. The origin of newspapers is quite curious, and antedates
+the invention of printing. The _acta diurna_, or journals of public
+events, were the daily manuscript reports of the Roman Government during
+the later commonwealth. In these, among other matters of public interest,
+every birth, marriage, and divorce was entered. As an illustration of the
+character of these brief entries, we have the satire of Petronius, which
+he puts in the mouth of the freed man Trimalchio: "The seventh of the
+Kalends of Sextilis, on the estate at Cumæ, were born thirty boys, twenty
+girls; were carried from the floor to the barn, 500,000 bushels of wheat;
+were broke 500 oxen. The same day the slave Mithridates was crucified for
+blasphemy against the Emperor's genius; the same day was placed in the
+chest the sum of ten millions sesterces, which could not be put out to
+use." Similar in character were the _Acta Urbana_, or city register, the
+_Acta Publica_, and the _Acta Senatus_, whose names indicate their
+contents. They were brief, almost tabular, and not infrequently
+sensational.
+
+
+THE GAZETTE.--After the downfall of Rome, and during the Dark Ages, there
+are few traces of journalism. When Venice was still in her palmy days, in
+1563, during a war with the Turks, printed bulletins were issued from time
+to time, the price for reading which was a coin of about three farthings'
+value called a _gazetta_; and so the paper soon came to be called a
+gazette. Old files, to the amount of thirty volumes, of great historical
+value, may be found in the Magliabecchian Library at Florence.
+
+Next in order, we find in France _Affiches_, or _placards_, which were
+soon succeeded by regular sheets of advertisement, exhibited at certain
+offices.
+
+As early as the time of the intended invasion of England by the Spanish
+Armada, about the year 1588, we find an account of its defeat and
+dispersion in the _Mercurie_, issued by Queen Elizabeth's own printer. In
+another number is the news of a plot for killing the queen, and a
+statement that instruments of torture were on board the vessels, to set up
+the Inquisition in London. Whether true or not, the newspaper said it; and
+the English people believed it implicitly.
+
+About 1600, with the awakening spirit of the people, there began to appear
+periodical papers containing specifically news from Germany, from Italy,
+&c. And during the Thirty Years' War there was issued a weekly paper
+called _The Certain News of the Present Week_. Although the word _news_ is
+significant enough, many persons considered it as made up of the initial
+letters representing the cardinal points of the compass, _N.E.W.S._, from
+which the curious people looked for satisfying intelligence.
+
+
+THE CIVIL WAR.--The progress of English journalism received a great
+additional impetus when the civil war broke out between Charles I. and his
+Parliament, in 1642. To meet the demands of both parties for intelligence,
+numbers of small sheets were issued: _Truths from York_ told of the rising
+in the king's favor there. There were: _Tidings from Ireland_, _News from
+Hull_, telling of the siege of that place in 1643; _The Dutch Spy_; _The
+Parliament Kite_; _The Secret Owl_; _The Scot's Dove_, with the
+olive-branch. Then flourished the _Weekly Discoverer_, and _The Weekly
+Discoverer Stripped Naked_. But these were only bare and partial
+statements, which excited rancor without conveying intelligence. "Had
+there been better vehicles for the expression of public opinion," says the
+author of the Student's history of England, "the Stuarts might have been
+saved from some of those schemes which proved so fatal to themselves."
+
+In the session of Parliament held in 1695, there occurred a revolution of
+great moment. There had been an act, enforced for a limited time, to
+restrain unlicensed printing, and under it censors had been appointed;
+but, in this year, the Parliament refused to re-enact or continue it, and
+thus the press found itself comparatively free.
+
+We have already referred to the powerful influence of the essayists in
+_The Tatler_, _Spectator_, _Guardian_, and _Rambler_, which may be called
+the real origin of the present English press.
+
+
+LATER DIVISIONS.--Coming down to the close of the eighteenth century, we
+find the following division of English periodical literature:
+_Quarterlies_, usually called _Reviews_; _Monthlies_, generally entitled
+_Magazines_; _Weeklies_, containing digests of news; and _Dailies_, in
+which are found the intelligence and facts of the present moment; and in
+this order, too, were the intellectual strength and learning of the time
+at first employed. The _Quarterlies_ contained the articles of the great
+men--the acknowledged critics in politics, literature, and art; the
+_Magazines_, a current literature of poetry and fiction; the _Weeklies_
+and _Dailies_, reporters' facts and statistics; the latter requiring
+activity rather than cleverness, and beginning to be a vehicle for
+extensive advertisements.
+
+This general division has been since maintained; but if the order has not
+been reversed, there can be no doubt that the great dailies have steadily
+risen; on most questions of popular interest in all departments, long and
+carefully written articles in the dailies, from distinguished pens,
+anticipate the quarterlies, or force them to seek new grounds and forms of
+presentation after forestalling their critical opinions. Not many years
+ago, the quarterlies subsidized the best talent; now the men of that class
+write for _The Times_, _Standard_, _Telegraph_, &c.
+
+Let us look, in the order we have mentioned, at some representatives of
+the press in its various forms.
+
+Each of the principal reviews represents a political party, and at the
+same time, in most cases, a religious denomination; and they owe much of
+their interest to the controversial spirit thus engendered.
+
+
+REVIEWS.--First among these, in point of origin, is the _Edinburgh
+Review_, which was produced by the joint efforts of several young, and
+comparatively unknown, gentlemen, among whom were Francis (afterwards)
+Lord Jeffrey, Lord Murray, Mr. (since Lord) Brougham, and the Rev. Sydney
+Smith. The latter gentleman was appointed first editor, and remained long
+enough in Edinburgh to edit the first number. Thereafter Jeffrey conducted
+it. The men were clever, witty, studious, fearless; and the Review was not
+only from the first a success, but its fiat was looked for by authors with
+fear and trembling. It became a vehicle for the efforts of the best minds.
+Macaulay wrote for it those brilliant miscellanies which at once
+established his fame, and gave it much of its popularity. In it Jeffrey
+attacked the Lake poetry, and incurred the hatred of Byron. Its
+establishment, in 1803, was an era in the world of English letters. The
+papers were not merely reviews, but monographs on interesting subjects--a
+new anatomy of history; it was in a general way an exponent, but quite an
+independent one, of the Whig party, or those who would liberally construe
+the Constitution,--putting Churchmen and Dissenters on the same platform;
+although published in Edinburgh, it was neither Scotch nor Presbyterian.
+It attacked ancient prescriptions and customs; agitated questions long
+considered settled both of present custom and former history; and thus
+imitated the champion knights who challenged all comers, and sustained no
+defeats.
+
+Occupying opposite ground to this is the great English review called the
+_London Quarterly_: it was established in 1809; is an uncompromising
+Tory,--entirely conservative as to monarchy, aristocracy, and Established
+Church. Its first editor was William Gifford; but it attained its best
+celebrity under the charge of John Gibson Lockhart, the son-in-law of Sir
+Walter Scott, a man of singular critical power. Among its distinguished
+contributors were Southey, Scott, Canning, Croker, and Wordsworth.
+
+The _North British Review_, which never attained the celebrity of either
+of these, and which has at length, in 1871, been discontinued, occupied
+strong Scottish and Presbyterian ground, and had its respectable
+supporters.
+
+But besides the parties mentioned, there is a floating one, growing by
+slow but sure accretion, know as the _Radical_. It includes men of many
+stamps, mainly utilitarian,--radical in politics, innovators, radical in
+religion, destructive as to systems of science and arts, a learned and
+inquisitive class,--rational, transcendental, and intensely dogmatic. As a
+vent for this varied party, the _Westminster Review_ was founded by Mr
+Bentham, in 1824. Its articles are always well written, and sometimes
+dangerous, according to our orthodox notions. It is supported by such
+writers as Mill, Bowring, and Buckle.
+
+Besides these there are numerous quarterlies of more or less limited
+scope, as in science or art, theology or law; such as _The Eclectic, The
+Christian Observer, The Dublin_, and many others.
+
+
+THE MONTHLIES.--Passing from the reviews to the monthlies, we find the
+range and number of these far greater, and the matter lighter. The first
+great representative of the modern series, and one that has kept its issue
+up to the present day, is Cave's _Gentleman's Magazine_, which commenced
+its career in 1831, and has been continued, after Cave's death, by Henry &
+Nichols, who wrote under the pseudonym of _Sylvanus Urban_. It is a strong
+link between past and present. Johnson sent his _queries_ to it while
+preparing his dictionary, and at the present day it is the favorite
+vehicle of antiquarians and historians. Passing by others, we find
+Blackwood's _Edinburgh Magazine_, first published in 1817. Originally a
+strong and bitter conservative, it kept up its popularity by its fine
+stories and poems. Among the most notable papers in Blackwood are the
+_Noctes Ambrosianæ_, in which Professor Wilson, under the pseudonym of
+_Christopher North_, took the greater part.
+
+Most of the magazines had little or no political proclivity, but were
+chiefly literary. Among them are _Fraser's_, begun in 1830, and the
+_Dublin University_, in 1832.
+
+A charming light literature was presented by the _New Monthly_: in
+politics it was a sort of set-off to Blackwood: in it Captain Marryat
+wrote his famous sea stories; and among other contributors are the ever
+welcome names of Hood, Lytton, and Campbell. The _Penny Magazine_, of
+Knight, was issued from 1832 to 1845.
+
+Quite a new era dawned upon the magazine world in the establishment of
+several new ones, under the auspices of famous authors; among which we
+mention _The Cornhill_, edited by Thackeray, in 1859, with unprecedented
+success, until his tender heart compelled him to resign it; _Temple Bar_,
+by Sala, in 1860, is also very successful.
+
+In 1850 Dickens began the issue of _Household Words_, and in 1859 this was
+merged into _All the Year Round_, which owed its great popularity to the
+prestige of the same great writer.
+
+Besides these, devoted to literature and criticism, there are also many
+monthlies issued in behalf of special branches of knowledge, art, and
+science, which we have not space to refer to.
+
+Descending in the order mentioned, we come to the weeklies, which, besides
+containing summaries of daily intelligence, also share the magazine field
+in brief descriptive articles, short stories, and occasional poems.
+
+A number of these are illustrated journals, and are of great value in
+giving us pictorial representations of the great events and scenes as they
+pass, with portraits of men who have become suddenly famous by some
+special act or appointment. Their value cannot be too highly appreciated;
+they supply to the mind, through the eye, what the best descriptions in
+letter-press could not give; and in them satire uses comic elements with
+wonderful effect. Among the illustrated weeklies, the _Illustrated London
+News_ has long held a high place; and within a short period _The Graphic_
+has exhibited splendid pictures of men and things of timely interest. Nor
+must we forget to mention _Punch_, which has been the grand jester of the
+realm since its origin. The best humorous and witty talent of England has
+found a vent in its pages, and sometimes its pathos has been productive of
+reform. Thackeray, Cuthbert Bede, Mark Lemon, Hood, have amused us in its
+pages, and the clever pencil of Leech has made a series of etching which
+will never grow tiresome. To it Thackeray contributed his _Snob Papers_,
+and Hood _The Song of the Shirt_.
+
+
+THE DAILIES.--But the great characteristic of the age is the daily
+newspaper, so common a blessing that we cease to marvel at it, and yet
+marvellous as it is common. It is the product of quick intelligence, of
+great energy, of concurrent and systematized labor, and, in order to
+fulfil its mission, it seems to subsidize all arts and invade all
+subjects--steam, mechanics, photography, phonography, and electricity. The
+news which it prints and scatters comes to it on the telegraph; long
+orations are phonographically reported; the very latest mechanical skill
+is used in its printing; and the world is laid at our feet as we sit at
+the breakfast-table and read its columns.
+
+I shall not go back to the origin of printing, to show the great progress
+that has been made in the art from that time to the present; nor shall I
+attempt to explain the present process, which one visit to a press-room
+would do far better than any description; but I simply refer to the fact
+that fifty years ago newspapers were still printed with the hand-press,
+giving 250 impressions per hour--no cylinder, no flying Hoe, (that was
+patented only in 1847.) Now, the ten-cylinder Hoe, steam driven, works off
+20,000 sheets in an hour, and more, as the stereotyper may multiply the
+forms. What an emblem of art-progress is this! Fifty years ago
+mail-coaches carried them away. Now, steamers and locomotives fly with
+them all over the world, and only enlarge and expand the story, the great
+facts of which have been already sent in outline by telegraph.
+
+Nor is it possible to overrate the value of a good daily paper: as the
+body is strengthened by daily food, so are we built up mentally and
+spiritually for the busy age in which we live by the world of intelligence
+contained in the daily journal. A great book and a good one is offered for
+the reading of many who have no time to read others, and a great culture
+in morals, religion, politics, is thus induced. Of course it would be
+impossible to mention all the English dailies. Among them _The London
+Times_ is pre-eminent, and stands highest in the opinion of the
+ministerial party, which fears and uses it.
+
+There was a time when the press was greatly trammelled in England, and
+license of expression was easily charged with constructive treason; but at
+present it is remarkably free, and the great, the government, and existing
+abuses, receive no soft treatment at its hands.
+
+_The London Times_ was started by John Walter, a printer, in 1788, there
+having been for three years before a paper called the _London Daily
+Universal Register_. In 1803 his son, John, went into partnership, when
+the circulation was but 1,000. Within ten years it was 5,000. In 1814,
+cleverly concealing the purpose from his workmen, he printed the first
+sheet ever printed by steam, on KÅ“nig's press. The paper passed, at his
+death, into the hands of his son, the third John, who is a scholar,
+educated at Eton and Oxford, like his father a member of Parliament, and
+who has lately been raised to the peerage. The _Times_ is so influential
+that it may well be called a third estate in the realm: its writers are
+men of merit and distinction; its correspondence secures the best foreign
+intelligence; and its travelling agents, like Russell and others, are the
+true historians of a war. English journalism, it is manifest, is eminently
+historical. The files of English newspapers are the best history of the
+period, and will, by their facts and comments, hereafter confront specious
+and false historians. Another thing to be observed is the impersonality of
+the British press, not only in the fact that names are withheld, but that
+the articles betray no authorship; that, in short, the paper does not
+appear as the glorification of one man or set of men, but like an
+unprejudiced relator, censor, and judge.
+
+Of the principal London papers, the _Morning Post_ (Liberal, but not
+Radical,) was begun in 1772. The _Globe_ (at first Liberal, but within a
+short time Tory), in 1802. The _Standard_ (Conservative), in 1827. The
+_Daily News_ (high-class Liberal), in 1846. The _News_ announced itself as
+pledged to _Principles of Progress and Improvement_. _The Daily Telegraph_
+was started in 1855, and claims the largest circulation. It is also a
+_Liberal_ paper.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX OF AUTHORS
+
+
+
+Addison, Joseph, 258.
+Akenside, Mark, 351.
+Alcuin, 40.
+Aldhelm, Abbot, 40.
+Alfred the Great, 42.
+Alfric, surnamed Germanicus, 40.
+Alison, Sir Archibald, 447.
+Alured of Rievaux, 49.
+Arbuthnot, John, 252.
+Arnold, Matthew, 438.
+Arnold, Thomas, 448.
+Ascham, Roger, 103.
+Ashmole, Elias, 232.
+Aubrey, John, 232.
+Austen, Jane, 411.
+
+Bacon, Francis, 156.
+Bacon, Roger, 59.
+Bailey, Philip James, 437.
+Baillie, Joanna, 368.
+Barbauld, Anne Letitia, 359.
+Barbour, John, 89.
+Barclay, Robert, 228.
+Barham, Richard Harris, 437.
+Barklay, Alexander, 102.
+Barrow, Isaac, 230.
+Baxter, Richard, 226.
+Beattie, James, 356.
+Beaumont, Francis, 154.
+Beckford, William, 412.
+Bede the Venerable, 37.
+Benoit, 52.
+Berkeley, George, 278.
+Blair, Hugh, 369.
+Blind Harry, 89.
+Bolingbroke, Viscount, (Henry St. John,) 278.
+Boswell, James, 321.
+Browne, Sir Thomas, 225.
+Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 432.
+Browning, Robert, 434.
+Buchanan, George, 126.
+Buckle, Henry Thomas, 447.
+Bulwer, Edward George Earle Lytton, 450.
+Bunyan, John, 228.
+Burke, Edmund, 369.
+Burnet, Gilbert, 231.
+Burney, Frances, 368.
+Burns, Robert, 397.
+Burton, Robert, 125.
+Butler, Samuel, 198.
+Byron, Rt. Hon. George Gordon, 384
+
+Caedmon, 34.
+Cambrensis, Giraldus, 49.
+Camden, William, 126.
+Campbell, Thomas, 401.
+Carlyle, Thomas, 444.
+Cavendish, George, 102.
+Caxton, William, 92.
+Chapman, George, 127.
+Chatterton, Thomas, 340.
+Chaucer, Geoffrey, 60.
+Chillingworth, William, 222.
+Coleridge, Hartley, 427.
+Coleridge, Henry Nelson, 427.
+Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 424.
+Collier, John Payne, 153.
+Collins, William, 357.
+Colman, George, 366.
+Colman, George, (The Younger,) 366.
+Congreve, William, 236.
+Cornwall, Barry, 436.
+Colton, Charles, 205.
+Coverdale, Miles, 170.
+Cowley, Abraham, 195.
+Cowper, William, 353.
+Crabbe, George, 400.
+Cumberland, Richard, 363.
+Cunningham, Allan, 412.
+
+Daniel, Samuel, 127.
+Davenant, Sir William, 205.
+Davies, Sir John, 127.
+Defoe, Daniel, 282.
+Dekker, Thomas, 154.
+De Quincey, Thomas, 468.
+Dickens, Charles, 452.
+Dixon, William Hepworth, 449.
+Donne, John, 127.
+Drayton, Michael, 127.
+Dryden, John, 207.
+Dunbar, William, 90.
+Dunstan, (called Saint,) 41.
+
+Eadmer, 49.
+Edgeworth, Maria, 410.
+Erigena, John Scotus, 40.
+Etherege, Sir George, 238.
+Evelyn, John, 231.
+
+Falconer, William, 357.
+Farquhar, George, 238.
+Ferrier, Mary, 411.
+Fielding, Henry, 288.
+Fisher, John, 102.
+Florence of Worcester, 49.
+Foote, Samuel, 363.
+Ford, John, 154.
+Fox, George, 226.
+Froissart, Sire Jean, 58.
+Fronde, James Anthony, 448.
+Fuller, Thomas, 224.
+
+Gaimar, Geoffrey, 52.
+Garrick, David, 361.
+Gay, John, 252.
+Geoffrey, 52.
+Geoffrey of Monmouth, 48.
+Gibbon, Edward, 317
+Gillies, John, 441.
+Goldsmith, Oliver, 301.
+Gowen, John, 86.
+Gray, Thomas, 351.
+Greene, Robert, 136.
+Greville, Sir Fulke, 127.
+Grostête, Robert, 59.
+Grote, George, 440.
+
+Hakluyt, Richard, 126.
+Hall, Joseph, 221.
+Hallam, Henry, 448.
+Harvey, Gabriel, 110.
+Heber, Reginald, 436.
+Hemans, Mrs. Felicia Dorothea, 409.
+Henry of Huntingdon, 49.
+Hennyson, Robert, 90.
+Herbert, George, 203.
+Herrick, Robert, 204.
+Heywood, John, 131.
+Higden, Ralph, 50.
+Hobbes, Thomas, 125.
+Hogg, James, 412.
+Hollinshed, Raphael, 126.
+Hood, Thomas, 467.
+Hooker, Richard, 125.
+Hope, Thomas, 412.
+Hume, David, 311.
+Hunt, Leigh, 411.
+Hyde, Edward, Earl of Clarendon, 205.
+
+Ingelow, Jean, 437.
+Ingulphus, Abbot of Croyland, 49.
+Ireland, Samuel, 153.
+
+James I, (of Scotland,) 89.
+Johnson, Doctor Samuel, 324.
+Jonson, Ben, 153.
+Junius, 331.
+
+Keats, John, 407.
+Keble, John, 437.
+Knowles, James Sheridan, 436.
+Kyd, Thomas, 136.
+
+Lamb, Charles, 466.
+Landon, Letitia Elizabeth, 410.
+Langland, 56.
+Latimer, Hugh, 102.
+Layamon, 53.
+Lee, Nathaniel, 240.
+Leland, John, 102.
+Lingard, John, 446.
+Locke, John, 231.
+Lodge, Thomas, 135.
+Luc de la Barre, 52.
+Lydgate, John, 90.
+Lyly, John, 136.
+
+Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 441.
+Mackay, Charles, 437.
+Mackenzie, Henry, 307.
+Macpherson, Doctor James, 336.
+Mahon, Lord, 447.
+Mandevil, Sir John, 58.
+Manning, Robert, 59.
+Marlowe, Christopher, 134.
+Marston, John, 136.
+Massinger, 154.
+Matthew of Westminster, 49.
+Mestre, Thomas, 32.
+Milton, John, 174.
+Mitford, William, 444.
+Moore, Thomas, 390.
+More, Hannah, 367.
+More, Sir Thomas, 99.
+
+Napier. Sir William Francis Patrick, 447.
+Nash, Thomas, 136.
+Newton, Sir Isaac, 278.
+Norton, Mrs. Caroline Elizabeth, 410.
+
+Occleve, Thomas, 89.
+Ormulum, 54.
+Otway, Thomas, 239.
+
+Paley, William, 370.
+Paris, Matthew, 49.
+Parnell, Thomas, 252.
+Pecock, Reginald, 102.
+Peele, George, 136.
+Penn, William, 227.
+Pepys, Samuel, 232.
+Percy, Dr. Thomas, (Bishop,) 358.
+Philip de Than, 52.
+Pollok, Robert, 411.
+Pope, Alexander, 241.
+Prior, Matthew, 251.
+Purchas, Samuel, 126.
+
+Quarles, Francis, 203.
+
+Raleigh, Sir Walter, 126.
+Richard I., (CÅ“ur de Lion,) 52.
+
+Richardson, Samuel, 285.
+Robert of Gloucester, 55.
+Robertson, William, 315.
+Roger de Hovedin, 49.
+Rogers, Samuel, 403.
+Roscoe, William, 413.
+Rowe, Nicholas, 240.
+
+Sackville, Thomas, 127.
+Scott, Sir Michael, 59.
+Scott, Walter, 371.
+Shakspeare, William, 137.
+Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 405.
+Shenstone, William, 357.
+Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 364.
+Sherlock, William, 230.
+Shirley, 154.
+Sidney, Sir Philip, 107.
+Skelton, John, 95.
+Smollett, Tobias George, 292.
+South, Robert, 230.
+Southern, Thomas, 240.
+Southey, Robert, 421.
+Spencer, Edmund, 104.
+Steele, Sir Richard, 264.
+Sterne, Lawrence, 296.
+Still, John, 132.
+Stillingfleet, Edward, 230.
+Stow, John, 126.
+Strickland, Agnes, 447.
+Suckling, Sir John, 204.
+Surrey, Earl of, 98.
+Swift, Jonathan, 268.
+Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 437.
+
+Tailor, Robert, 136.
+Taylor, Jeremy, 223.
+Temple, Sir William, 277.
+Tennyson, Alfred, 428.
+Thackeray, Anne E., 465.
+Thackeray, William Makepeace, 459.
+Thirlwall, Connop, 441.
+Thomas of Ercildoun, 59.
+Thomson, James, 347.
+Tickell, Thomas, 252.
+Tupper, Martin Farquhar, 437.
+Turner, Sharon, 448.
+Tusser, Thomas, 102.
+Tyndale, William, 169.
+Tytler, Patrick Frazer, 446.
+
+Udall, Nicholas, 132.
+
+Vanbrugh, Sir John, 237.
+Vaughan, Henry, 205.
+Vitalis, Ordericus, 49.
+
+Wace, Richard, 51.
+Waller, Edmund, 204.
+Walpole, Horace, 321.
+Walton, Izaak, 202.
+Warton, Joseph, 368.
+Warton, Thomas, 368.
+Watts, Isaac, 252.
+
+Webster, 154.
+White, Henry Kirke, 358.
+Wiclif, John, 77.
+William of Jumièges, 49.
+William of Malmsbury, 47.
+William of Poictiers, 49.
+Wither, George, 203.
+Wolcot, John, 367.
+Wordsworth, William, 415.
+Wyat, Sir Thomas, 97.
+Wycherley, William, 235.
+
+Young, Edward, 253.
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+
+[1] His jurisdiction extended from Norfolk around to Sussex.
+
+[2] This is the usually accepted division of tribes; but Dr. Latham denies
+that the Jutes, or inhabitants of Jutland, shared in the invasion. The
+difficult question does not affect the scope of our inquiry.
+
+[3] Gibbon's Decline and Fall, c. lv.
+
+[4] H. Martin, Histoire de France, i. 53.
+
+[5] Vindication of the Ancient British Poems.
+
+[6] Craik's English Literature, i. 37.
+
+[7] Sharon Turner, History of the Anglo-Saxons, book ix., c. i.
+
+[8] Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary.
+
+[9] Kemble ("Saxon in England") suggests the resemblance between the
+fictitious landing of Hengist and Horsa "in three keels," and the Gothic
+tradition of the migration of Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Gepidæ to the
+mouth of the Vistula in the same manner. Dr. Latham (English Language)
+fixes the Germanic immigration into Britain at the middle of the fourth,
+instead of the middle of the fifth century.
+
+[10] Lectures on Modern History, lect, ii.
+
+[11] Sharon Turner.
+
+[12] Turner, ch. xii.
+
+[13] For the discussion of the time and circumstances of the introduction
+of French into law processes, see Craik, i. 117.
+
+[14] Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, i. 199. For an admirable
+summary of the bardic symbolisms and mythological types exhibited in the
+story of Arthur, see H. Martin, Hist. de France, liv. xx.
+
+[15] Craik says, (i. 198,) "Or, as he is also called, _Lawemon_--for the
+old character represented in this instance by our modern _y_ is really
+only a guttural, (and by no means either a _j_ or a _z_,) by which it is
+sometimes rendered." Marsh says, "Or, perhaps, _Lagamon_, for we do not
+know the sound of _y_ in this name."
+
+[16] Introduction to the Poets of Queen Elizabeth's Age.
+
+[17] So called from his having a regular district or _limit_ in which to
+beg.
+
+[18] Spelled also Wycliffe, Wicliff, and Wyklyf.
+
+[19] Am. ed., i. 94.
+
+[20] Wordsworth, Ecc. Son., xvii.
+
+[21] "The Joyous Science, as the profession of minstrelsy was termed, had
+its various ranks, like the degrees in the Church and in chivalry."--_Sir
+Walter Scott_, (_The Betrothed_.)
+
+[22] 1st, the real presence; 2d, celibacy; 3d, monastic vows; 4th, low
+mass; 5th, auricular confession; 6th, withholding the cup from the laity.
+
+[23] "The Earl of Surrey is said to have translated one of Virgil's books
+without rhyme, and, besides our tragedies, a few short poems had appeared
+in blank verse.... These petty performances cannot be supposed to have
+much influenced Milton; ... finding blank verse easier than rhyme, he was
+desirous of persuading himself that it is better."--_Lives of the
+Poets--Milton_.
+
+[24] From this dishonor Mr. Froude's researches among the statute books
+have not been able to lift him, for he gives system to horrors which were
+before believed to be eccentric; and, while he fails to justify the
+monarch, implicates a trembling parliament and a servile ministry, as if
+their sharing the crime made it less odious.
+
+[25] The reader's attention is called--or recalled--to the masterly
+etching of Sir Philip Sidney, in Motley's History of the United
+Netherlands. The low chant of the _cuisse rompue_ is especially pathetic.
+
+[26] This last claim of title was based upon the voyages of the Cabots,
+and the unsuccessful colonial efforts of Raleigh and Gilbert.
+
+[27] Froude, i. 65.
+
+[28] Introduction to fifth canto of Marmion.
+
+[29] Froude, i. 73.
+
+[30] Opening scene of The Merry Wives of Windsor.
+
+[31] Rev. A. Dyce attributes this play to Marlowe or Kyd.
+
+[32] The dates as determined by Malone are given: many of them differ from
+those of Drake and Chalmers.
+
+[33]
+
+    If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined
+    The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.
+
+_Pope, Essay on Man_.
+
+[34] Life of Addison.
+
+[35] Macaulay: Art. on Warren Hastings.
+
+[36] The handwriting of Junius professionally investigated by Mr. Charles
+P. Chabot. London, 1871.
+
+[37] H. C. Robinson, Diary II., 79.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of English Literature, Considered as an
+Interpreter of English History, by Henry Coppee
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of English Literature, Considered as an
+Interpreter of English History, by Henry Coppée
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History
+       Designed as a Manual of Instruction
+
+Author: Henry Coppée
+
+Release Date: February 26, 2005 [EBook #15176]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH LITERATURE, ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History.
+
+Designed as a _Manual of Instruction_.
+
+By
+
+Henry Coppée, LL.D.,
+
+President of the Lehigh University.
+
+   The Roman Epic abounds in moral and poetical defects; nevertheless it
+   remains the most complete picture of the national mind at its highest
+   elevation, the most precious document of national history, if the
+   history of an age is revealed in its ideas, no less than in its events
+   and incidents.--Rev. C. Merivale.
+
+   _History of the Romans under the Empire_, c. xli.
+
+Second Edition.
+Philadelphia:
+Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger.
+1873.
+
+
+
+
+Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by Claxton,
+Remsen & Haffelfinger, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at
+Washington.
+
+
+
+Stereotyped by J. Fagan & Son, Philadelphia.
+
+
+
+
+To The Right Reverend William Bacon Stevens, D.D., LL.D., Bishop Of
+Pennsylvania.
+
+My Dear Bishop:
+
+I desire to connect your name with whatever may be useful and valuable in
+this work, to show my high appreciation of your fervent piety, varied
+learning, and elegant literary accomplishments; and, also, far more than
+this, to record the personal acknowledgment that no man ever had a more
+constant, judicious, generous and affectionate brother, than you have been
+to me, for forty years of intimate and unbroken association.
+
+Most affectionately and faithfully yours,
+
+Henry Coppée.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+
+It is not the purpose of the author to add another to the many volumes
+containing a chronological list of English authors, with brief comments
+upon each. Such a statement of works, arranged according to periods, or
+reigns of English monarchs, is valuable only as an abridged dictionary of
+names and dates. Nor is there any logical pertinence in clustering
+contemporary names about a principal author, however illustrious he may
+be. The object of this work is to present prominently the historic
+connections and teachings of English literature; to place great authors in
+immediate relations with great events in history; and thus to propose an
+important principle to students in all their reading. Thus it is that
+Literature and History are reciprocal: they combine to make eras.
+
+Merely to establish this historic principle, it would have been sufficient
+to consider the greatest authors, such as Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare,
+Milton, Dryden, and Pope; but it occurred to me, while keeping this
+principle before me, to give also a connected view of the course of
+English literature, which might, in an academic curriculum, show students
+how and what to read for themselves. Any attempt beyond this in so
+condensed a work must prove a failure, and so it may well happen that some
+readers will fail to find a full notice, or even a mention, of some
+favorite author.
+
+English literature can only be studied in the writings of the authors here
+only mentioned; but I hope that the work will be found to contain
+suggestions for making such extended reading profitable; and that teachers
+will find it valuable as a syllabus for fuller courses of lectures.
+
+To those who would like to find information as to the best editions of the
+authors mentioned, I can only say that I at first intended and began to
+note editions: I soon saw that I could not do this with any degree of
+uniformity, and therefore determined to refer all who desire this
+bibliographic assistance, to _The Dictionary of Authors_, by my friend S.
+Austin Allibone, LL.D., in which bibliography is a strong feature. I am
+not called upon to eulogize that noble work, but I cannot help saying that
+I have found it invaluable, and that whether mentioned or not, no writer
+can treat of English authors without constant recurrence to its accurate
+columns: it is a literary marvel of our age.
+
+It will be observed that the remoter periods of the literature are those
+in which the historic teachings are the most distinctly visible; we see
+them from a vantage ground, in their full scope, and in the interrelations
+of their parts. Although in the more modern periods the number of writers
+is greatly increased, we are too near to discern the entire period, and
+are in danger of becoming partisans, by reason of our limited view.
+Especially is this true of the age in which we live. Contemporary history
+is but party-chronicle: the true philosophic history can only be written
+when distance and elevation give due scope to our vision.
+
+The principle I have laid down is best illustrated by the great literary
+masters. Those of less degree have been treated at less length, and many
+of them will be found in the smaller print, to save space. Those who study
+the book should study the small print as carefully as the other.
+
+After a somewhat elaborate exposition of English literature, I could not
+induce myself to tack on an inadequate chapter on American literature;
+and, besides, I think that to treat the two subjects in one volume would
+be as incongruous as to write a joint biography of Marlborough and
+Washington. American literature is too great and noble, and has had too
+marvelous a development to be made an appendix to English literature.
+
+If time shall serve, I hope to prepare a separate volume, exhibiting the
+stages of our literature in the Colonial period, the Revolutionary epoch,
+the time of Constitutional establishment, and the present period. It will
+be found to illustrate these historical divisions in a remarkable manner.
+
+H. C.
+
+The Lehigh University, _October_, 1872.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE HISTORICAL SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT.
+
+   Literature and Science--English Literature--General Principle--Celts
+   and Cymry--Roman Conquest--Coming of the Saxons--Danish Invasions--The
+   Norman Conquest--Changes in Language
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+LITERATURE A TEACHER OF HISTORY. CELTIC REMAINS.
+
+   The Uses of Literature--Italy, France, England--Purpose of the
+   Work--Celtic Literary Remains--Druids and Druidism--Roman
+   Writers--Psalter of Cashel--Welsh Triads and Mabinogion--Gildas and St.
+   Colm
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE AND HISTORY.
+
+   The Lineage of the Anglo-Saxon--Earliest Saxon Poem--Metrical
+   Arrangement--Periphrasis and Alliteration--Beowulf--Caedmon--Other
+   Saxon Fragments--The Appearance of Bede
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE VENERABLE BEDE AND THE SAXON CHRONICLE.
+
+   Biography--Ecclesiastical History--The Recorded Miracles--Bede's
+   Latin--Other Writers--The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: its Value--Alfred the
+   Great--Effect of the Danish Invasions
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE NORMAN CONQUEST AND ITS EARLIEST LITERATURE.
+
+   Norman Rule--Its Oppression--Its Benefits--William of
+   Malmesbury--Geoffrey of Monmouth--Other Latin Chronicles--Anglo-Norman
+   Poets--Richard Wace--Other Poets
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE MORNING TWILIGHT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
+
+   Semi-Saxon Literature--Layamon--The Ormulum--Robert of
+   Gloucester--Langland. Piers Plowman--Piers Plowman's Creed--Sir Jean
+   Froissart--Sir John Mandevil
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAUCER, AND THE EARLY REFORMATION.
+
+   A New Era: Chaucer--Italian Influence--Chaucer as a Founder--Earlier
+   Poems--The Canterbury Tales--Characters--Satire--Presentations of
+   Woman--The Plan Proposed
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAUCER (CONTINUED).--REFORMS IN RELIGION AND SOCIETY.
+
+   Historical Facts--Reform in Religion--The Clergy, Regular and
+   Secular--The Friar and the Sompnour--The Pardonere--The Poure
+   Persone--John Wiclif--The Translation of the Bible--The Ashes of Wiclif
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAUCER (CONTINUED).--PROGRESS OF SOCIETY, AND OF LANGUAGE.
+
+   Social Life--Government--Chaucer's English--His Death--Historical
+   Facts--John Gower--Chaucer and Gower--Gower's Language--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE BARREN PERIOD BETWEEN CHAUCER AND SPENSER.
+
+   Greek Literature--Invention of Printing. Caxton--Contemporary
+   History--Skelton--Wyatt--Surrey--Sir Thomas Moore--Utopia, and other
+   Works--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+SPENSER AND THE ELIZABETHAN AGE.
+
+   The Great Change--Edward VI. and Mary--Sidney--The Arcadia--Defence of
+   Poesy--Astrophel and Stella--Gabriel Harvey--Edmund Spenser: Shepherd's
+   Calendar--His Great Work
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE HISTORY IN THE FAERIE QUEENE.
+
+   The Faerie Queene--The Plan Proposed--Illustrations of the History--The
+   Knight and the Lady--The Wood of Error and the Hermitage--The
+   Crusades--Britomartis and Sir Artegal--Elizabeth--Mary Queen of
+   Scots--Other Works--Spenser's Fate--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE ENGLISH DRAMA.
+
+   Origin of the Drama--Miracle Plays--Moralities--First Comedy--Early
+   Tragedies--Christopher Marlowe--Other Dramatists--Playwrights and
+   Morals
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
+
+   The Power of Shakspeare--Meagre Early History--Doubts of his
+   Identity--What is known--Marries and goes to London--"Venus" and
+   "Lucrece"--Retirement and Death--Literary Habitudes--Variety of the
+   Plays--Table of Dates and Sources
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE (CONTINUED).
+
+   The Grounds of his Fame--Creation of Character--Imagination and
+   Fancy--Power of Expression--His Faults--Influence of
+   Elizabeth--Sonnets--Ireland and Collier--Concordance--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+BACON, AND THE RISE OF THE NEW PHILOSOPHY.
+
+   Birth and Early Life--Treatment of Essex--His Appointments--His
+   Fall--Writes Philosophy--Magna Instauratio--His Defects--His Fame--His
+   Essays
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE ENGLISH BIBLE.
+
+   Early Versions--The Septuagint--The Vulgate--Wiclif;
+   Tyndale--Coverdale; Cranmer--Geneva; Bishop's Bible--King James's
+   Bible--Language of the Bible--Revision
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+JOHN MILTON, AND THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH.
+
+   Historical Facts--Charles I.--Religious Extremes--Cromwell--Birth and
+   Early Works--Views of Marriage--Other Prose Works--Effects of the
+   Restoration--Estimate of his Prose
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE POETRY OF MILTON.
+
+   The Blind Poet--Paradise Lost--Milton and Dante--His
+   Faults--Characteristics of the Age--Paradise Regained--His
+   Scholarship--His Sonnets--His Death and Fame
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+COWLEY, BUTLER, AND WALTON.
+
+   Cowley and Milton--Cowley's Life and Works--His Fame--Butler's
+   Career--Hudibras--His Poverty and Death--Izaak Walton--The Angler; and
+   Lives--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+DRYDEN, AND THE RESTORED STUARTS.
+
+   The Court of Charles II.--Dryden's Early Life--The Death of
+   Cromwell--The Restoration--Dryden's Tribute--Annus Mirabilis--Absalom
+   and Achitophel--The Death of Charles--Dryden's Conversion--Dryden's
+   Fall--His Odes
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF THE GREAT REBELLION AND OF THE RESTORATION.
+
+   The English Divines--Hall--Chillingsworth--Taylor--Fuller--Sir T.
+   Browne--Baxter--Fox--Bunyan--South--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE DRAMA OF THE RESTORATION.
+
+   The License of the Age--Dryden--Wycherley--Congreve--Vanbrugh--
+   Farquhar--Etherege--Tragedy--Otway--Rowe--Lee--Southern
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+POPE, AND THE ARTIFICIAL SCHOOL.
+
+   Contemporary History--Birth and Early Life--Essay, on Criticism--Rape
+   of the Lock--The Messiah--The Iliad--Value of the Translation--The
+   Odyssey--Essay on Man--The Artificial School--Estimate of Pope--Other
+   Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+ADDISON, AND THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE.
+
+   The Character of the Age--Queen Anne--Whigs and Tories--George
+   I.--Addison: The Campaign--Sir Roger de Coverley--The Club--Addison's
+   Hymns--Person and Literary Character
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+STEELE AND SWIFT.
+
+   Sir Richard Steele--Periodicals--The Crisis--His Last Days--Jonathan
+   Swift: Poems--The Tale of a Tub--Battle of the Books--Pamphlets--M. B.
+   Drapier--Gulliver's Travels--Stella and Vanessa--His Character and
+   Death
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF MODERN FICTION.
+
+   The New Age--Daniel Defoe--Robinson Crusoe--Richardson--Pamela, and
+   Other Novels--Fielding--Joseph Andrews--Tom Jones--Its
+   Moral--Smollett--Roderick Random--Peregrine Pickle
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+STERNE, GOLDSMITH, AND MACKENZIE.
+
+   The Subjective School--Sterne: Sermons--Tristram Shandy--Sentimental
+   Journey--Oliver Goldsmith--Poems: The Vicar--Histories, and Other
+   Works--Mackenzie--The Man of Feeling
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE HISTORICAL TRIAD IN THE SCEPTICAL AGE.
+
+   The Sceptical Age--David Hume--History of England--Metaphysics--Essay
+   on Miracles--Robertson--Histories--Gibbon--The Decline and Fall
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+SAMUEL JOHNSON AND HIS TIMES.
+
+   Early Life and Career--London--Rambler and Idler--The Dictionary--Other
+   Works--Lives of the Poets--Person and Character--Style--Junius
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THE LITERARY FORGERS IN THE ANTIQUARIAN AGE.
+
+   The Eighteenth Century--James Macpherson--Ossian--Thomas
+   Chatterton--His Poems--The Verdict--Suicide--The Cause
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+POETRY OF THE TRANSITION SCHOOL.
+
+   The Transition Period--James Thomson--The Seasons--The Castle of
+   Indolence--Mark Akenside--Pleasures of the Imagination--Thomas
+   Gray--The Elegy. The Bard--William Cowper--The Task--Translation of
+   Homer--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THE LATER DRAMA.
+
+   The Progress of the Drama--Garrick--Foote--Cumberland--Sheridan--George
+   Colman--George Colman, the Younger--Other Dramatists and
+   Humorists--Other Writers on Various Subjects
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY: SCOTT.
+
+   Walter Scott--Translations and Minstrelsy--The Lay of the Last
+   Minstrel--Other Poems--The Waverley Novels--Particular
+   Mention--Pecuniary Troubles--His Manly Purpose--Powers
+   Overtasked--Fruitless Journey--Return and Death--His Fame
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY: BYRON AND MOORE.
+
+   Early Life of Byron--Childe Harold and Eastern Tales--Unhappy
+   Marriage--Philhellenism and Death--Estimate of his Poetry--Thomas
+   Moore--Anacreon--Later Fortunes--Lalla Rookh--His Diary--His Rank as
+   Poet
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY (CONTINUED).
+
+   Robert Burns--His Poems--His Career--George Crabbe--Thomas
+   Campbell--Samuel Rogers--P. B. Shelley--John Keats--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+WORDSWORTH, AND THE LAKE SCHOOL.
+
+   The New School--William Wordsworth--Poetical Canons--The Excursion and
+   Sonnets--An Estimate--Robert Southey--His Writings--Historical
+   Value--S. T. Coleridge--Early Life--His Helplessness--Hartley and H. N.
+   Coleridge
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+THE REACTION IN POETRY.
+
+   Alfred Tennyson--Early Works--The Princess--Idyls of the
+   King--Elizabeth B. Browning--Aurora Leigh--Her Faults--Robert
+   Browning--Other Poets
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+THE LATER HISTORIANS.
+
+   New Materials--George Grote--History of Greece--Lord Macaulay--History
+   of England--Its Faults--Thomas Carlyle--Life of Frederick II.--Other
+   Historians
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE LATER NOVELISTS AS SOCIAL REFORMERS.
+
+   Bulwer--Changes in Writers--Dickens's Novels--American Notes--His
+   Varied Powers--Second Visit to America--Thackeray--Vanity Fair--Henry
+   Esmond--The Newcomes--The Georges--Estimate of his Powers
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+THE LATER WRITERS.
+
+   Charles Lamb--Thomas Hood--Thomas de Quincey--Other Novelists--Writers
+   on Science and Philosophy
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+ENGLISH JOURNALISM.
+
+   Roman News Letters--The Gazette--The Civil War--Later Divisions--The
+   Reviews--The Monthlies--The Dailies--The London Times--Other Newspapers
+
+
+Alphabetical Index of Authors
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE HISTORICAL SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT.
+
+
+   Literature and Science. English Literature. General Principle. Celts
+   and Cymry. Roman Conquest. Coming of the Saxons. Danish Invasions. The
+   Norman Conquest. Changes in Language.
+
+
+
+LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.
+
+
+There are two words in the English language which are now used to express
+the two great divisions of mental production--_Science_ and _Literature_;
+and yet, from their etymology, they have so much in common, that it has
+been necessary to attach to each a technical meaning, in order that we may
+employ them without confusion.
+
+_Science_, from the participle _sciens_, of _scio, scire_, to know, would
+seem to comprise all that can be known--what the Latins called the _omne
+scibile_, or all-knowable.
+
+_Literature_ is from _litera_, a letter, and probably at one remove from
+_lino, litum_, to anoint or besmear, because in the earlier times a tablet
+was smeared with wax, and letters were traced upon it with a graver.
+Literature, in its first meaning, would, therefore, comprise all that can
+be conveyed by the use of letters.
+
+But language is impatient of retaining two words which convey the same
+meaning; and although science had at first to do with the fact of knowing
+and the conditions of knowledge in the abstract, while literature meant
+the written record of such knowledge, a far more distinct sphere has been
+given to each in later times, and special functions assigned them.
+
+In general terms, Science now means any branch of knowledge in which men
+search for principles reaching back to the ultimate, or for facts which
+establish these principles, or are classified by them in a logical order.
+Thus we speak of the mathematical, physical, metaphysical, and moral
+sciences.
+
+Literature, which is of later development as at present used, comprises
+those subjects which have a relation to human life and human nature
+through the power of the imagination and the fancy. Technically,
+literature includes _history, poetry, oratory, the drama_, and _works of
+fiction_, and critical productions upon any of these as themes.
+
+Such, at least, will be a sufficiently exact division for our purpose,
+although the student will find them overlapping each other's domain
+occasionally, interchanging functions, and reciprocally serving for each
+other's advantage. Thus it is no confusion of terms to speak of the poetry
+of science and of the science of poetry; and thus the great functions of
+the human mind, although scientifically distinct, co-operate in harmonious
+and reciprocal relations in their diverse and manifold productions.
+
+
+ENGLISH LITERATURE.--English Literature may then be considered as
+comprising the progressive productions of the English mind in the paths of
+imagination and taste, and is to be studied in the works of the poets,
+historians, dramatists, essayists, and romancers--a long line of brilliant
+names from the origin of the language to the present day.
+
+To the general reader all that is profitable in this study dates from the
+appearance of Chaucer, who has been justly styled the Father of English
+Poetry; and Chaucer even requires a glossary, as a considerable portion
+of his vocabulary has become obsolete and much of it has been modified;
+but for the student of English literature, who wishes to understand its
+philosophy and its historic relations, it becomes necessary to ascend to a
+more remote period, in order to find the origin of the language in which
+Chaucer wrote, and the effect produced upon him by any antecedent literary
+works, in the root-languages from which the English has sprung.
+
+
+GENERAL PRINCIPLE.--It may be stated, as a general principle, that to
+understand a nation's literature, we must study the history of the people
+and of their language; the geography of the countries from which they
+came, as well as that in which they live; the concurrent historic causes
+which have conspired to form and influence the literature. We shall find,
+as we advance in this study, that the life and literature of a people are
+reciprocally reflective.
+
+
+I. CELTS AND CYMRY.--Thus, in undertaking the study of English literature,
+we must begin with the history of the Celts and Cymry, the first
+inhabitants of the British Islands of whom we have any record, who had
+come from Asia in the first great wave of western migration; a rude,
+aboriginal people, whose languages, at the beginning of the Christian era,
+were included in one family, the _Celtic_, comprising the _British_ or
+_Cambrian_, and the _Gadhelic_ classes. In process of time these were
+subdivided thus:
+
+    The British into
+      _Welsh_, at present spoken in Wales.
+      _Cornish_, extinct only within a century.
+      _Armorican_, Bas Breton, spoken in French Brittany.
+    The Gadhelic into
+      _Gaelic_, still spoken in the Scottish Highlands.
+      _Irish_, or _Erse_, spoken in Ireland.
+      _Manx_, spoken in the Isle of Man.
+
+Such are the first people and dialects to be considered as the antecedent
+occupants of the country in which English literature was to have its
+birth.
+
+
+II. ROMAN CONQUEST.--But these Celtic peoples were conquered by the Romans
+under Cæsar and his successors, and kept in a state of servile thraldom
+for four hundred and fifty years. There was but little amalgamation
+between them and their military masters. Britain was a most valuable
+northern outpost of the Roman Empire, and was occupied by large garrisons,
+which employed the people in hard labors, and used them for Roman
+aggrandizement, but despised them too much to attempt to elevate their
+condition. Elsewhere the Romans depopulated, where they met with barbarian
+resistance; they made a solitude and called it peace--for which they gave
+a triumph and a cognomen to the conqueror; but in Britain, although
+harassed and endangered by the insurrections of the natives, they bore
+with them; they built fine cities like London and York, originally
+military outposts, and transformed much of the country between the Channel
+and the Tweed from pathless forest into a civilized residence.
+
+
+III. COMING OF THE SAXONS.--Compelled by the increasing dangers and
+troubles immediately around the city of Rome to abandon their distant
+dependencies, the Roman legions evacuated Britain, and left the people,
+who had become enervated, spiritless, and unaccustomed to the use of arms,
+a prey to their fierce neighbors, both from Scotland and from the
+continent.
+
+The Saxons had already made frequent incursions into Britain, while rival
+Roman chieftains were contesting for pre-eminence, and, as early as the
+third century, had become so troublesome that the Roman emperors were
+obliged to appoint a general to defend the eastern coast, known as _comes
+litoris Saxonici_, or count of the Saxon shore.[1]
+
+These Saxons, who had already tested the goodliness of the land, came when
+the Romans departed, under the specious guise of protectors of the Britons
+against the inroads of the Picts and Scots; but in reality to possess
+themselves of the country. This was a true conquest of race--Teutons
+overrunning Celts. They came first in reconnoitring bands; then in large
+numbers, not simply to garrison, as the Romans had done, but to occupy
+permanently. From the less attractive seats of Friesland and the basin of
+the Weser, they came to establish themselves in a charming country,
+already reclaimed from barbarism, to enslave or destroy the inhabitants,
+and to introduce their language, religion, and social institutions. They
+came as a confederated people of German race--Saxons, Angles, Jutes, and
+Frisians;[2] but, as far as the results of their conquest are concerned,
+there was entire unity among them.
+
+The Celts, for a brief period protected by them from their fierce northern
+neighbors, were soon enslaved and oppressed: those who resisted were
+driven slowly to the Welsh mountains, or into Cornwall, or across the
+Channel into French Brittany. Great numbers were destroyed. They left few
+traces of their institutions and their language. Thus the Saxon was
+established in its strength, and has since remained the strongest element
+of English ethnography.
+
+
+IV. DANISH INVASIONS.--But Saxon Britain was also to suffer from
+continental incursions. The Scandinavians--inhabitants of Norway, Sweden,
+and Denmark--impelled by the same spirit of piratical adventure which had
+actuated the Saxons, began to leave their homes for foreign conquest.
+"Impatient of a bleak climate and narrow limits, they started from the
+banquet, grasped their arms, sounded their horn, ascended their ships, and
+explored every coast that promised either spoil or settlement."[3] To
+England they came as Danes; to France, as Northmen or Normans. They took
+advantage of the Saxon wars with the British, of Saxon national feuds, and
+of that enervation which luxurious living had induced in the Saxon kings
+of the octarchy, and succeeded in occupying a large portion of the north
+and east of England; and they have exerted in language, in physical type,
+and in manners a far greater influence than has been usually conceded.
+Indeed, the Danish chapter in English history has not yet been fairly
+written. They were men of a singularly bold and adventurous spirit, as is
+evinced by their voyages to Iceland, Greenland, and thence to the Atlantic
+coast of North America, as early as the tenth and eleventh centuries. It
+is more directly to our purpose to observe their character as it is
+displayed in their conquest of the Frankish kingdom of Neustria, in their
+facile reception and ready assimilation of the Roman language and arts
+which they found in Gaul, and in their forcible occupancy, under William
+the Conqueror, of Saxon England, in 1066.
+
+
+V. THE NORMAN CONQUEST.--The vigor of the Normans had been trained, but
+not weakened by their culture in Normandy. They maintained their supremacy
+in arms against the efforts of the kings of France. They had long
+cultivated intimate relations with England, and their dukes had long
+hankered for its possession. William, the natural son of Duke
+Robert--known to history and musical romance as Robert le Diable--was a
+man of strong mind, tenacious purpose, and powerful hand. He had obtained,
+by promise of Edward the Confessor, the reversion of the crown upon the
+death of that monarch; and when the issue came, he availed himself of
+that reversion and the Pope's sanction, and also of the disputed
+succession between Harold, the son of Godwin, and the true Saxon heir,
+Edgar Atheling, to make good his claim by force of arms.
+
+Under him the Normans were united, while divisions existed in the Saxon
+ranks. Tostig, the brother of Harold, and Harald Hardrada, the King of
+Norway, combined against Harold, and, just before the landing of Duke
+William at Pevensey, on the coast of Sussex, Harold was obliged to march
+rapidly northward to Stanford bridge, to defeat Tostig and the Norwegians,
+and then to return with a tired army of uncertain _morale_, to encounter
+the invading Normans. Thus it appears that William conquered the land,
+which would have been invincible had the leaders and the people been
+united in its defence.
+
+As the Saxons, Danes, and Normans were of the same great Teutonic family,
+however modified by the different circumstances of movement and residence,
+there was no new ethnic element introduced; and, paradoxical as it may
+seem, the fusion of these peoples was of great benefit, in the end, to
+England. Though the Saxons at first suffered from Norman oppression, the
+kingdom was brought into large inter-European relations, and a far better
+literary culture was introduced, more varied in subject, more developed in
+point of language, and more artistic.
+
+Thus much, in a brief historical summary, is necessary as an introduction
+to our subject. From all these contests and conquests there were wrought
+in the language of the country important changes, which are to be studied
+in the standard works of its literature.
+
+
+CHANGES IN LANGUAGE.--The changes and transformations of language may be
+thus briefly stated:--In the Celtic period, before the arrival of the
+Romans, the people spoke different dialects of the Celtic and Gadhelic
+languages, all cognate and radically similar.
+
+These were not much affected by the occupancy of the Romans for about four
+hundred and fifty years, although, doubtless, Latin words, expressive of
+things and notions of which the British had no previous knowledge, were
+adopted by them, and many of the Celtic inhabitants who submitted to these
+conquerors learned and used the Latin language.
+
+When the Romans departed, and the Saxons came in numbers, in the fifth and
+sixth centuries, the Saxon language, which is the foundation of English,
+became the current speech of the realm; adopting few Celtic words, but
+retaining a considerable number of the Celtic names of places, as it also
+did of Latin terminations in names.
+
+Before the coming of the Normans, their language, called the _Langue
+d'oil_, or Norman French, had been very much favored by educated
+Englishmen; and when William conquered England, he tried to supplant the
+Saxon entirely. In this he was not successful; but the two languages were
+interfused and amalgamated, so that in the middle of the twelfth century,
+there had been thus created the _English language_, formed but still
+formative. The Anglo-Saxon was the foundation, or basis; while the Norman
+French is observed to be the principal modifying element.
+
+Since the Norman conquest, numerous other elements have entered, most of
+them quietly, without the concomitant of political revolution or foreign
+invasion.
+
+Thus the Latin, being used by the Church, and being the language of
+literary and scientific comity throughout the world, was constantly adding
+words and modes of expression to the English. The introduction of Greek
+into Western Europe, at the fall of Constantinople, supplied Greek words,
+and induced a habit of coining English words from the Greek. The
+establishment of the Hanoverian succession, after the fall of the Stuarts,
+brought in the practice and study of German, and somewhat of its
+phraseology; and English conquests in the East have not failed to
+introduce Indian words, and, what is far better, to open the way for a
+fuller study of comparative philology and linguistics.
+
+In a later chapter we shall reconsider the periods referred to, in an
+examination of the literary works which they contain, works produced by
+historical causes, and illustrative of historical events.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+LITERATURE A TEACHER OF HISTORY. CELTIC REMAINS.
+
+
+   The Uses of Literature. Italy, France, England. Purpose of the Work.
+   Celtic Literary Remains. Druids and Druidism. Roman Writers. Psalter of
+   Cashel. Welsh Triads and Mabinogion. Gildas and St. Colm.
+
+
+
+THE USES OF LITERATURE.
+
+
+Before examining these periods in order to find the literature produced in
+them, it will be well to consider briefly what are the practical uses of
+literature, and to set forth, as a theme, that particular utility which it
+is the object of these pages to inculcate and apply.
+
+The uses of literature are manifold. Its study gives wholesome food to the
+mind, making it strong and systematic. It cultivates and delights the
+imagination and the taste of men. It refines society by elevating the
+thoughts and aspirations above what is sensual and sordid, and by checking
+the grosser passions; it makes up, in part, that "multiplication of
+agreeable consciousness" which Dr. Johnson calls happiness. Its
+adaptations in religion, in statesmanship, in legislative and judicial
+inquiry, are productive of noble and beneficent results. History shows us,
+that while it has given to the individual man, in all ages, contemplative
+habits, and high moral tone, it has thus also been a powerful instrument
+in producing the brilliant civilization of mighty empires.
+
+
+A TEACHER OF HISTORY.--But apart from these its subjective benefits, it
+has its highest and most practical utility as a TEACHER OF HISTORY.
+Ballads, more powerful than laws, shouted forth from a nation's heart,
+have been in part the achievers, and afterward the victorious hymns, of
+its new-born freedom, and have been also used in after ages to reinspire
+the people with the spirit of their ancestors. Immortal epics not only
+present magnificent displays of heroism for imitation, but, like the Iliad
+and Odyssey, still teach the theogony, national policy, and social history
+of a people, after the Bema has long been silent, the temples in ruin, and
+the groves prostrate under the axe of repeated conquests.
+
+Satires have at once exhibited and scourged social faults and national
+follies, and remained to after times as most essential materials for
+history.
+
+Indeed, it was a quaint but just assertion of Hare, in his "Guesses at
+Truth," that in Greek history there is nothing truer than Herodotus except
+Homer.
+
+
+ITALY AND FRANCE.--Passing by the classic periods, which afford abundant
+illustration of the position, it would be easy to exhibit the clear and
+direct historic teachings in purely literary works, by a reference to the
+literature of Italy and France. The history of the age of the Guelphs and
+Ghibellines is clearly revealed in the vision of Dante: the times of Louis
+XIV. are amply illustrated by the pulpit of Massillon, Bourdaloue, and
+Bridaine, and by the drama of Corneille, Racine, and Molière.
+
+
+ENGLISH LITERATURE THE BEST ILLUSTRATION.--But in seeking for an
+illustration of the position that literature is eminently a teacher and
+interpreter of history, we are fortunate in finding none more striking
+than that presented by English literature itself. All the great events of
+English history find complete correspondent delineation in English
+literature, so that, were the purely historical record lost, we should
+have in the works of poetry, fiction, and the drama, correct portraitures
+of the character, habits, manners and customs, political sentiments, and
+modes and forms of religious belief among the English people; in a word,
+the philosophy of English history.
+
+In the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Dryden, and Addison, are to
+be found the men and women, kings, nobles, and commons, descriptions of
+English nature, hints of the progress of science and advancement in art;
+the conduct of government, the force of prevailing fashions--in a word,
+the moving life of the time, and not its dry historic record.
+
+"Authors," says the elder D'Israeli, "are the creators or creatures of
+opinion: the great form the epoch; the many reflect the age."
+Chameleon-like, most of them take the political, social, and religious
+hues of the period in which they live, while a few illustrate it perhaps
+quite as forcibly by violent opposition and invective.
+
+We shall see that in Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_ and in Gower's _Vox
+Clamantis_ are portrayed the political ferments and theological
+controversies of the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. Spenser decks
+the history of his age in gilded mantle and flowing plumes, in his tribute
+to Gloriana, The Faery Queen, who is none other than Elizabeth herself.
+Literature partakes of the fierce polemic and religious enthusiasm which
+mark the troublous times of the Civil War; it becomes tawdry, tinselled,
+and licentious at the Restoration, and develops into numerous classes and
+more serious instruction, under the constitutional reigns of the house of
+Hanover, in which the kings were bad, but the nation prosperous because
+the rights of the people were guaranteed.
+
+Many of the finest works of English literature are _purely and directly
+historical_; what has been said is intended to refer more particularly to
+those that are not--the unconscious, undesigned teachers of history, such
+as fiction, poetry, and the drama.
+
+
+PURPOSE OF THE WORK.--Such, then, is the purpose of this volume--to
+indicate the teachings of history in the principal productions of English
+literature. Only the standard authors will be considered, and the student
+will not be overburdened with statistics, which it must be a part of his
+task to collect for himself. And now let us return to the early literature
+embodied in those languages which have preceded the English on British
+soil; or which, by their combination, have formed the English language.
+For, the English language may be properly compared to a stream, which,
+rising in a feeble source, receives in its seaward flow many tributaries,
+large and small, until it becomes a lordly river. The works of English
+literature may be considered as the ships and boats which it bears upon
+its bosom: near its source the craft are small and frail; as it becomes
+more navigable, statelier vessels are launched upon it, until, in its
+majestic and lakelike extensions, rich navies ride, freighted with wealth
+and power--the heavy ordnance of defence and attack, the products of
+Eastern looms, the precious metals and jewels from distant mines--the best
+exponents of the strength and prosperity of the nation through which flows
+the river of speech, bearing the treasures of mind.
+
+
+CELTIC LITERARY REMAINS. THE DRUIDS.--Let us take up the consideration of
+literature in Britain in the order of the conquests mentioned in the first
+chapter.
+
+We recur to Britain while inhabited by the Celts, both before and after
+the Roman occupation. The extent of influence exercised by the Latin
+language upon the Celtic dialects cannot be determined; it seems to have
+been slight, and, on the other hand, it may be safely assumed that the
+Celtic did not contribute much to the world-absorbing Latin.
+
+The chief feature, and a very powerful one, of the Celtic polity, was
+_Druidism_. At its head was a priesthood, not in the present meaning of
+the word, but in the more extended acceptation which it received in the
+middle ages, when it embraced the whole class of men of letters. Although
+we have very few literary remains, the system, wisdom, and works of the
+Druids form one of the strong foundation-stones of English literature and
+of English national customs, and should be studied on that account. The
+_Druid_ proper was governor, judge, philosopher, expounder, and
+executioner. The _ovaidd_, or _ovates_, were the priests, chiefly
+concerned in the study of theology and the practice of religion. The
+_bards_ were heroic poets of rare lyric power; they kept the national
+traditions in trust, and claimed the second sight and the power of
+prophecy. Much has been said of their human sacrifices in colossal images
+of wicker-work--the "_immani magnitudine simulacra_" of Cæsar--which were
+filled with human victims, and which crackled and disappeared in towering
+flame and columns of smoke, amid the loud chantings of the bards. The most
+that can be said in palliation of this custom is, that almost always such
+a scene presented the judicial execution of criminals, invested with the
+solemnities of religion.
+
+In their theology, _Esus_, the God Force--the Eternal Father--has for his
+agents the personification of spiritual light, of immortality, of nature,
+and of heroism; _Camul_ was the war-god; _Tarann_ the thunder-god; _Heol_,
+the king of the sun, who inflames the soldier's heart, and gives vitality
+to the corn and the grape.[4]
+
+But Druidism, which left its monuments like Stonehenge, and its strong
+traces in English life, now especially found in Wales and other
+mountainous parts of the kingdom, has not left any written record.
+
+
+ROMAN WRITERS.--Of the Roman occupancy we have Roman and Greek accounts,
+many of them by those who took part in the doings of the time. Among the
+principal writers are _Julius Cæsar_, _Tacitus_, _Diodorus Siculus_,
+_Strabo_, and _Suetonius_.
+
+
+PSALTER OF CASHEL.--Of the later Celtic efforts, almost all are in Latin:
+the oldest Irish work extant is called the _Psalter of Cashel_, which is a
+compilation of the songs of the early bards, and of metrical legends, made
+in the ninth century by _Cormac Mac Culinan_, who claimed to be King of
+Munster and Bishop of Cashel.
+
+
+THE WELSH TRIADS.--The next of the important Celtic remains is called _The
+Welsh Triads_, an early but progressive work of the Cymbric Celts. Some of
+the triads are of very early date, and others of a much later period. The
+work is said to have been compiled in its present form by _Caradoc of
+Nantgarvan_ and _Jevan Brecha_, in the thirteenth century. It contains a
+record of "remarkable men and things which have been in the island of
+Britain, and of the events which befell the race of the Cymri from the age
+of ages," i.e. from the beginning. It has also numerous moral proverbs. It
+is arranged in _triads_, or sets of three.
+
+As an example, we have one triad giving "The three of the race of the
+island of Britain: _Hu Gadarn_, (who first brought the race into Britain;)
+_Prydain_, (who first established regal government,) and _Dynwal Moelmud_,
+(who made a system of laws.)" Another triad presents "The three benevolent
+tribes of Britain: the _Cymri_, (who came with Hu Gadarn from
+Constantinople;) the _Lolegrwys_, (who came from the Loire,) and the
+_Britons_"
+
+Then are mentioned the tribes that came with consent and under protection,
+viz., the _Caledonians_, the _Gwyddelian race_, and the men of _Galedin_,
+who came from the continent "when their country was drowned;" the last
+inhabited the Isle of Wight. Another mentions the three usurping tribes;
+the _Coranied_, the _Gwydel-Fichti_, (from Denmark,) and the _Saxons_.
+Although the _compilation_ is so modern, most of the triads date from the
+sixth century.
+
+
+THE MABINOGION.--Next in order of importance of the Celtic remains must be
+mentioned the Mabinogion, or _Tales for Youth_, a series of romantic
+tales, illustrative of early British life, some of which have been
+translated from the Celtic into English. Among these the most elaborate is
+the _Tale of Peredur_, a regular Romance of Arthur, entirely Welsh in
+costume and character.
+
+
+BRITISH BARDS.--A controversy has been fiercely carried on respecting the
+authenticity of poems ascribed to _Aneurin_, _Taliesin_, _Llywarch Hen_,
+and _Merdhin_, or _Merlin_, four famous British bards of the fifth and
+sixth centuries, who give us the original stories respecting Arthur,
+representing him not as a "miraculous character," as the later histories
+do, but as a courageous warrior worthy of respect but not of wonder. The
+burden of the evidence, carefully collected and sifted by Sharon
+Turner,[5] seems to be in favor of the authenticity of these poems.
+
+These works are fragmentary and legendary: they have given few elements to
+the English language, but they show us the condition and culture of the
+British mind in that period, and the nature of the people upon whom the
+Saxons imposed their yoke. "The general spirit [of the early British
+poetry] is much more Druidical than Christian,"[6] and in its mysterious
+and legendary nature, while it has been not without value as a historical
+representation of that early period, it has offered rare material for
+romantic poetry from that day to the present time. It is on this account
+especially that these works should be studied.
+
+
+GILDAS.--Among the writers who must be considered as belonging to the
+Celtic race, although they wrote in Latin, the most prominent is _Gildas_.
+He was the son of Caw, (Alcluyd, a British king,) who was also the father
+of the famous bard Aneurin. Many have supposed Gildas and Aneurin to be
+the same person, so vague are the accounts of both. If not, they were
+brothers. Gildas was a British bard, who, when converted to Christianity,
+became a Christian priest, and a missionary among his own people. He was
+born at Dumbarton in the middle of the sixth century, and was surnamed
+_the Wise_. His great work, the History of the Britons, is directly
+historical: his account extends from the first invasion of Britain down to
+his own time.
+
+A true Celt, he is a violent enemy of the Roman conquerors first, and then
+of the Saxon invaders. He speaks of the latter as "the nefarious Saxons,
+of detestable name, hated alike by God and man; ... a band of devils
+breaking forth from the den of the barbarian lioness."
+
+The history of Gildas, although not of much statistical value, sounds a
+clear Celtic note against all invaders, and displays in many parts
+characteristic outlines of the British people.
+
+
+ST. COLUMBANUS.--St. Colm, or Columbanus, who was born in 521, was the
+founder and abbot of a monastery in Iona, one of the Hebrides, which is
+also called Icolmkill--the Isle of Colm's Cell. The Socrates of that
+retreat, he found his Plato in the person of a successor, St. Adamnan,
+whose "Vita Sancti Columbae" is an early work of curious historical
+importance. St. Adamnan became abbot in 679.
+
+A backward glance at the sparse and fragmentary annals of the Celtic
+people, will satisfy us that they have but slight claims to an original
+share in English literature. Some were in the Celtic dialects, others in
+Latin. They have given themes, indeed, to later scholars, but have left
+little trace in form and language. The common Celtic words retained in
+English are exceedingly few, although their number has not been decided.
+They form, in some sense, a portion of the foundation on which the
+structure of our literature has been erected, without being in any manner
+a part of the building itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE AND HISTORY.
+
+
+   The Lineage of the Anglo-Saxon. Earliest Saxon Poem. Metrical
+   Arrangement. Periphrasis and Alliteration. Beowulf. Caedmon. Other
+   Saxon Fragments. The Appearance of Bede.
+
+
+
+THE LINEAGE OF THE ANGLO-SAXON.
+
+
+The true origin of English literature is Saxon. Anglo-Saxon is the mother
+tongue of the English language, or, to state its genealogy more
+distinctly, and to show its family relations at a glance, take the
+following divisions and subdivisions of the
+
+                          TEUTONIC CLASS.
+                                |
+           .--------------------+-------------------.
+           |                    |                   |
+   High German branch.  Low German branch.  Scandinavian branch.
+                                |
+                        Dead    |  Languages.
+      .----------+--------------+-------------+------------.
+      |          |              |             |            |
+   Gothic.   Old Dutch.    Anglo-Saxon.  Old Frisian.  Old Saxon.
+                                |
+                             English.
+
+Without attempting an analysis of English to find the exact proportion of
+Saxon words, it must be observed that Saxon is the root-language of
+English; it might with propriety be called the oldest English; it has been
+manipulated, modified, and developed in its contact with other
+languages--remaining, however, _radically_ the same--to become our present
+spoken language.
+
+At this period of our inquiry, we have to do with the Saxon itself,
+premising, however, that it has many elements from the Dutch, and that its
+Scandinavian relations are found in many Danish words. The progress and
+modifications of the language in that formative process which made it the
+English, will be mentioned as we proceed in our inquiries.
+
+In speaking of the Anglo-Saxon literature, we include a consideration also
+of those works written in Latin which are products of the times, and bear
+a part in the progress of the people and their literature. They are
+exponents of the Saxon mind, frequently of more value than the vernacular
+writings.
+
+
+EARLIEST SAXON POEM.--The earliest literary monument in the Saxon language
+is the poem called Beowulf, the author and antiquity of which are alike
+unknown. It is at once a romantic legend and an instructive portraiture of
+the earliest Saxon period--"an Anglo-Saxon poetical romance," says Sharon
+Turner, "true in costume and manners, but with an invented story." Before
+proceeding to a consideration of this poem, let us look for a moment at
+some of the characteristics of Saxon poetry. As to its subject-matter, it
+is not much of a love-song, that sentiment not being one of its chief
+inspirations. The Saxon imagination was inflamed chiefly by the religious
+and the heroic in war. As to its handling, it abounded in metaphor and
+periphrasis, suggestive images, and parables instead of direct narrative.
+
+
+METRICAL ARRANGEMENT.--As to metrical arrangement, Saxon poetry differed
+from our modern English as well as from the classical models, in that
+their poets followed no laws of metre, but arranged their vernacular
+verses without any distinct rules, but simply to please the ear. "To such
+a selection and arrangement of words as produced this effect, they added
+the habit of frequently omitting the usual particles, and of conveying
+their meaning in short and contracted phrases. The only artifices they
+used were those of inversion and transition."[7] It is difficult to give
+examples to those unacquainted with the language, but the following
+extract may serve to indicate our meaning: it is taken from Beowulf:
+
+    Crist waer a cennijd
+    Cýninga wuldor
+    On midne winter:
+    Mære theoden!
+    Ece almihtig!
+    On thij eahteothan daeg
+    Hael end gehaten
+    Heofon ricet theard.
+
+    Christ was born
+    King of glory
+    In mid-winter:
+    Illustrious King!
+    Eternal, Almighty!
+    On the eighth day
+    Saviour was called,
+    Of Heaven's kingdom ruler.
+
+
+PERIPHRASIS.--Their periphrasis, or finding figurative names for persons
+and things, is common to the Norse poetry. Thus Caedmon, in speaking of
+the ark, calls it the _sea-house, the palace of the ocean, the wooden
+fortress_, and by many other periphrastic names.
+
+
+ALLITERATION.--The Saxons were fond of alliteration, both in prose and
+verse. They used it without special rules, but simply to satisfy their
+taste for harmony in having many words beginning with the same letter; and
+thus sometimes making an arbitrary connection between the sentences or
+clauses in a discourse, e.g.:
+
+    Firum foldan;
+    Frea almihtig;
+
+    The ground for men
+    Almighty ruler.
+
+The nearest approach to a rule was that three words in close connection
+should begin with the same letter. The habit of ellipsis and transposition
+is illustrated by the following sentence in Alfred's prose: "So doth the
+moon with his pale light, that the bright stars he obscures in the
+heavens;" which he thus renders in poetry:
+
+    With pale light
+    Bright stars
+    Moon lesseneth.
+
+With this brief explanation, which is only intended to be suggestive to
+the student, we return to Beowulf.
+
+
+THE PLOT OF BEOWULF.--The poem contains six thousand lines, in which are
+told the wonderful adventures of the valiant viking Beowulf, who is
+supposed to have fallen in Jutland in the year 340. The Danish king
+Hrothgar, in whose great hall banquet, song, and dance are ever going on,
+is subjected to the stated visits of a giant, Grendel, a descendant of
+Cain, who destroys the Danish knights and people, and against whom no
+protection can be found.
+
+Beowulf, the hero of the epic, appears. He is a great chieftain, the
+_heorth-geneat_ (hearth-companion, or vassal) of a king named Higelac. He
+assembles his companions, goes over the road of the swans (the sea) to
+Denmark, or Norway, states his purpose to Hrothgar, and advances to meet
+Grendel. After an indecisive battle with the giant, and a fierce struggle
+with the giant's mother, who attacks him in the guise of a sea-wolf, he
+kills her, and then destroys Grendel. Upon the death of Hrothgar he
+receives his reward in being made King of the Danes.
+
+With this occurrence the original poem ends: it is the oldest epic poem in
+any modern language. At a later day, new cantos were added, which,
+following the fortunes of the hero, record at length that he was killed by
+a dragon. A digest and running commentary of the poem may be found in
+Turner's Anglo-Saxons; and no one can read it without discerning the
+history shining clearly out of the mists of fable. The primitive manners,
+modes of life, forms of expression, are all historically delineated. In it
+the intimate relations between the _king_ and his people are portrayed.
+The Saxon _cyning_ is compounded of _cyn_, people, and _ing_, a son or
+descendant; and this etymology gives the true conditions of their rule:
+they were popular leaders--_elected_ in the witenagemot on the death of
+their predecessors.[8] We observe, too, the spirit of adventure--a rude
+knight-errantry--which characterized these northern sea-kings
+
+    that with such profit and for deceitful glory
+    labor on the wide sea explore its bays
+    amid the contests of the ocean in the deep waters
+    there they for riches till they sleep with their elders.
+
+We may also notice the childish wonder of a rude, primitive, but brave
+people, who magnified a neighboring monarch of great skill and strength,
+or perhaps a malarious fen, into a giant, and who were pleased with a poem
+which caters to that heroic mythus which no civilization can root out of
+the human breast, and which gives at once charm and popularity to every
+epic.
+
+
+CAEDMON.--Next in order, we find the paraphrase of Scripture by _Caedmon_,
+a monk of Whitby, who died about the year 680. The period in which he
+lived is especially marked by the spread of Christianity in Britain, and
+by a religious zeal mingled with the popular superstitions. The belief was
+universal that holy men had the power to work miracles. The Bible in its
+entire canon was known to few even among the ecclesiastics: treasure-house
+as it was to the more studious clerics, it was almost a sealed book to the
+common people. It would naturally be expected, then, that among the
+earliest literary efforts would be found translations and paraphrases of
+the most interesting portions of the Scripture narrative. It was in
+accordance with the spirit of the age that these productions should be
+attended with something of the marvellous, to give greater effect to the
+doctrine, and be couched in poetic language, the especial delight of
+people in the earlier ages of their history. Thus the writings of Caedmon
+are explained: he was a poor serving-brother in the monastery of Whitby,
+who was, or feigned to be, unable to improvise Scripture stories and
+legends of the saints as his brethren did, and had recourse to a vision
+before he exhibited his fluency.
+
+In a dream, in a stall of oxen of which he was the appointed night-guard,
+an angelic stranger asked him to sing. "I cannot sing," said Caedmon.
+"Sing the creation," said the mysterious visitant. Feeling himself thus
+miraculously aided, Caedmon paraphrased in his dream the Bible story of
+the creation, and not only remembered the verses when he awoke, but found
+himself possessed of the gift of song for all his days.
+
+Sharon Turner has observed that the paraphrase of Caedmon "exhibits much
+of a Miltonic spirit; and if it were clear that Milton had been familiar
+with Saxon, we should be induced to think that he owed something to
+Caedmon." And the elder D'Israeli has collated and compared similar
+passages in the two authors, in his "Amenities of Literature."
+
+Another remarkable Anglo-Saxon fragment is called _Judith_, and gives the
+story of Judith and Holofernes, rendered from the Apocrypha, but with
+circumstances, descriptions, and speeches invented by the unknown author.
+It should be observed, as of historical importance, that the manners and
+characters of that Anglo-Saxon period are applied to the time of Judith,
+and so we have really an Anglo-Saxon romance, marking the progress and
+improvement in their poetic art.
+
+Among the other remains of this time are the death of _Byrhtnoth_, _The
+Fight of Finsborough_, and the _Chronicle of King Lear and his Daughters_,
+the last of which is the foundation of an old play, upon which
+Shakspeare's tragedy of Lear is based.
+
+It should here be noticed that Saxon literature was greatly influenced by
+the conversion of the realm at the close of the sixth century from the
+pagan religion of Woden to Christianity. It displayed no longer the fierce
+genius of the Scalds, inculcating revenge and promising the rewards of
+Walhalla; in spirit it was changed by the doctrine of love, and in form it
+was softened and in some degree--but only for a time--injured by the
+influence of the Latin, the language of the Church. At this time, also,
+there was a large adoption of Latin words into the Saxon, especially in
+theology and ecclesiastical matters.
+
+
+THE ADVENT OF BEDE.--The greatest literary character of the Anglo-Saxon
+period, and the one who is of most value in teaching us the history of the
+times, both directly and indirectly, is the man who has been honored by
+his age as the _venerable Bede_ or _Beda_. He was born at Yarrow, in the
+year 673; and died, after a retired but active, pious, and useful life, in
+735. He wrote an Ecclesiastical history of the English, and dedicated it
+to the most glorious King Ceowulph of Northumberland, one of the monarchs
+of the Saxon Heptarchy. It is in matter and spirit a Saxon work in a Latin
+dress; and, although his work was written in Latin, he is placed among the
+Anglo-Saxon authors because it is as an Englishman that he appears to us
+in his subject, in the honest pride of race and country which he
+constantly manifests, and in the historical information which he has
+conveyed to us concerning the Saxons in England: of a part of the history
+which he relates he was an _eye-witness_; and besides, his work soon
+called forth several translations into Anglo-Saxon, among which that of
+Alfred the Great is the most noted, and would be taken for an original
+Saxon production.
+
+It is worthy of remark, that after the decline of the Saxon literature,
+Bede remained for centuries, both in the original Latin and in the Saxon
+translations, a sealed and buried book; but in the later days, students of
+English literature and history began to look back with eager pleasure to
+that formative period prior to the Norman conquest, when English polity
+and institutions were simple and few, and when their Saxon progenitors
+were masters in the land.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE VENERABLE BEDE AND THE SAXON CHRONICLE.
+
+
+   Biography. Ecclesiastical History. The Recorded Miracles. Bede's Latin.
+   Other Writers. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: its Value. Alfred the Great.
+   Effect of the Danish Invasions.
+
+
+
+BIOGRAPHY.
+
+
+Bede was a precocious youth, whose excellent parts commended him to Bishop
+Benedict. He made rapid progress in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; was a deacon
+at the unusual age of nineteen, and a priest at thirty. It seems probable
+that he always remained in his monastery, engaged in literary labor and
+offices of devotion until his death, which happened while he was dictating
+to his boy amanuensis, "Dear master," said the boy, "there is yet one
+sentence not written." He answered, "Write quickly." Soon after, the boy
+said, "The sentence is now written." He replied. "It is well; you have
+said the truth. Receive my head into your hands, for it is a great
+satisfaction to me to sit facing my holy place where I was wont to pray,
+that I may also sitting, call upon my Father." "And thus, on the pavement
+of his little cell, singing 'Glory be unto the Father, and unto the Son,
+and unto the Holy Ghost,' when he had named the Holy Ghost he breathed his
+last, and so departed to the heavenly kingdom."
+
+
+HIS ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.--His ecclesiastical history opens with a
+description of Britain, including what was known of Scotland and Ireland.
+With a short preface concerning the Church in the earliest times, he
+dwells particularly upon the period, from the arrival of St. Augustine, in
+597, to the year 731, a space of one hundred and thirty-four years, during
+nearly one-half of which the author lived. The principal written works
+from which he drew were the natural history of Pliny, the Hormesta of the
+Spanish priest _Paulus Orosius_, and the history of Gildas. His account of
+the coming of the Anglo-Saxons, "being the traditions of the Kentish
+people concerning Hengist and Horsa," has since proved to be fabulous, as
+the Saxons are now known to have been for a long period, during the Roman
+occupancy, making predatory incursions into Britain before the time of
+their reputed settlement.[9]
+
+For the materials of the principal portions of his history, Bede was
+indebted to correspondence with those parts of England which he did not
+visit, and to the lives of saints and contemporary documents, which
+recorded the numerous miracles and wonders with which his pages are
+filled.
+
+
+BEDE'S RECORDED MIRACLES.--The subject of these miracles has been
+considered at some length by Dr. Arnold,[10] in a very liberal spirit; but
+few readers will agree with him in concluding that with regard to some
+miracles, "there is no strong _a priori_ improbability in their
+occurrence, but rather the contrary." One of the most striking of the
+historical lessons contained in this work, is the credulity and
+superstition which mark the age; and we reason justly and conclusively
+from the denial of the most palpable and absurd, to the repudiation of
+the lesser demands on our credulity. It is sufficient for us that both
+were eagerly believed in his day, and thus complete a picture of the age
+which such a view would only serve to impair, if not destroy. The theology
+of the age is set forth with wonderful clearness, in the numerous
+questions propounded by Augustine to Gregory I., the Bishop of Rome, and
+in the judicious answers of that prelate; in which may also be found the
+true relation which the Church of Rome bore to her English mission.
+
+We have also the statement of the establishment of the archbishoprics of
+Canterbury and York, the bishopric of London, and others.
+
+The last chapter but one, the twenty-third, gives an important account "of
+the present state of the English nation, or of all Britain;" and the
+twenty-fourth contains a chronological recapitulation, from the beginning
+of the year 731, and a list of the author's works. Bede produced, besides
+his history, translations of many books in the Bible, several histories of
+abbots and saints, books of hymns and epigrams, a treatise on orthography,
+and one on poetry.
+
+To point the student to Bede's works, and to indicate their historic
+teachings, is all that can be here accomplished. A careful study of his
+Latin History, as the great literary monument of the Anglo-Saxon period,
+will disclose many important truths which lie beneath the surface, and
+thus escape the cursory reader. Wars and politics, of which the
+Anglo-Saxon chronicle is full, find comparatively little place in his
+pages. The Church was then peaceful, and not polemic; the monasteries were
+sanctuaries in which quiet, devotion, and order reigned. Another phase of
+the literature shows us how the Gentiles raged and the people were
+imagining a vain thing; but Bede, from his undisturbed cell, scarcely
+heard the howlings of the storm, as he wrote of that kingdom which
+promised peace and good-will.
+
+
+BEDE'S LATIN.--To the classical student, the language of Bede offers an
+interesting study. The Latin had already been corrupted, and a nice
+discrimination will show the causes of this corruption--the effects of the
+other living languages, the ignorance of the clergy, and the new subjects
+and ideas to which it was applied.
+
+Bede was in the main more correct than his age, and his vocabulary has few
+words of barbarian origin. He arose like a luminary, and when the light of
+his learning disappeared, but one other star appeared to irradiate the
+gloom which followed his setting; and that was in the person and the reign
+of Alfred.
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THIS AGE.--Among names which must pass with the mere
+mention, the following are, after Bede, the most illustrious in this time.
+_Aldhelm_, Abbot of Malmesbury, who died in the year 709, is noted for his
+scientific computations, and for his poetry: he is said to have translated
+the Psalms into Anglo-Saxon poetry.
+
+_Alcuin_, the pride of two countries, England and France, was born in the
+year of Bede's death: renowned as an Englishman for his great learning, he
+was invited by Charlemagne to his court, and aided that distinguished
+sovereign in the scholastic and literary efforts which render his reign so
+illustrious. Alcuin died in 804.
+
+The works of Alcuin are chiefly theological treatises, but he wrote a life
+of Charlemagne, which has unfortunately been lost, and which would have
+been invaluable to history in the dearth of memorials of that emperor and
+his age.
+
+_Alfric_, surnamed Grammaticus, (died 1006,) was an Archbishop of
+Canterbury, in the tenth century, who wrote eighty homilies, and was, in
+his opposition to Romish doctrine, one of the earliest English reformers.
+
+_John Scotus Erigena_, who flourished at the beginning of the ninth
+century, in the brightest age of Irish learning, settled in France, and is
+known as a subtle and learned scholastic philosopher. His principal work
+is a treatise "On the Division of Nature," Both names, _Scotus_ and
+_Erigena_, indicate his Irish origin; the original _Scoti_ being
+inhabitants of the North of Ireland.
+
+_Dunstan_, (925-988,) commonly called Saint Dunstan, was a powerful and
+dictatorial Archbishop of Canterbury, who used the superstitions of
+monarch and people to enable him to exercise a marvellous supremacy in the
+realm. He wrote commentaries on the Benedictine rule.
+
+These writers had but a remote and indirect bearing upon the progress of
+literature in England, and are mentioned rather as contemporary, than as
+distinct subjects of our study.
+
+
+THE ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE.--We now reach the valuable and purely
+historical compilation known as the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, which is a
+chronological arrangement of events in English history, from the birth of
+Christ to the year 1154, in the reign of Henry the Second. It is the most
+valuable epitome of English history during that long period.
+
+It is written in Anglo-Saxon, and was begun soon after the time of Alfred,
+at least as a distinct work. In it we may trace the changes in the
+language from year to year, and from century to century, as it passed from
+unmixed Saxon until, as the last records are by contemporary hands, it
+almost melted into modern English, which would hardly trouble an
+Englishman of the present day to read.
+
+The first part of the Chronicle is a table of events, many of them
+fabulous, which had been originally jotted down by Saxon monks, abbots,
+and bishops. To these partial records, King Alfred furnished additional
+information, as did also, in all probability, Alfric and Dunstan. These
+were collected into permanent form by Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury,
+who brought the annals up to the year 891; from that date they were
+continued in the monasteries. Of the Saxon Chronicle there are no less
+than seven accredited ancient copies, of which the shortest extends to the
+year 977, and the longest to 1154; the others extend to intermediate
+dates.
+
+
+ITS VALUE.--The value of the Chronicle as a statistic record of English
+history cannot be over-estimated; it moves before the student of English
+literature like a diorama, picturing the events in succession, not without
+glimpses of their attendant philosophy. We learn much of the nation's
+thoughts, troubles, mental, moral, and physical conditions, social laws,
+and manners. As illustrations we may refer to the romantic adventures of
+King Alfred; and to the conquest of Saxon England by William of
+Normandy--"all as God granted them," says the pious chronicler, "for the
+people's sins." And he afterward adds, "Bishop Odo and William the Earl
+built castles wide throughout the nation, and poor people distressed; and
+ever after it greatly grew in evil: may the end be good when God will."
+Although for the most part written in prose, the annals of several years
+are given in the alliterative Saxon verse.
+
+A good English translation of Bede's history, and one of the Chronicle,
+edited by Dr. Giles, have been issued together by Bohn in one volume of
+his Antiquarian library. To the student of English history and of English
+literature, the careful perusal of both, in conjunction, is an imperative
+necessity.
+
+
+ALFRED THE GREAT.--Among the best specimens of Saxon prose are the
+translations and paraphrases of King _Alfred_, justly called the Great and
+the Truth-teller, the noblest monarch of the Saxon period. The kingdoms of
+the heptarchy, or octarchy, had been united under the dominion of Egbert,
+the King of Wessex, in the year 827, and thus formed the kingdom of
+England. But this union of the kingdoms was in many respects nominal
+rather than really complete; as Alfred frequently subscribes himself _King
+of the West Saxons_. It was a confederation to gain strength against their
+enemies. On the one hand, the inhabitants of North, South, and West Wales
+were constantly rising against Wessex and Mercia; and on the other, until
+the accession of Alfred upon the death of his brother Ethelred, in 871,
+every year of the Chronicle is marked by fierce battles with the troops
+and fleets of the Danes on the eastern and southern coasts.
+
+It redounds greatly to the fame of Alfred that he could find time and
+inclination in his troubled and busy reign, so harassed with wars by land
+and sea, for the establishment of wise laws, the building or rebuilding of
+large cities, the pursuit of letters, and the interest of education. To
+give his subjects, grown-up nobles as well as children, the benefits of
+historical examples, he translated the work of Orosius, a compendious
+history of the world, a work of great repute; and to enlighten the
+ecclesiastics, he made versions of parts of Bede; of the Pastorale of
+Gregory the First; of the Soliloquies of St. Augustine, and of the work of
+Boethius, _De Consolatione Philosophiæ_. Beside these principal works are
+other minor efforts. In all his writings, he says he "sometimes interprets
+word for word, and sometimes meaning for meaning." With Alfred went down
+the last gleams of Saxon literature. Troubles were to accumulate steadily
+and irresistibly upon the soil of England, and the sword took the place of
+the pen.
+
+
+THE DANES.--The Danes thronged into the realm in new incursions, until
+850,000 of them were settled in the North and East of England. The
+Danegelt or tribute, displaying at once the power of the invaders and the
+cowardice and effeminacy of the Saxon monarchs, rose to a large sum, and
+two millions[11] of Saxons were powerless to drive the invaders away. In
+the year 1016, after the weak and wicked reign of the besotted _Ethelred_,
+justly surnamed the _Unready_, who to his cowardice in paying tribute
+added the cruelty of a wholesale massacre on St. Brice's Eve--since called
+the Danish St. Bartholomew--the heroic Edmund Ironsides could not stay the
+storm, but was content to divide the kingdom with _Knud_ (Canute) the
+Great. Literary efforts were at an end. For twenty-two years the Danish
+kings sat upon the throne of all England; and when the Saxon line was
+restored in the person of Edward the Confessor, a monarch not calculated
+to restore order and impart strength, in addition to the internal sources
+of disaster, a new element of evil had sprung up in the power and cupidity
+of the Normans.
+
+Upon the death of Edward the Confessor, the claimants to the throne were
+_Harold_, the son of Godwin, and _William of Normandy_, both ignoring the
+claims of the Saxon heir apparent, Edgar Atheling. Harold, as has been
+already said, fell a victim to the dissensions in his own ranks, as well
+as to the courage and strength of William, and thus Saxon England fell
+under Norman rule.
+
+
+THE LITERARY PHILOSOPHY.--The literary philosophy of this period does not
+lie far beneath the surface of the historic record. Saxon literature was
+expiring by limitation. During the twelfth century, the Saxon language was
+completely transformed into English. The intercourse of many previous
+years had introduced a host of Norman French words; inflections had been
+lost; new ideas, facts, and objects had sprung up, requiring new names.
+The dying Saxon literature was overshadowed by the strength and growth of
+the Norman, and it had no royal patron and protector since Alfred. The
+superior art-culture and literary attainments of the South, had long been
+silently making their impression in England; and it had been the custom to
+send many of the English youth of noble families to France to be educated.
+
+Saxon chivalry[12] was rude and unattractive in comparison with the
+splendid armor, the gay tournaments, and the witching minstrelsy which
+signalized French chivalry; and thus the peaceful elements of conquest
+were as seductive as the force of arms was potent. A dynasty which had
+ruled for more than six hundred years was overthrown; a great chapter in
+English history was closed. A new order was established, and a new chapter
+in England's annals was begun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE NORMAN CONQUEST AND ITS EARLIEST LITERATURE.
+
+
+   Norman Rule. Its Oppression. Its Benefits. William of Malmesbury.
+   Geoffrey of Monmouth. Other Latin Chronicles. Anglo-Norman Poets.
+   Richard Wace. Other Poets.
+
+
+
+NORMAN RULE.
+
+
+With the conquest of England, and as one of the strongest elements of its
+permanency, the feudal system was brought into England; the territory was
+surveyed and apportioned to be held by military tenure; to guard against
+popular insurrections, the curfew rigorously housed the Saxons at night; a
+new legislature, called a parliament, or talking-ground, took the place of
+the witenagemot, or assembly of the wise: it was a conquest not only in
+name but in truth; everything was changed by the conqueror's right, and
+the Saxons were entirely subjected.
+
+
+ITS OPPRESSION.--In short, the Norman conquest, from the day of the battle
+of Hastings, brought the Saxon people under a galling yoke. The Norman was
+everywhere an oppressor. Besides his right as a conqueror, he felt a
+contempt for the rudeness of the Saxon. He was far more able to govern and
+to teach. He founded rich abbeys; schools like those of Oxford and
+Cambridge he expanded into universities like that of Paris. He filled all
+offices of profit and trust, and created many which the Saxons had not. In
+place of the Saxon English, which, however vigorous, was greatly wanting
+in what may be called the vocabulary of progress, the Norman French,
+drawing constantly upon the Latin, enriched by the enactments of
+Charlemagne and the tributes of Italy, even in its infancy a language of
+social comity in Western Europe, was spoken at court, introduced into the
+courts of law, taught in the schools, and threatened to submerge and drown
+out the vernacular.[13] All inducements to composition in English were
+wanting; delicious songs of Norman Trouvères chanted in the _Langue
+d'oil_, and stirring tales of Troubadours in the _Langue d'oc_, carried
+the taste captive away from the Saxon, as a regal banquet lures from the
+plain fare of the cottage board, more wholesome but less attractive.
+
+
+ITS BENEFITS.--Had this progress continued, had this grasp of power
+remained without hinderance or relaxation, the result would have been the
+destruction or amalgamation of the vigorous English, so as to form a
+romance language similar to the French, and only different in the amount
+of Northern and local words. But the Norman power, without losing its
+title, was to find a limit to its encroachments. This limit was fixed,
+_first_, by the innate hardihood and firmness of the Saxon character,
+which, though cast down and oppressed, retained its elasticity; which
+cherished its language in spite of Norman threats and sneers, and which
+never lost heart while waiting for better times; _secondly_, by the
+insular position of Great Britain, fortified by the winds and waves, which
+enabled her to assimilate and mould anew whatever came into her borders,
+to the discomfiture of further continental encroachments; constituting
+her, in the words of Shakspeare,
+
+    "... that pale, that white-faced shore,
+    Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides,
+    And coops from other lands her islanders;"
+
+and, _thirdly_, to the Crusades, which, attracting the nobles to
+adventures in Palestine, lifted the heel of Norman oppression off the
+Saxon neck, and gave that opportunity, which alone was needed, to make
+England in reality, if not in name--in thews, sinews, and mental strength,
+if not in regal state and aristocratic privilege--Saxon-England in all its
+future history. Other elements are still found, but the Saxon greatly
+predominates.
+
+The historian of that day might well bemoan the fate of the realm, as in
+the Saxon Chronicle already quoted. To the philosopher of to-day, this
+Norman conquest and its results were of incalculable value to England, by
+bringing her into relations with the continent, by enduing her with a
+weight and influence in the affairs of Europe which she could never
+otherwise have attained, and by giving a new birth to a noble literature
+which has had no superior in any period of the world's history.
+
+As our subject does not require, and our space will not warrant the
+consideration of the rise and progress of French literature, before its
+introduction with the Normans into England, we shall begin with the first
+fruits after its transplantation into British soil. But before doing so,
+it becomes necessary to mention certain Latin chronicles which furnished
+food for these Anglo-Norman poets and legendists.
+
+
+WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY.--_William of Malmesbury_, the first Latin historian
+of distinction, who is contemporary with the Norman conquest, wrote a work
+called the "Heroic Deeds of the English Kings," (_Gesta Regum Anglorum_,)
+which extends from the arrival of the Saxons to the year 1120; another,
+"The New History," (_Historia Novella_,) brings the history down to 1142.
+Notwithstanding the credulity of the age, and his own earnest recital of
+numerous miracles, these works are in the main truthful, and of real value
+to the historical student. In the contest between Matilda and Stephen for
+the succession of the English crown, William of Malmesbury is a strong
+partisan of the former, and his work thus stands side by side, for those
+who would have all the arguments, with the _Gesta Stephani_, by an unknown
+contemporary, which is written in the interest of Stephen.
+
+
+GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH.--More famous than the monk of Malmesbury, but by no
+means so truthful, stands _Geoffrey of Monmouth_, Archdeacon of Monmouth
+and Bishop of St. Asaph's, a writer to whom the rhyming chronicles and
+Anglo-Norman poets have owed so much. Walter, a Deacon of Oxford, it is
+said, had procured from Brittany a Welsh chronicle containing a history of
+the Britons from the time of one Brutus, a great-grandson of Æneas, down
+to the seventh century of our era. From this, partly in translation and
+partly in original creation, Geoffrey wrote his "History of the Britons."
+Catering to the popular prejudice, he revived, and in part created, the
+deeds of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table--fabulous heroes who
+have figured in the best English poetry from that day to the present,
+their best presentation having been made in the Idyls of the King,
+(Arthur,) by Tennyson.
+
+The popular philosophy of Geoffrey's work is found in the fact, that while
+in Bede and in the Saxon Chronicle the Britons had not been portrayed in
+such a manner as to flatter the national vanity, which seeks for remote
+antecedents of greatness; under the guise of the Chronicle of Brittany,
+Geoffrey undertook to do this. Polydore Virgil distinctly condemns him for
+relating "many fictitious things of King Arthur and the ancient Britons,
+invented by himself, and pretended to be translated by him into Latin,
+which he palms on the world with the sacred name of true history;" and
+this view is substantiated by the fact that the earlier writers speak of
+Arthur as a prince and a warrior, of no colossal fame--"well known, but
+not idolized.... That he was a courageous warrior is unquestionable; but
+that he was the miraculous Mars of the British history, from whom kings
+and nations shrunk in panic, is completely disproved by the temperate
+encomiums of his contemporary bards."[14]
+
+It is of great historical importance to observe the firm hold taken by
+this fabulous character upon the English people, as evinced by the fact
+that he has been a popular hero of the English epic ever since. Spenser
+adopted him as the presiding genius of his "Fairy Queen," and Milton
+projected a great epic on his times, before he decided to write the
+Paradise Lost.
+
+
+
+OTHER PRINCIPAL LATIN CHRONICLERS OF THE EARLY NORMAN PERIOD.
+
+
+Ingulphus, Abbot of Croyland, 1075-1109: History of Croyland. Authenticity
+disputed.
+
+William of Poictiers, 1070: Deeds of William the Conqueror, (Gesta
+Gullielmi Ducis Normannorum et Regis Anglorum.)
+
+Ordericus Vitalis, born about 1075: general ecclesiastical history.
+
+William of Jumièges: History of the Dukes of Normandy.
+
+Florence of Worcester, died 1118: (Chronicon ex Chronicis,) Chronicle from
+the Chronicles, from the Creation to 1118, (with two valuable additions to
+1141, and to 1295.)
+
+Matthew of Westminster, end of thirteenth century (probably a fictitious
+name): Flowers of the Histories, (Flores Historiarum.)
+
+Eadmer, died about 1124: history of his own time, (Historia Novorum, sive
+sui seculi.)
+
+Giraldus Cambrensis, born 1146, known as Girald Barry: numerous histories,
+including Topographia Hiberniæ, and the Norman conquest of Ireland; also
+several theological works.
+
+Henry of Huntingdon, first half of the twelfth century: History of
+England.
+
+Alured of Rievaux, 1109-66: The Battle of the Standard.
+
+Roger de Hoveden, end of twelfth century: Annales, from the end of Bede's
+history to 1202.
+
+Matthew Paris, monk of St. Alban's, died 1259: Historia Major, from the
+Norman conquest to 1259, continued by William Rishanger to 1322.
+
+Ralph Higden, fourteenth century: Polychronicon, or Chronicle of Many
+Things; translated in the fifteenth century, by John de Trevisa; printed
+by Caxton in 1482, and by Wynken de Worde in 1485.
+
+
+THE ANGLO-NORMAN POETS AND CHRONICLERS.--Norman literature had already
+made itself a name before William conquered England. Short jingling tales
+in verse, in ballad style, were popular under the name of _fabliaux_, and
+fuller epics, tender, fanciful, and spirited, called Romans, or Romaunts,
+were sung to the lute, in courts and camps. Of these latter, Alexander the
+Great, Charlemagne, and Roland were the principal heroes.
+
+Strange as it may seem, this _langue d'oil_, in which they were composed,
+made more rapid progress in its poetical literature, in the period
+immediately after the conquest, in England than at home: it flourished by
+the transplantation. Its advent was with an act of heroism. Taillefer, the
+standard-bearer of William at Seulac, marched in advance of the army,
+struck the first blow, and met his death while chanting the song of
+Roland:
+
+    Of Charlemagne and Roland,
+    Of Oliver and his vassals,
+    Who died at Roncesvalles.
+
+    De Karlemaine e de Reliant,
+    Et d'Olivier et des vassals,
+    Ki moururent en Renchevals.
+
+Each stanza ended with the war-shout _Aoi_! and was responded to by the
+cry of the Normans, _Diex aide, God to aid_. And this battle-song was the
+bold manifesto of Norman poetry invading England. It found an echo
+wherever William triumphed on English soil, and played an important part
+in the formation of the English language and English literature. New
+scenes and new victories created new inspiration in the poets; monarchs
+like Henry I., called from his scholarship _Beauclerc_, practised and
+cherished the poetic art, and thus it happened that the Norman poets in
+England produced works of sweeter minstrelsy and greater historical value
+than the _fabliaux_, _Romans_, and _Chansons de gestes_ of their brethren
+on the continent. The conquest itself became a grand theme for their
+muse.
+
+
+RICHARD WACE.--First among the Anglo-Norman poets stands Richard Wace,
+called Maistre Wace, reading clerk, (clerc lisant,) born in the island of
+Jersey, about 1112, died in 1184. His works are especially to be noted for
+the direct and indirect history they contain. His first work, which
+appeared about 1138, is entitled _Le Brut d'Angleterre_--The English
+Brutus--and is in part a paraphrase of the Latin history of Geoffrey of
+Monmouth, who had presented Brutus of Troy as the first in the line of
+British kings. Wace has preserved the fiction of Geoffrey, and has catered
+to that characteristic of the English people which, not content with
+homespun myths, sought for genealogies from the remote classic times.
+Wace's _Brut_ is chiefly in octo-syllabic verse, and extends to fifteen
+thousand lines.
+
+But Wace was a courtier, as well as a poet. Not content with pleasing the
+fancy of the English people with a fabulous royal lineage, he proceeded to
+gratify the pride of their Norman masters by writing, in 1171, his "Roman
+de Rou, et des Ducs de Normandie," an epic poem on Rollo, the first Duke
+of Normandy--Rollo, called the Marcher, because he was so mighty of
+stature that no horse could bear his weight. This Rollo compromised with
+Charles the Simple of France by marrying his daughter, and accepting that
+tract of Neustria to which he gave the name of Normandy. He was the
+ancestor, at six removes, of William the Conqueror, and his mighty deeds
+were a pleasant and popular subject for the poet of that day, when a
+great-grandson of William, Henry II., was upon the throne of England. The
+Roman de Rou contains also the history of Rollo's successors: it is in two
+parts; the first extending to the beginning of the reign of the third
+duke, Richard the Fearless, and the second, containing the story of the
+conquest, comes down to the time of Henry II. himself. The second part he
+wrote rapidly, for fear that he would be forestalled by the king's poet
+_Benoit_. The first part was written in Alexandrines, but for the second
+he adopted the easier measure of the octo-syllabic verse, of which this
+part contains seventeen thousand lines. In this poem are discerned the
+craving of the popular mind, the power of the subject chosen, and the
+reflection of language and manners, which are displayed on every page.
+
+So popular, indeed, was the subject of the Brut, indigenous as it was
+considered to British soil, that Wace's poem, already taken from Geoffrey
+of Monmouth, as Geoffrey had taken it, or pretended to take it from the
+older chronicle, was soon again, as we shall see, to be versionized into
+English.
+
+
+
+OTHER NORMAN WRITERS OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY.
+
+
+
+_Philip de Than_, about 1130, one of the Trouvères: _Li livre de
+créatures_ is a poetical study of chronology, and his _Bestiarie_ is a
+sort of natural history of animals and minerals.
+
+_Benoit_: Chroniques des Ducs de Normandie, 1160, written in thirty
+thousand octo-syllabic verses, only worthy of a passing notice, because of
+the appointment of the poet by the king, (Henry II.,) in order to
+forestall the second part of Wace's Roman de Rou.
+
+Geoffrey, died 1146: A miracle play of St. Catherine.
+
+Geoffrey Gaimar, about 1150: Estorie des Engles, (History of the English.)
+
+Luc de la Barre, blinded for his bold satires by the king (Henry I.).
+
+Mestre Thomas, latter part of twelfth century: Roman du Roi Horn. Probably
+the original of the "Geste of Kyng Horn."
+
+Richard I., (Coeur de Lion,) died 1199, King of England: _Sirventes_ and
+songs. His antiphonal song with the minstrel Blondel is said to have given
+information of the place of his imprisonment, and procured his release;
+but this is probably only a romantic fiction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE MORNING TWILIGHT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
+
+
+   Semi-Saxon Literature. Layamon. The Ormulum. Robert of Gloucester.
+   Langland. Piers Plowman. Piers Plowman's Creed. Sir Jean Froissart. Sir
+   John Mandevil.
+
+
+
+SEMI-SAXON LITERATURE.
+
+
+Moore, in his beautiful poem, "The Light of the Harem," speaks of that
+luminous pulsation which precedes the real, progressive morning:
+
+             ... that earlier dawn
+    Whose glimpses are again withdrawn,
+    As if the morn had waked, and then
+    Shut close her lids of light again.
+
+The simile is not inapt, as applied to the first efforts of the early
+English, or Semi-Saxon literature, during the latter part of the twelfth
+and the whole of the thirteenth century. That deceptive dawn, or first
+glimpse of the coming day, is to be found in the work of _Layamon_. The
+old Saxon had revived, but had been modified and altered by contact with
+the Latin chronicles and the Anglo-Norman poetry, so as to become a
+distinct language--that of the people; and in this language men of genius
+and poetic taste were now to speak to the English nation.
+
+
+LAYAMON.--Layamon[15] was an English priest of Worcestershire, who made a
+version of Wace's _Brut_, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, so
+peculiar, however, in its language, as to puzzle the philologist to fix
+its exact date with even tolerable accuracy. But, notwithstanding the
+resemblance, according to Mr. Ellis, to the "simple and unmixed, though
+very barbarous Saxon," the character of the alphabet and the nature of the
+rhythm place it at the close of the twelfth century, and present it as
+perhaps the best type of the Semi-Saxon. The poem consists partly of the
+Saxon alliterative lines, and partly of verses which seem to have thrown
+off this trammel; so that a different decision as to its date would be
+reached according as we consider these diverse parts of its structure. It
+is not improbable that, like English poets of a later time, Layamon
+affected a certain archaism in language, as giving greater beauty and
+interest to his style. The subject of the _Brut_ was presented to him as
+already treated by three authors: first, the original Celtic poem, which
+has been lost; second, the Latin chronicle of Geoffrey; and, third, the
+French poem of Wace. Although Layamon's work is, in the main, a
+translation of that of Wace, he has modified it, and added much of his
+own. His poem contains more than thirty thousand lines.
+
+
+THE ORMULUM.--Next in value to the Brut of Layamon, is the Ormulum, a
+series of metrical homilies, in part paraphrases of the gospels for the
+day, with verbal additions and annotations. This was the work of a monk
+named _Orm_ or _Ormin_, who lived in the beginning of the thirteenth
+century, during the reign of King John and Henry III., and it resembles
+our present English much more nearly than the poem of Layamon. In his
+dedication of the work to his brother Walter, Orm says--and we give his
+words as an illustration of the language in which he wrote:
+
+    Ice hafe don swa summ thu bad
+    Annd forthedd te thin wille
+    Ice hafe wennd uintill Ennglissh
+    Goddspelless hallghe lare
+    Affterr thatt little witt tatt me
+    Min Drihhten hafethth lenedd
+
+    I have done so as thou bade,
+    And performed thee thine will;
+    I have turned into English
+    Gospel's holy lore,
+    After that little wit that me
+    My lord hath lent.
+
+The poem is written in Alexandrine verses, which may be divided into
+octosyllabic lines, alternating with those of six syllables, as in the
+extract given above. He is critical with regard to his orthography, as is
+evinced in the following instructions which he gives to his future readers
+and transcriber:
+
+    And whase willen shall this booke
+    Eft other sithe writen,
+    Him bidde ice that he't write right
+    Swa sum this booke him teacheth
+
+    And whoso shall wish this book
+    After other time to write,
+    Him bid I that he it write right,
+    So as this book him teacheth.
+
+The critics have observed that, whereas the language of Layamon shows that
+it was written in the southwest of England, that of Orm manifests an
+eastern or northeastern origin. To the historical student, Orm discloses
+the religious condition and needs of the people, and the teachings of the
+Church. His poem is also manifestly a landmark in the history of the
+English language.
+
+
+ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER.--Among the rhyming chroniclers of this period,
+Robert, a monk of Gloucester Abbey, is noted for his reproduction of the
+history of Geoffrey of Monmouth, already presented by Wace in French, and
+by Layamon in Saxon-English. But he is chiefly valuable in that he carries
+the chronicle forward to the end of the reign of Henry III. Written in
+West-country English, it not only contains a strong infusion of French,
+but distinctly states the prevailing influence of that language in his own
+day:
+
+    Vor bote a man couthe French, me tolth of him well lute
+    Ac lowe men holdeth to Englyss, and to her kunde speche zute.
+
+    For unless a man know French, one talketh of him little;
+    But _low_ men hold to English, and to their natural speech yet.
+
+The chronicle of Robert is written in Alexandrines, and, except for the
+French words incongruously interspersed, is almost as "barbarous" Saxon as
+the Brut of Layamon.
+
+
+LANGLAND--PIERS PLOWMAN.--The greatest of the immediate heralds of
+Chaucer, whether we regard it as a work of literary art, or as an historic
+reflector of the age, is "The Vision of Piers Plowman," by Robert
+Langland, which appeared between 1360 and 1370. It stands between the
+Semi-Saxon and the old English, in point of language, retaining the
+alliterative feature of the former; and, as a teacher of history, it
+displays very clearly the newly awakened spirit of religious inquiry, and
+the desire for religious reform among the English people: it certainly was
+among the means which aided in establishing a freedom of religious thought
+in England, while as yet the continent was bound in the fetters of a
+rigorous and oppressive authority.
+
+Peter, the ploughboy, intended as a representative of the common people,
+drops asleep on Malvern Hills, between Wales and England, and sees in his
+dream an array of virtues and vices pass before him--such as Mercy, Truth,
+Religion, Covetousness, Avarice, etc. The allegory is not unlike that of
+Bunyan. By using these as the personages, in the manner of the early
+dramas called the Moralities, he is enabled to attack and severely scourge
+the evil lives and practices of the clergy, and the abuses which had
+sprung up in the Church, and to foretell the punishment, which afterward
+fell upon the monasteries in the time of Henry VIII., one hundred and
+fifty years later:
+
+    And then shall the Abbot of Abingdon, and all his issue forever,
+    _Have a knock of a king, and incurable the wound_.
+
+His attack is not against the Church itself, but against the clergy. It
+is to be remarked, in studying history through the medium of literature,
+that the works of a certain period, themselves the result of history,
+often illustrate the coming age, by being prophetic, or rather, as
+antecedents by suggesting consequents. Thus, this Vision of Piers Plowman
+indicates the existence of a popular spirit which had been slowly but
+steadily increasing--which sympathized with Henry II. and the
+priest-trammelling "Constitutions of Clarendon," even while it was ready
+to go on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas à Becket, the illustrious
+victim of the quarrel between Henry and his clergy. And it points with no
+uncertain finger to a future of greater light and popular development, for
+this bold spirit of reform was strongly allied to political rights. The
+clergy claimed both spiritualities and temporalities from the Pope, and,
+being governed by ecclesiastical laws, were not like other English
+subjects amenable to the civil code. The king's power was thus endangered;
+a proud and encroaching spirit was fostered, and the clergy became
+dissolute in their lives. In the words of Piers Plowman:
+
+    I found these freres, | For profit of hem selve;
+    All the four orders,  | Closed the gospel,
+    Preaching the people  | As hem good liked.
+
+
+And again:
+
+    Ac now is Religion       | And a loud buyer,
+    A rider, a roamer about, | A pricker on a palfrey,
+    A leader of love days    | From manor to manor.
+
+
+PIERS PLOWMAN'S CREED.--The name of Piers Plowman and the conceit of his
+Vision became at once very popular. He stood as a representative of the
+peasant class rising in importance and in assertion of religious rights.
+
+An unknown follower of Wiclif wrote a poem called "Piers Plowman's Creed,"
+which conveys religious truth in a formula of belief. The language and the
+alliterative feature are similar to those of the Vision; and the
+invective is against the clergy, and especially against the monks and
+friars.
+
+
+FROISSART.--Sire Jean Froissart was born about 1337. He is placed here for
+the observance of chronological order: he was not an English writer, but
+must receive special mention because his "Chronicles," although written in
+French, treat of the English wars in France, and present splendid pictures
+of English chivalry and heroism. He lived, too, for some time in England,
+where he figured at court as the secretary of Philippa, queen of Edward
+III. Although not always to be relied on as an historian, his work is
+unique and charming, and is very truthful in its delineation of the men
+and manners of that age: it was written for courtly characters, and not
+for the common people. The title of his work may be translated "Chronicles
+of France, England, Scotland, Spain, Brittany, Gascony, Flanders, and
+surrounding places."
+
+
+SIR JOHN MANDEVIL, (1300-1371.)--We also place in this general catalogue a
+work which has, ever since its appearance, been considered one of the
+curiosities of English literature. It is a narrative of the travels of
+Mandevil in the East. He was born in 1300; became a doctor of medicine,
+and journeyed in those regions of the earth for thirty-four years. A
+portion of the time he was in service with a Mohammedan army; at other
+times he lived in Egypt, and in China, and, returning to England an old
+man, he brought such a budget of wonders--true and false--stories of
+immense birds like the roc, which figure in Arabian mythology and romance,
+and which could carry elephants through the air--of men with tails, which
+were probably orang-outangs or gorillas.
+
+Some of his tales, which were then entirely discredited, have been
+ascertained by modern travellers to be true. His work was written by him
+first in Latin, and then in French--Latin for the savans, and French for
+the court--and afterward, such was the power and demand of the new
+English tongue, that he presented his marvels to the world in an English
+version. This was first printed by Wynken de Worde, in 1499.
+
+
+
+Other Writers of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, Who Preceded
+Chaucer.
+
+
+Robert Manning, a canon of Bourne--called also Robert de Brunne:
+Translated a portion of Wace's _Brut_, and also a chronicle of Piers de
+Langtoft bringing the history down to the death of Edward I. (1307.) He is
+also supposed to be the author of a translation of the "Manuel des Pêchés,"
+(Handling of Sins,) the original of which is ascribed to Bishop Grostête
+of Lincoln.
+
+_The Ancren Riwle_, or _Anchoresses' Rule_, about 1200, by an unknown
+writer, sets forth the duties of a monastic life for three ladies
+(anchoresses) and their household in Dorsetshire.
+
+Roger Bacon, (1214-1292,) a friar of Ilchester: He extended the area of
+knowledge by his scientific experiments, but wrote his Opus Magus, or
+_greater work_, in comparison with the Opus Minus, and numerous other
+treatises in Latin. If he was not a writer in English, his name should be
+mentioned as a great genius, whose scientific knowledge was far in advance
+of his age, and who had prophetic glimpses of the future conquests of
+science.
+
+Robert Grostête, Bishop of Lincoln, died 1253, was probably the author of
+the _Manuel des Pêchés_, and also wrote a treatise on the sphere.
+
+Sir Michael Scott: He lived in the latter half of the thirteenth century;
+was a student of the "occult sciences," and also skilled in theology and
+medicine. He is referred to by Walter Scott as the "wondrous wizard,
+Michael Scott."
+
+Thomas of Ercildoun--called the Rhymer--supposed by Sir Walter Scott, but
+erroneously, as is now believed, to be the author of "Sir Tristram."
+
+_The King of Tars_ is the work of an unknown author of this period.
+
+
+In thus disposing of the authors before Chaucer, no attempt has been made
+at a nice subdivision and classification of the character of the works, or
+the nature of the periods, further than to trace the onward movement of
+the language, in its embryo state, in its birth, and in its rude but
+healthy infancy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAUCER, AND THE EARLY REFORMATION.
+
+
+   A New Era--Chaucer. Italian Influence. Chaucer as a Founder. Earlier
+   Poems. The Canterbury Tales. Characters. Satire. Presentations of
+   Woman. The Plan Proposed.
+
+
+
+THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA.
+
+
+And now it is evident, from what has been said, that we stand upon the eve
+of a great movement in history and literature. Up to this time everything
+had been more or less tentative, experimental, and disconnected, all
+tending indeed, but with little unity of action, toward an established
+order. It began to be acknowledged that though the clergy might write in
+Latin, and Frenchmen in French, the English should "show their fantasyes
+in such words as we learneden of our dame's tonge," and it was equally
+evident that that English must be cultivated and formed into a fitting
+vehicle for vigorous English thought. To do this, a master mind was
+required, and such a master mind appeared in the person of Chaucer. It is
+particularly fortunate for our historic theory that his works,
+constituting the origin of our homogeneous English literature, furnish
+forth its best and most striking demonstration.
+
+
+CHAUCER'S BIRTH.--Geoffrey Chaucer was born at London about the year 1328:
+as to the exact date, we waive all the discussion in which his biographers
+have engaged, and consider this fixed as the most probable time. His
+parentage is unknown, although Leland, the English antiquarian, declares
+him to have come of a noble family, and Pitts says he was the son of a
+knight. He died in the year 1400, and thus was an active and observant
+contemporary of events in the most remarkable century which had thus far
+rolled over Europe--the age of Edward III. and the Black Prince, of Crecy
+and Poitiers, of English bills and bows, stronger than French lances; the
+age of Wiclif, of reformation in religion, government, language, and
+social order. Whatever his family antecedents, he was a courtier, and a
+successful one; his wife was Philippa, a sister of Lady Katherine
+Swinford, first the mistress and then the wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of
+Lancaster.
+
+
+ITALIAN INFLUENCE.--From a literary point of view, the period of his birth
+was remarkable for the strong influence of Italian letters, which first
+having made its entrance into France, now, in natural course of progress,
+found its way into England. Dante had produced,
+
+      ... in the darkness prest,
+    From his own soul by worldly weights, ...
+
+the greatest poem then known to modern Europe, and the most imaginative
+ever written. Thus the Italian sky was blazing with splendor, while the
+West was still in the morning twilight. The Divina Commedia was written
+half a century before the Canterbury Tales.
+
+Boccaccio was then writing his _Filostrato_, which was to be Chaucer's
+model in the Troilus and Creseide, and his _Decameron_, which suggested
+the plan of the Canterbury Tales. His _Teseide_ is also said to be the
+original of the Knight's Tale. Petrarch, "the worthy clerke" from whom
+Chaucer is said to have learned a story or two in Italy for his great
+work, was born in 1304, and was also a star of the first magnitude in that
+Italian galaxy.
+
+Indeed, it is here worthy of a passing remark, that from that early time
+to a later period, many of the great products of English poetry have been
+watered by silver rills of imaginative genius from a remote Italian
+source. Chaucer's indebtedness has just been noticed. Spenser borrowed his
+versification and not a little of his poetic handling in the Faery Queen
+from Ariosto. Milton owes to Dante some of his conceptions of heaven and
+hell in his Paradise Lost, while his Lycidas, Arcades, Allegro and
+Penseroso, may be called Italian poems done into English.
+
+In the time of Chaucer, this Italian influence marks the extended
+relations of English letters; and, serving to remove the trammels of the
+French, it gave to the now vigorous and growing English that opportunity
+of development for which it had so long waited. Out of the serfdom and
+obscurity to which it had been condemned by the Normans, it had sprung
+forth in reality, as in name, the English language. Books, few at the
+best, long used in Latin or French, were now demanded by English mind, and
+being produced in answer to the demand.
+
+
+THE FOUNDER OF THE LITERATURE.--But there was still wanted a man who could
+use the elements and influences of the time--a great poet--a maker--a
+creator of literature. The language needed a forming, controlling, fixing
+hand. The English mind needed a leader and master, English imagination a
+guide, English literature a father.
+
+The person who answered to this call, and who was equal to all these
+demands, was Chaucer. But he was something more. He claimed only to be a
+poet, while he was to figure in after times as historian, philosopher, and
+artist.
+
+The scope of this work does not permit an examination of Chaucer's
+writings in detail, but the position we have taken will be best
+illustrated by his greatest work, the Canterbury Tales. Of the others, a
+few preliminary words only need be said. Like most writers in an early
+literary period, Chaucer began with translations, which were extended into
+paraphrases or versions, and thus his "'prentice hand" gained the
+practice and skill with which to attempt original poems.
+
+
+MINOR POEMS.--His earliest attempt, doubtless, was the _Romaunt of the
+Rose_, an allegorical poem in French, by William de Lorris, continued,
+after his death in 1260, by Jean de Meun, who figured as a poet in the
+court of Charles le Bel, of France. This poem, esteemed by the French as
+the finest of their old romances, was rendered by Chaucer, with
+considerable alterations and improvements, into octosyllabic verse. The
+Romaunt portrays the trials which a lover meets and the obstacles he
+overcomes in pursuit of his mistress, under the allegory of a rose in an
+inaccessible garden. It has been variously construed--by theologians as
+the yearning of man for the celestial city; by chemists as the search for
+the philosopher's stone; by jurists as that for equity, and by medical men
+as the attempt to produce a panacea for all human ailments.
+
+Next in order was his _Troilus and Creseide_, a mediæval tale, already
+attempted by Boccaccio in his Filostrate, but borrowed by Chaucer,
+according to his own account, from _Lollius_, a mysterious name without an
+owner. The story is similar to that dramatized by Shakspeare in his
+tragedy of the same title. This is in decasyllabic verse, arranged in
+stanzas of seven lines each.
+
+The _House of Fame_, another of his principal poems, is a curious
+description--probably his first original effort--of the Temple of Fame, an
+immense cage, sixty miles long, and its inhabitants the great writers of
+classic times, and is chiefly valuable as showing the estimation in which
+the classic writers were held in that day. This is also in octosyllabic
+verses, and is further remarkable for the opulence of its imagery and its
+variety of description. The poet is carried in the claws of a great eagle
+into this house, and sees its distinguished occupants standing upon
+columns of different kinds of metal, according to their merits. The poem
+ends with the third book, very abruptly, as Chaucer awakes from his
+vision.
+
+"The Legend of Good Women" is a record of the loves and misfortunes of
+celebrated women, and is supposed to have been written to make amends for
+the author's other unjust portraitures of female character.
+
+
+THE CANTERBURY TALES.--In order to give system to our historic inquiries,
+we shall now present an outline of the Canterbury Tales, in order that we
+may show--
+
+   I. The indications of a general desire in that period for a reformation
+   in religion.
+
+   II. The social condition of the English people.
+
+   III. The important changes in government.
+
+   IV. The condition and progress of the English language.
+
+The Canterbury Tales were begun in 1386, when Chaucer was fifty-eight
+years old, and in a period of comparative quiet, after the minority of
+Richard II. was over, and before his troubles had begun. They form a
+beautiful gallery of cabinet pictures of English society in all its
+grades, except the very highest and the lowest; and, in this respect, they
+supplement in exact lineaments and the freshest coloring those compendiums
+of English history which only present to us, on the one hand, the persons
+and deeds of kings and their nobles, and, on the other, the general laws
+which so long oppressed the lower orders of the people, and the action of
+which is illustrated by disorders among them. But in Chaucer we find the
+true philosophy of English society, the principle of the guilds, or
+fraternities, to which his pilgrims belong--the character and avocation of
+the knight, squire, yeoman, franklin, bailiff, sompnour, reeve, etc.,
+names, many of them, now obsolete. Who can find these in our compendiums?
+they must be dug--and dry work it is--out of profounder histories, or
+found, with greater pleasure, in poems like that of Chaucer.
+
+
+CHARACTERS.--Let us consider, then, a few of his principal characters
+which most truly represent the age and nation.
+
+The Tabard inn at Southwark, then a suburb of "London borough without the
+walls," was a great rendezvous for pilgrims who were journeying to the
+shrine of St. Thomas à Becket, at Canterbury--that Saxon archbishop who
+had been murdered by the minions of Henry II. Southwark was on the high
+street, the old Roman highway from London to the southeast. A gathering of
+pilgrims here is no uncommon occurrence; and thus numbers and variety make
+a combination of penitence and pleasure. The host of the Tabard--doubtless
+a true portraiture of the landlord of that day--counts noses, that he may
+distribute the pewter plates. A substantial supper smokes upon the
+old-fashioned Saxon-English board--so substantial that the pilgrims are
+evidently about to lay in a good stock, in anticipation of poor fare, the
+fatigue of travel, and perhaps a fast or two not set down in the calendar.
+As soon as they attack the viands, ale and strong wines, hippocras,
+pigment, and claret, are served in bright pewter and wood. There were
+Saxon drinks for the commoner pilgrims; the claret was for the knight.
+Every one drinks at his will, and the miller, as we shall see, takes a
+little more than his head can decently carry.
+
+First in the place of honor is the knight, accompanied by his son, the
+young squire, and his trusty yeoman. Then, in order of social rank, a
+prioress, a nun and three priests, a friar, a merchant, a poor scholar or
+clerk of Oxford, a sergeant of the law, a frankelein, a haberdasher, a
+weaver, a tapster, a dyer, a cook, a shipman, a doctor of physic, a wife
+of Bath, a poor parson, a ploughman, a miller, a manciple or college
+steward, a reeve or bailiff, a sompnour or summoner to the ecclesiastical
+courts, a pardoner or seller of papal indulgences (one hundred and fifty
+years before Luther)--an essentially English company of many social
+grades, bound to the most popular shrine, that of a Saxon archbishop,
+himself the son of a London citizen, murdered two hundred years before
+with the connivance of an English king. No one can read this list without
+thinking that if Chaucer be true and accurate in his descriptions of these
+persons, and make them talk as they did talk, his delineations are of
+inestimable value historically. He has been faithfully true. Like all
+great masters of the epic art, he doubtless drew them from the life; each,
+given in the outlines of the prologue, is a speaking portrait: even the
+horses they ride are as true to nature as those in the pictures of Rosa
+Bonheur.
+
+And besides these historic delineations which mark the age and country,
+notwithstanding the loss of local and personal satire with which, to the
+reader of his day, the poem must have sparkled, and which time has
+destroyed for us, the features of our common humanity are so well
+portrayed, that to the latest generations will be there displayed the
+"forth-showing instances" of the _Idola Tribus_ of Bacon, the besetting
+sins, frailties, and oddities of the human race.
+
+
+SATIRE.--His touches of satire and irony are as light as the hits of an
+accomplished master of the small-sword; mere hits, but significant of deep
+thrusts, at the scandals, abuses, and oppressions of the age. Like
+Dickens, he employed his fiction in the way of reform, and helped to
+effect it.
+
+Let us illustrate. While sitting at the table, Chaucer makes his sketches
+for the Prologue. A few of these will serve here as specimens of his
+powers. Take the _Doctour of Physike_ who
+
+    Knew the cause of every maladie,
+    Were it of cold or hote or wet or drie;
+
+who also knew
+
+      ... the old Esculapius,
+    And Dioscorides and eke Rufus,
+    Old Hippocras, Rasis, and Avicen,
+
+and many other classic authorities in medicine.
+
+    Of his diete mesurable was he,
+    And it was of no superfluite;
+
+nor was it a gross slander to say of the many,
+
+    His studie was but litel on the Bible.
+
+It was a suggestive satire which led him to hint that he was
+
+          ... but esy of dispense;
+    He kepte that he wan in pestilence;
+    For gold in physike is a cordial;
+    Therefore he loved gold in special.
+
+Chaucer deals tenderly with the lawyers; yet, granting his sergeant of the
+law discretion and wisdom, a knowledge of cases even "from the time of
+King Will," and fees and perquisites quite proportional, he adds,
+
+    Nowher so besy a man as he ther n' as,
+    And yet he seemed besier than he was.
+
+
+HIS PRESENTATIONS OF WOMAN.--Woman seems to find hard judgment in this
+work. Madame Eglantine, the prioress, with her nasal chanting, her
+English-French, "of Stratford-atte-Bow," her legion of smalle houndes, and
+her affected manner, is not a flattering type of woman's character, and
+yet no doubt she is a faithful portrait of many a prioress of that day.
+
+And the wife of Bath is still more repulsive. She tells us, in the
+prologue to her story, that she has buried five husbands, and, buxom
+still, is looking for the sixth. She is a jolly _compagnon de voyage_, had
+been thrice to Jerusalem, and is now seeking assoil for some little sins
+at Canterbury. And the host's wife, as he describes her, is not by any
+means a pleasant helpmeet for an honest man. The host is out of her
+hearing, or he would not be so ready to tell her character:
+
+    I have a wif, tho' that she poore be;
+    But of her tongue a blabbing shrew is she,
+    And yet she hath a heap of vices mo.
+
+She is always getting into trouble with the neighbors; and when he will
+not fight in her quarrel, she cries,
+
+            ... False coward, wreak thy wif;
+    By corpus domini, I will have thy knife,
+    And thou shalt have my distaff and go spin.
+
+The best names she has for him are milksop, coward, and ape; and so we
+say, with him,
+
+    Come, let us pass away from this mattère.
+
+
+THE PLAN PROPOSED.--With these suggestions of the nature of the company
+assembled "for to don their pilgrimage," we come to the framework of the
+story. While sitting at the table, the host proposes
+
+    That each of you, to shorten with your way,
+    In this viage shall tellen tales twey.
+
+Each pilgrim should tell two stories; one on the way to Canterbury, and
+one returning. As, including Chaucer and the host, there are thirty-one in
+the company, this would make sixty-two stories. The one who told the best
+story should have, on the return of the company to the Tabard inn, a
+supper at the expense of the rest.
+
+The host's idea was unanimously accepted; and in the morning, as they ride
+forth, they begin to put it into execution. Although lots are drawn for
+the order in which the stories shall be told, it is easily arranged by the
+courteous host, who recognizes the difference in station among the
+pilgrims, that the knight shall inaugurate the scheme, which he does by
+telling that beautiful story of _Palamon and Arcite_, the plot of which is
+taken from _Le Teseide_ of Boccacio. It is received with cheers by the
+company, and with great delight by the host, who cries out,
+
+    So mote I gon--this goth aright,
+    Unbockled is the mail.
+
+The next in order is called for, but the miller, who has replenished his
+midnight potations in the morning, and is now rolling upon his horse,
+swears that "he can a noble tale," and, not heeding the rebuke of the
+host,
+
+    Thou art a fool, thy wit is overcome,
+
+he shouts out a vulgar story, in all respects in direct contrast to that
+of the knight. As a literary device, this rude introduction of the miller
+breaks the stiffness and monotony of a succession in the order of rank;
+and, as a feature of the history, it seems to tell us something of
+democratic progress. The miller's story ridicules a carpenter, and the
+reeve, who is a carpenter, immediately repays him by telling a tale in
+which he puts a miller in a ludicrous position.
+
+With such a start, the pilgrims proceed to tell their tales; but not all.
+There is neither record of their reaching Canterbury, nor returning. Nor
+is the completion of the number at all essential: for all practical
+purposes, we have all that can be asked; and had the work been completed,
+it would have added little to the historical stores which it now
+indirectly, and perhaps unconsciously, offers. The number of the tales
+(including two in prose) is twenty-four, and great additional value is
+given to them by the short prologue introducing each of them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAUCER, (CONTINUED.)--REFORMS IN RELIGION AND SOCIETY.
+
+
+   Historical Facts. Reform in Religion. The Clergy, Regular and Secular.
+   The Friar and the Sompnour. The Pardonere. The Poure Persone. John
+   Wiclif. The Translation of the Bible. The Ashes of Wiclif.
+
+
+
+HISTORICAL FACTS.
+
+
+Leaving the pilgrims' cavalcade for a more philosophical consideration of
+the historical teachings of the subject, it may be clearly shown that the
+work of Chaucer informs us of a wholesome reform in religion, or, in the
+words of George Ellis,[16] "he was not only respected as the father of
+English poetry, but revered as a champion of the Reformation."
+
+Let us recur briefly to the history. With William the Conqueror a great
+change had been introduced into England: under him and his immediate
+successors--his son William Rufus, his nephew Henry I., the usurper
+Stephen, and Henry II.,--the efforts of the "English kings of Norman race"
+were directed to the establishment of their power on a strong foundation;
+but they began, little by little, to see that the only foundation was that
+of the unconquerable English people; so that popular rights soon began to
+be considered, and the accession of Henry II., the first of the
+Plantagenets, was specially grateful to the English, because he was the
+first since the Conquest to represent the Saxon line, being the grandson
+of Henry I., and son of _Matilda_, niece of Edgar Atheling. In the mean
+time, as has been seen, the English language had been formed, the chief
+element of which was Saxon. This was a strong instrument of political
+rights, for community of language tended to an amalgamation of the Norman
+and Saxon peoples. With regard to the Church in England, the insulation
+from Rome had impaired the influence of the Papacy. The misdeeds and
+arrogance of the clergy had arrayed both people and monarch against their
+claims, as several of the satirical poems already mentioned have shown. As
+a privileged class, who used their immunities to do evil and corrupt the
+realm, the clergy became odious to the _nobles_, whose power they shared
+and sometimes impaired, and to the _people_, who could now read their
+faults and despise their comminations, and who were unwilling to pay
+hard-earned wages to support them in idleness and vice. It was not the
+doctrine, but the practice which they condemned. With the accession of the
+house of Plantagenet, the people were made to feel that the Norman
+monarchy was a curse, without alloy. Richard I. was a knight-errant and a
+crusader, who cared little for the realm; John was an adulterer, traitor,
+and coward, who roused the people's anger by first quarrelling with the
+Pope, and then basely giving him the kingdom to receive it again as a
+papal fief. The nation, headed by the warlike barons, had forced the great
+charter of popular rights from John, and had caused it to be confirmed and
+supplemented during the long reign of his son, the weak Henry III.
+
+Edward I. was engaged in cruel wars, both in Wales and Scotland, which
+wasted the people's money without any corresponding advantage.
+
+Edward II. was deposed and murdered by his queen and her paramour
+Mortimer; and, however great their crime, he was certainly unworthy and
+unable to control a fierce and turbulent people, already clamorous for
+their rights. These well-known facts are here stated to show the
+unsettled condition of things during the period when the English were
+being formed into a nation, the language established, and the earliest
+literary efforts made. Materials for a better organization were at hand in
+great abundance; only proper master-builders were needed. We have seen
+that everything now betokened the coming of a new era, in State, Church,
+and literature.
+
+The monarch who came to the throne in 1327, one year before the birth of
+Chaucer, was worthy to be the usher of this new era to England: a man of
+might, of judgment, and of forecast; the first truly _English_ monarch in
+sympathy and purpose who had occupied the throne since the Conquest:
+liberal beyond all former precedent in religion, he sheltered Wiclif in
+his bold invectives, and paved the way for the later encroachments upon
+the papal supremacy. With the aid of his accomplished son, Edward the
+Black Prince, he rendered England illustrious by his foreign wars, and
+removed what remained of the animosity between Saxon and Norman.
+
+
+REFORM IN RELIGION.--We are so accustomed to refer the Reformation to the
+time of Luther in Germany, as the grand religious turning-point in modern
+history, that we are apt to underrate, if not to forget, the religious
+movement in this most important era of English history. Chaucer and Wiclif
+wrote nearly half a century before John Huss was burned by Sigismond: it
+was a century after that that Luther burned the Pope's decretals at
+Wittenberg, and still later that Henry VIII. threw off the papal dominion
+in England. But great crises in a nation's history never arrive without
+premonition;--there are no moral earthquakes without premonitory throes,
+and sometimes these are more decisive and destructive than that which
+gives electric publicity. Such distinct signs appeared in the age of
+Chaucer, and the later history of the Church in England cannot be
+distinctly understood without a careful study of this period.
+
+It is well known that Chaucer was an adherent of John of Gaunt; that he
+and his great protector--perhaps with no very pious intents--favored the
+doctrines of Wiclif; that in the politico-religious disturbances in 1382,
+incident to the minority of Richard II., he was obliged to flee the
+country. But if we wish to find the most striking religious history of the
+age, we must seek it in the portraitures of religious characters and
+events in his Canterbury Tales. In order to a proper intelligence of
+these, let us look for a moment at the ecclesiastical condition of England
+at that time. Connected with much in doctrine and ritual worthy to be
+retained, and, indeed, still retained in the articles and liturgy of the
+Anglican Church, there was much, the growth of ignorance and neglect, to
+be reformed. The Church of England had never had a real affinity with
+Rome. The gorgeous and sensual ceremonies which, in the indolent airs of
+the Mediterranean, were imposing and attractive, palled upon the taste of
+the more phlegmatic Englishmen. Institutions organized at Rome did not
+flourish in that higher latitude, and abuses were currently discussed even
+before any plan was considered for reforming them.
+
+
+THE CLERGY.--The great monastic orders of St. Benedict, scattered
+throughout Europe, were, in the early and turbulent days, a most important
+aid and protection to Christianity. But by degrees, and as they were no
+longer needed, they had become corrupt, because they had become idle. The
+Cluniacs and Cistercians, branches of the Benedictines, are represented in
+Chaucer's poem by the monk and prioress, as types of bodies which needed
+reform.
+
+The Grandmontines, a smaller branch, were widely known for their foppery:
+the young monks painted their cheeks, and washed and covered their beards
+at night. The cloisters became luxurious, and sheltered, and, what is
+worse, sanctioned lewdness and debauchery.
+
+There was a great difference indeed between the _regular_ clergy, or
+those belonging to orders and monasteries, and the _secular_ clergy or
+parish priests, who were far better; and there was a jealous feud between
+them. There was a lamentable ignorance of the Scripture among the clergy,
+and gross darkness over the people. The paraphrases of Caedmon, the
+translations of Bede and Alfred, the rare manuscripts of the Latin Bible,
+were all that cast a faint ray upon this gloom. The people could not read
+Latin, even if they had books; and the Saxon versions were almost in a
+foreign language. Thus, distrusting their religious teachers, thoughtful
+men began to long for an English version of that Holy Book which contains
+all the words of eternal life. And thus, while the people were becoming
+more clamorous for instruction, and while Wiclif was meditating the great
+boon of a translated Bible, which, like a noonday sun, should irradiate
+the dark places and disclose the loathsome groups and filthy
+manifestations of cell and cloister, Chaucer was administering the
+wholesome medicine of satire and contempt. He displays the typical monk
+given up to every luxury, the costly black dress with fine fur edgings,
+the love-knot which fastens his hood, and his preference for pricking and
+hunting the hare, over poring into a stupid book in a cloister.
+
+
+THE FRIAR AND THE SOMPNOUR.--His satire extends also to the friar, who has
+not even that semblance of virtue which is the tribute of the hypocrite to
+our holy faith. He is not even the demure rascal conceived by Thomson in
+his Castle of Indolence:
+
+          ... the first amid the fry,
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    A little round, fat, oily man of God,
+    Who had a roguish twinkle in his eye,
+    When a tight maiden chanced to trippen by,
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Which when observed, he shrunk into his mew,
+    And straight would recollect his piety anew.
+
+But Chaucer's friar is a wanton and merry scoundrel, taking every
+license, kissing the wives and talking love-talk to the girls in his
+wanderings, as he begs for his Church and his order. His hood is stuffed
+with trinkets to give them; he is worthily known as the best beggar of his
+house; his eyes alight with wine, he strikes his little harp, trolls out
+funny songs and love-ditties. Anon, his frolic over, he preaches to the
+collected crowd violent denunciations of the parish priest, within the
+very limits of his parish. The very principles upon which these mendicant
+orders were established seem to be elements of evil. That they might be
+better than the monks, they had no cloisters and magnificent gardens, with
+little to do but enjoy them. Like our Lord, they were generally without a
+place to lay their heads; they had neither purse nor scrip. But instead of
+sanctifying, the itinerary was their great temptation and final ruin.
+Nothing can be conceived better calculated to harden the heart and to
+destroy the fierce sensibilities of our nature than to be a beggar and a
+wanderer. So that in our retrospective glance, we may pity while we
+condemn "the friar of orders gray." With a delicate irony in Chaucer's
+picture, is combined somewhat of a liking for this "worthy limitour."[17]
+
+In the same category of contempt for the existing ecclesiastical system,
+Chaucer places the sompnour, or summoner to the Church courts. Of his
+fire-red face, scattered beard, and the bilious knobs on his cheeks,
+"children were sore afraid." The friar, in his tale, represents him as in
+league with the devil, who carries him away. He is a drinker of strong
+wines, a conniver at evil for bribes: for a good sum he would teach "a
+felon"
+
+                     ... not to have none awe
+    In swiche a case of the archdeacon's curse.
+
+To him the Church system was nothing unless he could make profit of it.
+
+
+THE PARDONERE.--Nor is his picture of the pardoner, or vender of
+indulgences, more flattering. He sells--to the great contempt of the
+poet--a piece of the Virgin's veil, a bit of the sail of St. Peter's boat,
+holy pigges' bones, and with these relics he made more money in each
+parish in one day than the parson himself in two months.
+
+Thus taking advantage of his plot to ridicule these characters, and to
+make them satirize each other--as in the rival stories of the sompnour and
+friar--he turns with pleasure from these betrayers of religion, to show us
+that there was a leaven of pure piety and devotion left.
+
+
+THE POOR PARSON.--With what eager interest does he portray the lovely
+character of the _poor parson_, the true shepherd of his little flock, in
+the midst of false friars and luxurious monks!--poor himself, but
+
+    Riche was he of holy thought and work,
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    That Cristes gospel truely wolde preche,
+    His parishers devoutly wolde teche.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Wide was his parish and houses fer asonder,
+    But he left nought for ne rain no thonder,
+    In sickness and in mischief to visite
+    The ferrest in his parish, moche and lite.
+    Upon his fete, and in his hand a staf,
+    This noble example to his shepe he yaf,
+    That first he wrought and afterward he taught.
+
+Chaucer's description of the poor parson, which loses much by being
+curtailed, has proved to be a model for all poets who have drawn the
+likeness of an earnest pastor from that day to ours, among whom are
+Herbert, Cowper, Goldsmith, and Wordsworth; but no imitation has equalled
+this beautiful model. When urged by the host,
+
+    Tell us a fable anon, for cocke's bones,
+
+he quotes St. Paul to Timothy as rebuking those who tell fables; and,
+disclaiming all power in poetry, preaches them such a stirring discourse
+upon penance, contrition, confession, and the seven deadly sins, with
+their remedies, as must have fallen like a thunderbolt upon this careless,
+motly crew; and has the additional value of giving us Chaucer's epitome of
+sound doctrine in that bigoted and ignorant age: and, eminently sound and
+holy as it is, it rebukes the lewdness of the other stories, and, in point
+of morality, neutralizes if it does not justify the lewd teachings of the
+work, or in other words, the immorality of the age. This is the parson's
+own view: his story is the last which is told, and he tells us, in the
+prologue to his sermon:
+
+    To knitte up all this feste, and make an ende;
+    And Jesu for his grace wit me sende
+    To showen you the way in this viage
+    Of thilke parfit glorious pilgrimage,
+    That hight Jerusalem celestial.
+
+In an addendum to this discourse, which brings the Canterbury Tales to an
+abrupt close, and which, if genuine, as the best critics think it, was
+added some time after, Chaucer takes shame to himself for his lewd
+stories, repudiates all his "translations and enditinges of worldly
+vanitees," and only finds pleasure in his translations of Boethius, his
+homilies and legends of the saints; and, with words of penitence, he hopes
+that he shall be saved "atte the laste day of dome."
+
+
+JOHN WICLIF.[18]--The subject of this early reformation so clearly set
+forth in the stories of Chaucer, cannot be fully illustrated without a
+special notice of Chaucer's great contemporary and co-worker, John Wiclif.
+
+What Chaucer hints, or places in the mouths of his characters, with
+apparently no very serious intent, Wiclif, himself a secular priest,
+proclaimed boldly and as of prime importance, first from his professor's
+chair at Oxford, and then from his forced retirement at Lutterworth, where
+he may well have been the model of Chaucer's poor parson.
+
+Wiclif was born in 1324, four years before Chaucer. The same abuses which
+called forth the satires of Langland and Chaucer upon monk and friar, and
+which, if unchecked, promised universal corruption, aroused the
+martyr-zeal of Wiclif; and similar reproofs are to be found in his work
+entitled "Objections to Friars," and in numerous treatises from his pen
+against many of the doctrines and practices of the Church.
+
+Noted for his learning and boldness, he was sent by Edward III. one of an
+embassy to Bruges, to negotiate with the Pope's envoys concerning
+benefices held in England by foreigners. There he met John of Gaunt, the
+Duke of Lancaster. This prince, whose immediate descendants were to play
+so prominent a part in later history, was the fourth son of Edward III. By
+the death of the Black Prince, in 1376, and of Lionel, Duke of Clarence,
+in 1368, he became the oldest remaining child of the king, and the father
+of the man who usurped the throne of England and reigned as Henry IV. The
+influence of Lancaster was equal to his station, and he extended his
+protection to Wiclif. This, combined with the support of Lord Percy, the
+Marshal of England, saved the reformer from the stake when he was tried
+before the Bishop, of London on a charge of heresy, in 1377. He was again
+brought before a synod of the clergy at Lambeth, in 1378, but such was the
+favor of the populace in his behalf, and such, too, the weakness of the
+papal party, on account of a schism which had resulted in the election of
+two popes, that, although his opinions were declared heretical, he was not
+proceeded against.
+
+After this, although almost sick to death, he rose from what his enemies
+had hoped would be his death-bed, to "again declare the evil deeds of the
+friars." In 1381, he lectured openly at Oxford against the doctrine of
+transubstantiation; and for this, after a presentment by the Church--and a
+partial recantation, or explaining away--even the liberal king thought
+proper to command that he should retire from the university. Thus, during
+his latter years, he lived in retirement at his little parish of
+Lutterworth, escaping the dangers of the troublous time, and dying--struck
+with paralysis at his chancel--in 1384, sixteen years before Chaucer.
+
+
+TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE.--The labors of Wiclif which produced the most
+important results, were not his violent lectures as a reformer, but the
+translation of the Bible into English, the very language of the common
+people, greatly to the wrath of the hierarchy and its political upholders.
+This, too, is his chief glory: as a reformer he went too fast and too far;
+he struck fiercely at the root of authority, imperilling what was good, in
+his attack upon what was evil. In pulling up the tares he endangered the
+wheat, and from him, as a progenitor, came the Lollards, a fanatical,
+violent, and revolutionary sect.
+
+But his English Bible, the parent of the later versions, cannot be too
+highly valued. For the first time, English readers could search the whole
+Scriptures, and judge for themselves of doctrine and authority: there they
+could learn how far the traditions and commandments of men had encrusted
+and corrupted the pure word of truth. Thus the greatest impulsion was
+given to a reformation in doctrine; and thus, too, the exclusiveness and
+arrogance of the clergy received the first of many sledge-hammer blows
+which were to result in their confusion and discomfiture.
+
+"If," says Froude,[19] "the Black Prince had lived, or if Richard II. had
+inherited the temper of the Plantagenets, the ecclesiastical system would
+have been spared the misfortune of a longer reprieve."
+
+
+THE ASHES OF WICLIF.--The vengeance which Wiclif escaped during his life
+was wreaked upon his bones. In 1428, the Council of Constance ordered that
+if his bones could be distinguished from those of other, faithful people,
+they should "be taken out of the ground and thrown far off from Christian
+burial." On this errand the Bishop of Lincoln came with his officials to
+Lutterworth, and, finding them, burned them, and threw the ashes into the
+little stream called the Swift. Fuller, in his Church History, adds: "Thus
+this brook has conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into
+the narrow seas, they into the main ocean; and thus the ashes of Wiclif
+are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world
+over;" or, in the more carefully selected words of an English laureate of
+modern days,[20]
+
+                   ... this deed accurst,
+    An emblem yields to friends and enemies,
+    How the bold teacher's doctrine, _sanctified
+    By truth_, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAUCER (CONTINUED.)--PROGRESS OF SOCIETY, AND OF LANGUAGES.
+
+
+   Social Life. Government. Chaucer's English. His Death. Historical
+   Facts. John Gower. Chaucer and Gower. Gower's Language. Other Writers.
+
+
+
+SOCIAL LIFE.
+
+
+A few words must suffice to suggest to the student what may be learned, as
+to the condition of society in England, from the Canterbury Tales.
+
+All the portraits are representatives of classes. But an inquiry into the
+social life of the period will be more systematic, if we look first at the
+nature and condition of chivalry, as it still existed, although on the eve
+of departure, in England. This is found in the portraits of certain of
+Chaucer's pilgrims--the knight, the squire, and the yeoman; and in the
+special prologues to the various tales. The _knight_, as the
+representative of European chivalry, comes to us in name at least from the
+German forests with the irrepressible Teutons. _Chivalry_ in its rude
+form, however, was destined to pass through a refining and modifying
+process, and to obtain its name in France. Its Norman characteristic is
+found in the young _ecuyer_ or squire, of Chaucer, who aspires to equal
+his father in station and renown; while the English type of the
+man-at-arms (_l'homme d'armes_) is found in their attendant yeoman, the
+_tiers état_ of English chivalry, whose bills and bows served Edward III.
+at Cressy and Poictiers, and, a little later, made Henry V. of England
+king of France in prospect, at Agincourt. Chivalry, in its palmy days,
+was an institution of great merit and power; but its humanizing purpose
+now accomplished, it was beginning to decline.
+
+What a speaking picture has Chaucer drawn of the knight, brave as a lion,
+prudent in counsel, but gentle as a woman. His deeds of valor had been
+achieved, not at Cressy and Calais, but--what both chieftain and poet
+esteemed far nobler warfare--in battle with the infidel, at Algeçiras, in
+Poland, in Prussia, and Russia. Thrice had he fought with sharp lances in
+the lists, and thrice had he slain his foe; yet he was
+
+    Of his port as meke as is a mayde;
+    He never yet no vilainie ne sayde
+    In all his life unto ne manere wight,
+    He was a very parfit gentil knight.
+
+The entire paradox of chivalry is here presented by the poet. For, though
+Chaucer's knight, just returned from the wars, is going to show his
+devotion to God and the saints by his pilgrimage to the hallowed shrine at
+Canterbury, when he is called upon for his story, his fancy flies to the
+old romantic mythology. Mars is his god of war, and Venus his mother of
+loves, and, by an anachronism quite common in that day, Palamon and Arcite
+are mediæval knights trained in the school of chivalry, and aflame, in
+knightly style, with the light of love and ladies' eyes. These
+incongruities marked the age.
+
+Such was the flickering brightness of chivalry in Chaucer's time, even
+then growing dimmer and more fitful, and soon to "pale its ineffectual
+fire" in the light of a growing civilization. Its better principles, which
+were those of truth, virtue, and holiness, were to remain; but its forms,
+ceremonies, and magnificence were to disappear.
+
+It is significant of social progress, and of the levelling influence of
+Christianity, that common people should do their pilgrimage with community
+of interest as well as danger, and in easy, tale-telling conference with
+those of higher station. The franklin, with white beard and red face, has
+been lord of the sessions and knight of the shire. The merchant, with
+forked beard and Flaundrish beaver hat, discourses learnedly of taxes and
+ship-money, and was doubtless drawn from an existing original, the type of
+a class. Several of the personages belong to the guilds which were so
+famous in London, and
+
+    Were alle yclothed in o livere
+    Of a solempne and grete fraternite.
+
+
+GOVERNMENT.--Closely connected with this social progress, was the progress
+in constitutional government, the fruit of the charters of John and Henry
+III. After the assassination of Edward II. by his queen and her paramour,
+there opened upon England a new historic era, when the bold and energetic
+Edward III. ascended the throne--an era reflected in the poem of Chaucer.
+The king, with Wiclif's aid, checked the encroachments of the Church. He
+increased the representation of the people in parliament, and--perhaps the
+greatest reform of all--he divided that body into two houses, the peers
+and the commons, giving great consequence to the latter in the conduct of
+the government, and introducing that striking feature of English
+legislation, that no ministry can withstand an opposition majority in the
+lower house; and another quite as important, that no tax should be imposed
+without its consent. The philosophy of these great facts is to be found in
+the democratic spirit so manifest among the pilgrims; a spirit tempered
+with loyalty, but ready, where their liberties were encroached upon, to
+act with legislative vigor, as well as individual boldness.
+
+Not so directly, but still forcibly, does Chaucer present the results of
+Edward's wars in France, in the status of the knight, squire, and yeoman,
+and of the English sailor, and in the changes introduced into the language
+and customs of the English thereby.
+
+
+CHAUCER'S ENGLISH.--But we are to observe, finally, that Chaucer is the
+type of progress in the language, giving it himself the momentum which
+carried it forward with only technical modifications to the days of
+Spenser and the Virgin Queen. The _House of Fame_ and other minor poems
+are written in the octosyllabic verse of the Trouvères, but the
+_Canterbury Tales_ give us the first vigorous English handling of the
+decasyllabic couplet, or iambic pentameter, which was to become so
+polished an instrument afterward in the hands of Dryden and Pope. The
+English of all the poems is simple and vernacular.
+
+It is known that Dante had at first intended to compose the Divina
+Commedia in Latin. "But when," he said to the sympathizing Frate Ilario,
+"I recalled the condition of the present age, and knew that those generous
+men for whom, in better days, these things were written, had abandoned
+(_ahi dolore_) the liberal arts into vulgar hands, I threw aside the
+delicate lyre which armed my flank, and attuned another more befitting the
+ears of moderns." It seems strange that he should have thus regretted what
+to us seems a noble and original opportunity of double creation--poem and
+language. What Dante thus bewailed was his real warrant for immortality.
+Had he written his great work in Latin, it would have been consigned, with
+the Italian latinity of the middle ages, to oblivion; while his Tuscan
+still delights the ear of princes and lazzaroni. Professorships of the
+Divina Commedia are instituted in Italian universities, and men are
+considered accomplished when they know it by heart.
+
+What Dante had done, not without murmuring, Chaucer did more cheerfully in
+England. Claimed by both universities as a collegian, perhaps without
+truth, he certainly was an educated man, and must have been sorely tempted
+by Latin hexameters; but he knew his mission, and felt his power. With a
+master hand he moulded the language. He is reproached for having
+introduced "a wagon-load of foreign words," i.e. Norman words, which,
+although frowned upon by some critics, were greatly needed, were eagerly
+adopted, and constituted him the "well of English undefiled," as he was
+called by Spenser. It is no part of our plan to consider Chaucer's
+language or diction, a special study which the reader can pursue for
+himself. Occleve, in his work "_De Regimine Principium"_ calls him "the
+honour of English tonge," "floure of eloquence," and "universal fadir in
+science," and, above all, "the firste findere of our faire language." To
+Lydgate he was the "Floure of Poetes throughout all Bretaine." Measured by
+our standard, he is not always musical, "and," in the language of Dryden,
+"many of his verses are lame for want of half a foot, and sometimes a
+whole one;" but he must be measured by the standards of his age, by the
+judgment of his contemporaries, and by a thorough intelligence of the
+language as he found it and as he left it. Edward III., a practical
+reformer in many things, gave additional importance to English, by
+restoring it in the courts of law, and administering justice to the people
+in their own tongue. When we read of the _English_ kings of this early
+period, it is curious to reflect that these monarchs, up to the time of
+Edward I., spoke French as their vernacular tongue, while English had only
+been the mixed, corrupted language of the lower classes, which was now
+brought thus by king and poet into honorable consideration.
+
+
+HIS DEATH.--Chaucer died on the 25th of October, 1400, in his little
+tenement in the garden of St. Mary's Chapel, Westminster, and left his
+works and his fame to an evil and unappreciative age. His monument was not
+erected until one hundred and fifty-six years afterward, by Nicholas
+Brigham. It stands in the "poets' corner" of Westminster Abbey, and has
+been the nucleus of that gathering-place of the sacred dust which once
+enclosed the great minds of England. The inscription, which justly styles
+him "Anglorum vates ter maximus," is not to be entirely depended upon as
+to the "annus Domini," or "tempora vitae," because of the turbulent and
+destructive reigns that had intervened--evil times for literary effort,
+and yet making material for literature and history, and producing that
+wonderful magician, the printing-press, and paper, by means of which the
+former things might be disseminated, and Chaucer brought nearer to us than
+to them.
+
+
+HISTORICAL FACTS.--The year before Chaucer died, Richard II. was starved
+in his dungeon. Henry, the son of John of Gaunt, represented the
+usurpation of Lancaster, and the realm was convulsed with the revolts of
+rival aristocracy; and, although Prince Hal, or Henry V., warred with
+entire success in France, and got the throne of that kingdom away from
+Charles VI., (the Insane,) he died leaving to his infant son, Henry VI.,
+an inheritance which could not be secured. The rival claimant of York,
+Edward IV., had a strong party in the kingdom: then came the wars of the
+Roses; the murders and treason of Richard III.; the sordid valor of Henry
+VII.; the conjugal affection of Henry VIII.; the great religious
+earthquake all over Europe, known as the Reformation; constituting all
+together an epoch too stirring and unsettled to permit literature to
+flourish; an epoch which gave birth to no great poet or mighty master, but
+which contained only the seeds of things which were to germinate and
+flourish in a kindlier age.
+
+In closing this notice of Chaucer, it should be remarked that no English
+poet has been more successful in the varied delineation of character, or
+in fresh and charming pictures of Nature. Witty and humorous, sententious
+and didactic, solemn and pathetic, he not only pleases the fancy, but
+touches the heart.
+
+
+JOHN GOWER.--Before entering upon the barren period from Chaucer to
+Spenser, however, there is one contemporary of Chaucer whom we must not
+omit to mention; for his works, although of little literary value, are
+historical signs of the times: this is _John Gower_, styled variously Sir
+John and Judge Gower, as he was very probably both a knight and a justice.
+He seems to owe most of his celebrity to his connection, however slight,
+with Chaucer; although there is no doubt of his having been held in good
+repute by the literary patrons and critics of his own age. His fame rests
+upon three works, or rather three parts of one scheme--_Speculum
+Meditantis_, _Vox Clamantis_, and _Confessio Amantis_. The first of these,
+_the mirror of one who meditates_, was in French verse, and was, in the
+main, a treatise upon virtue and repentance, with inculcations to conjugal
+fidelity much disregarded at that time. This work has been lost. The _Vox
+Clamantis_, or _voice of one crying in the wilderness_, is directly
+historical, being a chronicle, in Latin elegiacs, of the popular revolts
+of Wat Tyler in the time of Richard II., and a sermon on fatalism, which,
+while it calls for a reformation in the clergy, takes ground against
+Wiclif, his doctrines, and adherents. In the later books he discusses the
+military and the lawyers; and thus he is the voice of one crying, like the
+Baptist in the wilderness, against existing abuses and for the advent of a
+better order. The _Confessio Amantis_, now principally known because it
+contains a eulogium of Chaucer, which in his later editions he left out,
+is in English verse, and was composed at the instance of Richard II. The
+general argument of this Lover's Confession is a dialogue between the
+lover and a priest of Venus, who, in the guise of a confessor, applies the
+breviary of the Church to the confessions of love.[21] The poem is
+interspersed with introductory or recapitulatory Latin verses.
+
+
+CHAUCER AND GOWER.--That there was for a time a mutual admiration between
+Chaucer and Gower, is shown by their allusion to each other. In the
+penultimate stanza of the Troilus and Creseide, Chaucer calls him "O
+Morall Gower," an epithet repeated by Dunbar, Hawes, and other writers;
+while in the _Confessio Amantis_, Gower speaks of Chaucer as his disciple
+and poet, and alludes to his poems with great praise. That they were at
+any time alienated from each other has been asserted, but the best
+commentators agree in thinking without sufficient grounds.
+
+The historical teachings of Gower are easy to find. He states truths
+without parable. His moral satires are aimed at the Church corruptions of
+the day, and yet are conservative; and are taken, says Berthelet, in his
+dedication of the Confessio to Henry VIII., not only out of "poets,
+orators, historic writers, and philosophers, but out of the Holy
+Scripture"--the same Scripture so eloquently expounded by Chaucer, and
+translated by Wiclif. Again, Gower, with an eye to the present rather than
+to future fame, wrote in three languages--a tribute to the Church in his
+Latin, to the court in his French, and to the progressive spirit of the
+age in his English. The latter alone is now read, and is the basis of his
+fame. Besides three poems, he left, among his manuscripts, fifty French
+sonnets, (cinquantes balades,) which were afterward printed by his
+descendant, Lord Gower, Duke of Sutherland.
+
+
+GOWER'S LANGUAGE.--Like Chaucer, Gower was a reformer in language, and was
+accused by the "severer etymologists of having corrupted the purity of the
+English by affecting to introduce so many foreign words and phrases;" but
+he has the tribute of Sir Philip Sidney (no mean praise) that Chaucer and
+himself were the leaders of a movement, which others have followed, "to
+beautifie our mother tongue," and thus the _Confessio Amantis_ ranks as
+one of the formers of our language, in a day when it required much moral
+courage to break away from the trammels of Latin and French, and at the
+same time to compel them to surrender their choicest treasures to the
+English.
+
+Gower was born in 1325 or 1326, and outlived Chaucer. It has been
+generally believed that Chaucer was his poetical pupil. The only evidence
+is found in the following vague expression of Gower in the Confessio
+Amantis:
+
+    And greet well Chaucer when ye meet
+    As _my disciple_ and my poete.
+    For in the flower of his youth,
+    In sondry wise as he well couth,
+    Of ditties and of songes glade
+    The which he for my sake made.
+
+It may have been but a patronizing phrase, warranted by Gower's superior
+rank and station; for to the modern critic the one is the uprising sun,
+and the other the pale star scarcely discerned in the sky. Gower died in
+1408, eight years after his more illustrious colleague.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE PERIOD OF CHAUCER.
+
+
+John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, a Scottish poet, born about 1320:
+wrote a poem concerning the deeds of King Robert I. in achieving the
+independence of Scotland. It is called _Broite_ or _Brute_, and in it, in
+imitation of the English, he traces the Scottish royal lineage to Brutus.
+Although by no means equal to Chaucer, he is far superior to any other
+English poet of the time, and his language is more intelligible at the
+present day than that of Chaucer or Gower. Sir Walter Scott has borrowed
+from Barbour's poem in his "Lord of the Isles."
+
+Blind Harry--name unknown: wrote the adventures of Sir William Wallace,
+about 1460.
+
+James I. of Scotland, assassinated at Perth, in 1437. He wrote "The Kings
+Quhair," (Quire or Book,) describing the progress of his attachment to the
+daughter of the Earl of Somerset, while a prisoner in England, during the
+reign of Henry IV.
+
+Thomas Occleve, flourished about 1420. His principal work is in Latin; De
+Regimine Principum, (concerning the government of princes.)
+
+John Lydgate, flourished about 1430: wrote _Masks_ and _Mummeries_, and
+nine books of tragedies translated from Boccaccio.
+
+Robert Henryson, flourished about 1430: Robin and Makyne, a pastoral; and
+a continuation of Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide, entitled "The Testament
+of Fair Creseide."
+
+William Dunbar, died about 1520: the greatest of Scottish poets, called
+"The Chaucer of Scotland." He wrote "The Thistle and the Rose," "The
+Dance," and "The Golden Targe."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE BARREN PERIOD BETWEEN CHAUCER AND SPENSER.
+
+
+   Greek Literature. Invention of Printing. Caxton. Contemporary History.
+   Skelton. Wyatt. Surrey. Sir Thomas More. Utopia, and other Works. Other
+   Writers.
+
+
+
+THE STUDY OF GREEK LITERATURE.
+
+
+Having thus mentioned the writers whom we regard as belonging to the
+period of Chaucer, although some of them, like Henryson and Dunbar,
+flourished at the close of the fifteenth century, we reach those of that
+literary epoch which may be regarded as the transition state between
+Chaucer and the age of Elizabeth: an epoch which, while it produced no
+great literary work, and is irradiated by no great name, was, however, a
+time of preparation for the splendid advent of Spenser and Shakspeare.
+
+Incident to the dangers which had so long beset the Eastern or Byzantine
+Empire, which culminated in the fall of Constantinople--and to the gradual
+but steady progress of Western Europe in arts and letters, which made it a
+welcome refuge for the imperilled learning of the East--Greek letters came
+like a fertilizing flood across the Continent into England. The philosophy
+of Plato, the power of the Athenian drama, and the learning of the
+Stagyrite, were a new impulse to literature. Before the close of the
+fifteenth century, Greek was taught at Oxford, and men marvelled as they
+read that "musical and prolific language, that gives a soul to the objects
+of sense, and a body to the abstractions of philosophy," a knowledge of
+which had been before entirely lost in the West. Thus was perfected what
+is known as the revival of letters, when classical learning came to enrich
+and modify the national literatures, if it did temporarily retard the
+vernacular progress. The Humanists carried the day against the
+Obscurantists; and, as scholarship had before consisted in a thorough
+knowledge of Latin, it now also included a knowledge of Greek, which
+presented noble works of poetry, eloquence, and philosophy, and gave us a
+new idiom for the terminologies of science.
+
+
+INVENTION OF PRINTING.--Nor was this all. This great wealth of learning
+would have still remained a dead letter to the multitude, and, in the
+main, a useless treasure even to scholars, had it not been for a simple
+yet marvellous invention of the same period. In Germany, some obscure
+mechanics, at Harlem, at Mayence, and at Strasbourg, were at work upon a
+machine which, if perfected, should at once extend letters a hundred-fold,
+and by that process revolutionize literature. The writers before, few as
+they were, had been almost as numerous as the readers; hereafter the
+readers were to increase in a geometrical proportion, and each great
+writer should address millions. Movable types, first of wood and then of
+metal, were made, the latter as early as 1441. Schoeffer, Guttenberg, and
+Faust brought them to such perfection that books were soon printed and
+issued in large numbers. But so slowly did the art travel, partly on
+account of want of communication, and partly because it was believed to
+partake of necromancy, and partly, too, from the phlegmatic character of
+the English people, that thirty years elapsed before it was brought into
+England. The art of printing came in response to the demand of an age of
+progress: it was needed before; it was called for by the increasing number
+of readers, and when it came it multiplied that number largely.
+
+
+WILLIAM CAXTON.--That it did at last come to England was due to William
+Caxton, a native of Kent, and by vocation a mercer, who imported costly
+continental fabrics into England, and with them some of the new books now
+being printed in Holland. That he was a man of some eminence is shown by
+his having been engaged by Edward IV. on a mission to the Duke of
+Burgundy, with power to negotiate a treaty of commerce; that he was a
+person of skill and courtesy is evinced by his being retained in the
+service of Margaret, Duchess of York, when she married Charles, Duke of
+Burgundy. While in her train, he studied printing on the Continent, and is
+said to have printed some books there. At length, when he was more than
+sixty years old, he returned to England; and, in 1474, he printed what is
+supposed to be the first book printed in England, "The Game and Playe of
+the Chesse." Thus it was a century after Chaucer wrote the Canterbury
+Tales that printing was introduced into England. Caxton died in 1491, but
+his workmen continued to print, and among them Wynken de Worde stands
+conspicuous. Among the earlier works printed by Caxton were the Canterbury
+Tales, the Book of Fame, and the Troilus and Creseide of Chaucer.
+
+
+CONTEMPORARY HISTORY.--It will be remembered that this was the stormy
+period of the Wars of the Roses. The long and troubled reign of Henry VI.
+closed in sorrow in 1471. The titular crown of France had been easily
+taken from him by Charles VII. and Joan of Arc; and although Richard of
+York, the great-grandson of Edward III., had failed in his attempts upon
+the English throne, yet _his_ son Edward, afterward the Fourth, was
+successful. Then came the patricide of Clarence, the accession and
+cruelties of Richard III., the battle of Bosworth, and, at length, the
+union of the two houses in the persons of Henry VII. (Henry Tudor of
+Lancaster) and Elizabeth of York. Thus the strife of the succession was
+settled, and the realm had rest to reorganize and start anew in its
+historic career.
+
+The weakening of the aristocracy by war and by execution gave to the
+crown a power before unknown, and made it a fearful coigne of vantage for
+Henry VIII., whose accession was in 1509. People and parliament were alike
+subservient, and gave their consent to the unjust edicts and arbitrary
+cruelties of this terrible tyrant.
+
+In his reign the old English quarrel between Church and State--which
+during the civil war had lain dormant--again rose, and was brought to a
+final issue. It is not unusual to hear that the English Reformation grew
+out of the ambition of a libidinous monarch. This is a coincidence rather
+than a cause. His lust and his marriages would have occurred had there
+been no question of Pope or Church; conversely, had there been a continent
+king upon the throne, the great political and religious events would have
+happened in almost the same order and manner. That "knock of a king" and
+"incurable wound" prophesied by Piers Plowman were to come. Henry only
+seized the opportunity afforded by his ungodly passions as the best
+pretext, where there were many, for setting the Pope at defiance; and the
+spirit of reformation so early displayed, and awhile dormant from
+circumstances, and now strengthened by the voice of Luther, burst forth in
+England. There was little demur to the suppression of the monasteries; the
+tomb of St. Thomas à Becket was desecrated amidst the insulting mummeries
+of the multitude; and if Henry still burned Lutherans--because he could
+not forget that he had in earlier days denounced Luther--if he still
+maintained the six bloody articles[22]--his reforming spirit is shown in
+the execution of Fisher and More, by the anathema which he drew upon
+himself from the Pope, and by Henry's retaliation upon the friends and
+kinsmen of Cardinal Pole, the papal legate.
+
+Having thus briefly glanced at the history, we return to the literary
+products, all of which reflect more or less of the historic age, and by
+their paucity and poverty indicate the existence of the causes so
+unfavorable to literary effort. This statement will be partially
+understood when we mention, as the principal names of this period,
+Skelton, Wyatt, Surrey, and Sir Thomas More, men whose works are scarcely
+known to the ordinary reader, and which are yet the best of the time.
+
+
+SKELTON.--John Skelton, poet, priest, and buffoon, was born about the year
+1460, and educated at what he calls "Alma parens, O Cantabrigensis." Tutor
+to Prince Henry, afterward Henry VIII., he could boast, "The honour of
+England I lernyd to spelle." That he was highly esteemed in his day we
+gather from the eulogium of Erasmus, then for a short time professor of
+Greek at Oxford: "Unum Brittanicarum literarum lumen et decus." By another
+contemporary he is called the "inventive Skelton." As a priest he was not
+very holy; for, in a day when the marriage of the clergy was worse than
+their incontinence, he contracted a secret marriage. He enjoyed for a time
+the patronage of Wolsey, but afterward joined his enemies and attacked him
+violently. He was _laureated_: this does not mean, as at present, that he
+was poet laureate of England, but that he received a degree of which that
+was the title.
+
+His works are direct delineations of the age. Among these are "monodies"
+upon _Kynge Edwarde the forthe_, and the _Earle of Northumberlande_. He
+corrects for Caxton "The boke of the Eneydos composed by Vyrgyle." He
+enters heartily into numerous literary quarrels; is a reformer to the
+extent of exposing ecclesiastical abuses in his _Colin Clout_; and
+scourges the friars and bishops alike; and in this work, and his "Why come
+ye not to Courte?" he makes a special target of Wolsey, and the pomp and
+luxury of his household. He calls him "Mad Amelek, like to Mamelek"
+(Mameluke), and speaks
+
+    Of his wretched original
+    And his greasy genealogy.
+    He came from the sank (blood) royal
+    That was cast out of a butcher's stall.
+
+This was the sorest point upon which he could touch the great cardinal and
+prime minister of Henry VIII.
+
+Historically considered, one work of Skelton is especially valuable, for
+it places him among the first of English dramatists. The first effort of
+the modern drama was the _miracle play_; then came the _morality_; after
+that the _interlude_, which was soon merged into regular tragedy and
+comedy. Skelton's "Magnyfycence," which he calls "a goodly interlude and a
+merie," is, in reality, a morality play as well as an interlude, and marks
+the opening of the modern drama in England.
+
+The peculiar verse of Skelton, styled _skeltonical_, is a sort of English
+anacreontic. One example has been given; take, as another, the following
+lampoon of Philip of Spain and the armada:
+
+    A skeltonicall salutation
+    Or condigne gratulation
+    And just vexation
+    Of the Spanish nation,
+    That in bravado
+    Spent many a crusado
+    In setting forth an armado
+    England to invado.
+
+    Who but Philippus,
+    That seeketh to nip us,
+    To rob us and strip us,
+    And then for to whip us,
+    Would ever have meant
+    Or had intent
+    Or hither sent
+    Such strips of charge, etc., etc.
+
+It varies from five to six syllables, with several consecutive rhymes.
+
+His "Merie Tales" are a series of short and generally broad stories,
+suited to the vulgar taste: no one can read them without being struck with
+the truly historic character of the subjects and the handling, and without
+moralizing upon the age which they describe. Skelton, a contemporary of
+the French Rabelais, seems to us a weak English portrait of that great
+author; like him a priest, a buffoon, a satirist, and a lampooner, but
+unlike him in that he has given us no English _Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_
+to illustrate his age.
+
+
+WYATT.--The next writer who claims our attention is Sir Thomas Wyatt, the
+son of Sir Henry Wyatt. He was born in 1503, and educated at Cambridge.
+Early a courtier, he was imperilled by his attachment to Anne Boleyn,
+conceded, if not quite Platonic, yet to have never led him to criminality.
+Several of his poems were inspired by her charms. The one best known
+begins--
+
+    What word is that that changeth not,
+    Though it be turned and made in twain?
+    It is mine ANNA, God it wot, etc.
+
+That unfortunate queen--to possess whose charms Henry VIII. had repudiated
+Catherine of Arragon, and who was soon to be brought to the block after
+trial on the gravest charges--which we do not think substantiated--was,
+however, frivolous and imprudent, and liked such impassioned
+attentions--indeed, may be said to have suffered for them.
+
+Wyatt was styled by Camden "splendide doctus," but his learning, however
+honorable to him, was not of much benefit to the world; for his works are
+few, and most of them amatory--"songs and sonnets"--full of love and
+lovers: as a makeweight, in _foro conscientiæ_, he paraphrased the
+penitential Psalms. An excellent comment this on the age of Henry VIII.,
+when the monarch possessed with lust attempted the reformation of the
+Church. That Wyatt looked with favor upon the Reformation is indicated by
+one of his remarks to the king: "Heavens! that a man cannot repent him of
+his sins without the Pope's leave!" Imprisoned several times during the
+reign of Henry, after that monarch's death he favored the accession of
+Lady Jane Grey, and, with other of her adherents, was executed for high
+treason on the 11th of April, 1554. We have spoken of the spirit of the
+age. Its criticism was no better than its literature; for Wyatt, whom few
+read but the literary historian, was then considered
+
+    A hand that taught what might be said in rhyme,
+    That reft Chaucer the glory of his wit.
+
+The glory of Chaucer's wit remains, while Wyatt is chiefly known because
+he was executed.
+
+
+SURREY.--A twin star, but with a brighter lustre, was Henry Howard, Earl
+of Surrey, a writer whose works are remarkable for purity of thought and
+refinement of language. Surrey was a gay and wild young
+fellow--distinguished in the tournament which celebrated Henry's marriage
+with Anne of Cleves; now in prison for eating meat in Lent, and breaking
+windows at night; again we find him the English marshal when Henry invaded
+France in 1544. He led a restless life, was imperious and hot-tempered to
+the king, and at length quartered the king's arms with his own, thus
+assuming royal rights and imperilling the king's dignity. On this charge,
+which was, however, only a pretext, he was arrested and executed for high
+treason in 1547, before he was thirty years old.
+
+Surrey is the greatest poetical name of Henry the Eighth's reign, not so
+much for the substance of his poems as for their peculiar handling. He is
+claimed as the introducer of blank verse--the iambic pentameter without
+rhyme, occasionally broken for musical effect by a change in the place of
+the cæsural pause. His translation of the Fourth Book of the Æneid,
+imitated perhaps from the Italian version of the Cardinal de Medici, is
+said to be the first specimen of blank verse in English. How slow its
+progress was is proved by Johnson's remarks upon the versification of
+Milton.[23] Thus in his blank verse Surrey was the forerunner of Milton,
+and in his rhymed pentameter couplet one of the heralds of Dryden and
+Pope.
+
+
+SIR THOMAS MORE.--In a bird's-eye view of literature, the division into
+poetry and prose is really a distinction without a difference. They are
+the same body in different clothing, at labor and at festivity--in the
+working suit and in the court costume. With this remark we usher upon the
+literary scene Thomas More, in many respects one of the most remarkable
+men of his age--scholar, jurist, statesman, gentleman, and Christian; and,
+withal, a martyr to his principles of justice and faith. In a better age,
+he would have retained the highest honors: it is not to his discredit that
+in that reign he was brought to the block.
+
+He was born in 1480. A very precocious youth, a distinguished career was
+predicted for him. He was greatly favored by Henry VIII., who constantly
+visited him at Chelsea, hanging upon his neck, and professing an intensity
+of friendship which, it is said, More always distrusted. He was the friend
+and companion of Erasmus during the residence of that distinguished man in
+England. More was gifted as an orator, and rose to the distinction of
+speaker of the House of Commons; was presented with the great seal upon
+the dismissal of Wolsey, and by his learning, his affability, and his
+kindness, became the most popular, as he seemed to be the most prosperous
+man in England. But, the test of Henry's friendship and of More's
+principles came when the king desired his concurrence in the divorce of
+Catherine of Arragon. He resigned the great seal rather than sign the
+marriage articles of Anne Boleyn, and would not take the oath as to the
+lawfulness of that marriage. Henry's kindness turned to fury, and More was
+a doomed man. A devout Romanist, he would not violate his conscience by
+submitting to the act of supremacy which made Henry the head of the
+Church, and so he was tried for high treason, and executed on the 6th of
+July, 1535. There are few scenes more pathetic than his last interview
+with his daughter Margaret, in the Tower, and no death more calmly and
+beautifully grand than his. He kissed the executioner and forgave him.
+"Thou art," said he, "to do me the greatest benefit that I can receive:
+pluck up thy spirit man, and be not afraid to do thine office."
+
+
+UTOPIA.--His great work, and that which best illustrates the history of
+the age, is his Utopia, ([Greek: ou topos], not a place.) Upon an island
+discovered by a companion of Vespuccius, he established an imaginary
+commonwealth, in which everybody was good and everybody happy. Purely
+fanciful as is his Utopia, and impossible of realization as he knew it to
+be while men are what they are, and not what they ought to be, it is
+manifestly a satire on that age, for his republic shunned English errors,
+and practised social virtues which were not the rule in England.
+
+Although More wrote against Luther, and opposed Henry's Church
+innovations, we are struck with his Utopian claim for great freedom of
+inquiry on all subjects, even religion; and the bold assertion that no man
+should be punished for his religion, because "a man cannot make himself
+believe anything he pleases," as Henry's six bloody articles so fearfully
+asserted he must. The Utopia was written in Latin, but soon translated
+into English. We use the adjective _utopian_ as meaning wildly fanciful
+and impossible: its true meaning is of high excellence, to be striven
+for--in a word, human perfection.
+
+
+OTHER WORKS.--More also wrote, in most excellent English prose, a history
+of the princes, Edward V. and his brother Richard of York, who were
+murdered in the Tower; and a history of their murderer and uncle, Richard
+III. This Richard--and we need not doubt his accuracy of statement, for he
+was born five years before Richard fell at Bosworth--is the short,
+deformed youth, with his left shoulder higher than the right; crafty,
+stony-hearted, and cruel, so strikingly presented by Shakspeare, who takes
+More as his authority. "Not letting (sparing) to kiss whom he thought to
+kill ... friend and foe was indifferent where his advantage grew; he
+spared no man's death whose life withstood his purpose. He slew, with his
+own hands, King Henry VI., being a prisoner in the Tower."
+
+With the honorable name of More we leave this unproductive period, in
+which there was no great growth of any kind, but which was the
+planting-time, when seeds were sown that were soon to germinate and bloom
+and astonish the world. The times remind us of the dark saying in the
+Bible, "Out of the eater came forth meat; out of the strong came
+sweetness."
+
+The art of printing had so increased the number of books, that public
+libraries began to be collected, and, what is better, to be used. The
+universities enlarged their borders, new colleges were added to Cambridge
+and Oxford; new foundations laid. The note of preparation betokened a
+great advent; the scene was fully prepared, and the actors would not be
+wanting.
+
+Upon the death of Henry VIII., in 1547, Edward VI., his son by Jane
+Seymour, ascended the throne, and during his minority a protector was
+appointed in the person of his mother's brother, the Earl of Hertford,
+afterward Duke of Somerset. Edward was a sickly youth of ten years old,
+but his reign is noted for the progress of reform in the Church, and
+especially for the issue of the _Book of Common Prayer_, which must be
+considered of literary importance, as, although with decided
+modifications, and an interruption in its use during the brief reign of
+Mary, it has been the ritual of worship in the Anglican Church ever since.
+It superseded the Latin services--of which it was mainly a translation
+rearranged and modified--finally and completely, and containing, as it
+does, the whole body of doctrine, it was the first clear manifesto of the
+creeds and usages of that Church, and a strong bond of union among its
+members.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE PERIOD.
+
+
+_Thomas Tusser_, 1527-1580: published, in 1557, "A Hundreth Good Points of
+Husbandrie," afterward enlarged and called, "Five Hundred Points of Good
+Husbandrie, united to as many of Good Huswiferie;" especially valuable as
+a picture of rural life and labor in that age.
+
+Alexander Barklay, died 1552: translated into English poetry the _Ship of
+Fools_, by Sebastian Brandt, of Basle.
+
+Reginald Pecock, Bishop of St. Asaph and of Chichester: published, in
+1449, "The Repressor of Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy." He attacked the
+Lollards, but was suspected of heresy himself, and deprived of his
+bishopric.
+
+John Fisher, 1459-1535: was made Bishop of Rochester in 1504; opposed the
+Reformation, and refused to approve of Henry's divorce from Catherine of
+Arragon; was executed by the king. The Pope sent him a cardinal's hat
+while he was lying under sentence. Henry said he would not leave him a
+head to put it on. Wrote principally sermons and theological treatises.
+
+Hugh Latimer, 1472-1555: was made Bishop of Worcester in 1535. An ardent
+supporter of the Reformation, who, by a rude, homely eloquence, influenced
+many people. He was burned at the stake at the age of eighty-three, in
+company with Ridley, Bishop of London, by Queen Mary. His memorable words
+to his fellow-martyr are: "We shall this day light a candle in England
+which, I trust, shall never be put out."
+
+John Leland, or Laylonde, died 1552: an eminent antiquary, who, by order
+of Henry VIII., examined, _con amore_, the records of libraries,
+cathedrals, priories, abbeys, colleges, etc., and has left a vast amount
+of curious antiquarian learning behind him. He became insane by reason of
+the pressure of his labors.
+
+George Cavendish, died 1557: wrote "The Negotiations of Woolsey, the Great
+Cardinal of England," etc., which was republished as the "Life and Death
+of Thomas Woolsey." From this, it is said, Shakspeare drew in writing his
+"Henry VIII."
+
+Roger Ascham, 1515-1568: specially famous as the successful instructor of
+Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey, whom he was able to imbue with a taste for
+classical learning. He wrote a treatise on the use of the bow, called
+_Toxophilus_, and _The Schoolmaster_, which contains many excellent and
+judicious suggestions, worthy to be carried out in modern education. It
+was highly praised by Dr. Johnson. It was written for the use of the
+children of Sackville, Lord Buckhurst.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+SPENSER AND THE ELIZABETHAN AGE.
+
+
+   The Great Change. Edward VI. and Mary. Sidney. The Arcadia. Defence of
+   Poesy. Astrophel and Stella. Gabriel Harvey. Edmund Spenser--Shepherd's
+   Calendar. His Great Work.
+
+
+
+THE GREAT CHANGE.
+
+
+With what joy does the traveller in the desert, after a day of scorching
+glow and a night of breathless heat, descry the distant trees which mark
+the longed-for well-spring in the emerald oasis, which seems to beckon
+with its branching palms to the converging caravans, to come and slake
+their fever-thirst, and escape from the threatening sirocco!
+
+The pilgrim arrives at the caravansery: not the long, low stone house,
+unfurnished and bare, which former experience had led him to expect; but a
+splendid palace. He dismounts; maidens purer and more beautiful than
+fabled houris, accompanied by slaves bearing rare dishes and goblets of
+crusted gold, offer him refreshments: perfumed baths, couches of down,
+soft and soothing music are about him in delicious combination. Surely he
+is dreaming; or if this be real, were not the burning sun and the sand of
+the desert, the panting camel and the dying horse of an hour ago but a
+dream?
+
+Such is not an overwrought illustration of English literature in the long,
+barren reach from Chaucer to Spenser, as compared with the freshness,
+beauty, and grandeur of the geniuses which adorned Elizabeth's court, and
+tended to make her reign as illustrious in history as the age of Pericles,
+of Augustus, or of Louis XIV. Chief among these were Spenser and
+Shakspeare. As the latter has been truly characterized as not for an age,
+but for all time, the former may be more justly considered as the highest
+exponent and representative of that period. The Faerie Queene, considered
+only as a grand heroic poem, is unrivalled in its pictures of beautiful
+women, brave men, daring deeds, and Oriental splendor; but in its
+allegorical character, it is far more instructive, since it enumerates and
+illustrates the cardinal virtues which should make up the moral character
+of a gentleman: add to this, that it is teeming with history, and in its
+manifold completeness we have, if not an oasis in the desert, more truly
+the rich verge of the fertile country which bounds that desert, and which
+opens a more beautiful road to the literary traveller as he comes down the
+great highway: wearied and worn with the factions and barrenness of the
+fifteenth century, he fairly revels with delight in the fertility and
+variety of the Elizabethan age.
+
+
+EDWARD AND MARY.--In pursuance of our plan, a few preliminary words will
+present the historic features of that age. In the year 1547, Henry VIII.,
+the royal Bluebeard, sank, full of crimes and beset with deathbed horrors,
+into a dishonorable grave.[24] A poor, weak youth, his son, Edward VI.,
+seemed sent by special providence on a short mission of six years, to
+foster the reformed faith, and to give the land a brief rest after the
+disorders and crimes of his father's reign.
+
+After Edward came Queen Mary, in 1553--the bloody Mary, who violently
+overturned the Protestant system, and avenged her mother against her
+father by restoring the Papal sway and making heresy the unpardonable
+sin. It may seem strange, in one breath to denounce Henry and to defend
+his daughter Mary; but severe justice, untempered with sympathy, has been
+meted out to her. We acknowledge all her recorded actions, but let it be
+remembered that she was the child of a basely repudiated mother, Catherine
+of Arragon, who, as the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, was a
+Catholic of the Catholics. Mary had been declared illegitimate; she was
+laboring under an incurable disease, affecting her mind as well as her
+body; she was the wife of Philip II. of Spain, a monster of iniquity,
+whose sole virtue--if we may so speak--was his devotion to his Church. She
+inherited her bigotry from her mother, and strengthened it by her
+marriage; and she thought that in persecuting heretics she was doing God
+service, which would only be a perfect service when she should have burned
+out the bay-tree growth of heresy and restored the ancient faith.
+
+Such were her character and condition as displayed to the English world;
+but we know, in addition, that she bore her sufferings with great
+fortitude; that, an unloved wife, she was a pattern of conjugal affection
+and fidelity; that she was a dupe in the hands of designing men and a
+fierce propaganda; and we may infer that, under different circumstances
+and with better guidance, the real elements of her character would have
+made her a good monarch and presented a far more pleasing historical
+portrait.
+
+Justice demands that we should say thus much, for even with these
+qualifications, the picture of her reign is very dark and painful. After a
+sad and bloody rule of five years--a reign of worse than Roman
+proscription, or later French terrors--she died without leaving a child.
+There was but one voice as to her successor. Delirious shouts of joy were
+heard throughout the land: "God save Queen Elizabeth!" "No more burnings
+at Smithfield, nor beheadings on Tower green! No more of Spanish Philip
+and his pernicious bigots! Toleration, freedom, light!" The people of
+England were ready for a golden age, and the golden age had come.
+
+
+ELIZABETH.--And who was Elizabeth? The daughter of the dishonored Anne
+Boleyn, who had been declared illegitimate, and set out of the succession;
+who had been kept in ward; often and long in peril of her life; destined,
+in all human foresight, to a life of sorrow, humiliation, and obscurity;
+her head had been long lying "'twixt axe and crown," with more probability
+of the former than the latter.
+
+Wonderful was the change. With her began a reign the like of which the
+world had never seen; a great and brilliant crisis in English history, in
+which the old order passed away and the new was inaugurated. It was like a
+new historic fulfilment of the prophecy of Virgil:
+
+    Magnus ... sæclorum nascitur ordo;
+    Jam redit et _Virgo_, redeunt Saturnia regna.
+
+Her accession and its consequences were like the scenes in some fairy
+tale. She was indeed a Faerie Queene, as she was designated in Spenser's
+magnificent allegory. Around her clustered a new chivalry, whose gentle
+deeds were wrought not only with the sword, but with the pen. Stout heart,
+stalwart arm, and soaring imagination, all wore her colors and were amply
+rewarded by her smiles; and whatever her personal faults--and they were
+many--as a monarch, she was not unworthy of their allegiance.
+
+
+SIDNEY.--Before proceeding to a consideration of Spenser's great poem, it
+is necessary to mention two names intimately associated with him and with
+his fame, and of special interest in the literary catalogue of Queen
+Elizabeth's court, brilliant and numerous as that catalogue was.
+
+Among the most striking characters of this period was Sir Philip Sidney,
+whose brief history is full of romance and attraction; not so much for
+what he did as for what he personally was, and gave promise of being.
+Whenever we seek for an historical illustration of the _gentleman_, the
+figure of Sidney rises in company with that of Bayard, and claims
+distinction. He was born at Pennshurst in Kent, on the 29th of November,
+1554. He was the nephew of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the chief
+favorite of the queen. Precocious in grace, dignity, and learning, Sidney
+was educated both at Oxford and Cambridge, and in his earliest manhood he
+was a _prud' homme_, handsome, elegant, learned, and chivalrous; a
+statesman, a diplomatist, a soldier, and a poet; "not only of excellent
+wit, but extremely beautiful of face. Delicately chiselled Anglo-Norman
+features, smooth, fair cheek, a faint moustache, blue eyes, and a mass of
+amber-colored hair," distinguished him among the handsome men of a court
+where handsome men were in great request.
+
+He spent some time at the court of Charles IX. of France--which, however,
+he left suddenly, shocked and disgusted by the massacre of St.
+Bartholomew's Eve--and extended his travels into Germany. The queen held
+him in the highest esteem--although he was disliked by the Cecils, the
+constant rivals of the Dudleys; and when he was elected to the crown of
+Poland, the queen refused him permission to accept, because she would not
+lose "the brightest jewel of her crown--her Philip," as she called him to
+distinguish him from her sister Mary's Philip, Philip II. of Spain. A few
+words will finish his personal story. He went, by the queen's permission,
+with his uncle Leicester to the Low Countries, then struggling, with
+Elizabeth's assistance, against Philip of Spain. There he was made
+governor of Flushing--the key to the navigation of the North Seas--with
+the rank of general of horse. In a skirmish near Zutphen (South Fen) he
+served as a volunteer; and, as he was going into action fully armed,
+seeing his old friend Sir William Pelham without cuishes upon his thighs,
+prompted by mistaken but chivalrous generosity, he took off his own, and
+had his thigh broken by a musket-ball. This was on the 2d of October,
+1586, N.S. He lingered for twenty days, and then died at Arnheim, mourned
+by all. The story of his passing the untasted water to the wounded
+soldier, will never become trite: "This man's necessity is greater than
+mine," was an immortal speech which men like to quote.[25]
+
+
+SIDNEY'S WORKS.--But it is as a literary character that we must consider
+Sidney; and it is worthy of special notice that his works could not have
+been produced in any other age. The principal one is the _Arcadia_. The
+name, which was adopted from Sannazzaro, would indicate a pastoral--and
+this was eminently the age of English pastoral--but it is in reality not
+such. It presents indeed sylvan scenes, but they are in the life of a
+knight. It is written in prose, interspersed with short poems, and was
+inspired by and dedicated to his literary sister Mary, the Countess of
+Pembroke. It was called indeed the _Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia_. There
+are many scenes of great beauty and vigor; there is much which represents
+the manners, of the age, but few persons can now peruse it with pleasure,
+because of the peculiar affectations of style, and its overload of
+ornament. There grew naturally in the atmosphere of the court of a regnant
+queen, an affected, flattering, and inflated language, known to us as
+_Euphuism_. Of this John Lilly has been called the father, but we really
+only owe to him the name, which is taken from his two works, _Euphues,
+Anatomy of Wit_, and _Euphues and his England_. The speech of the Euphuist
+is hardly caricatured in Sir Walter Scott's delineation of Sir Piercie
+Shafton in "The Monastery." The gallant men of that day affected this form
+of address to fair ladies, and fair ladies liked to be greeted in such
+language. Sidney's works have a relish of this diction, and are imbued
+with the spirit which produced it.
+
+
+DEFENCE OF POESIE.--The second work to be mentioned is his "Defence of
+Poesie." Amid the gayety and splendor of that reign, there was a sombre
+element. The Puritans took gloomy views of life: they accounted
+amusements, dress, and splendor as things of the world; and would even
+sweep away poetry as idle, and even wicked. Sir Philip came to its defence
+with the spirit of a courtier and a poet, and the work in which he upholds
+it is his best, far better in style and sense than his Arcadia. It is one
+of the curiosities of literature, in itself, and in its representation of
+such a social condition as could require a defence of poetry. His
+_Astrophel and Stella_ is a collection of amatory poems, disclosing his
+passion for Lady Rich, the sister of the Earl of Essex. Although something
+must be allowed to the license of the age, in language at least, yet still
+the _Astrophel and Stella_ cannot be commended for its morality. The
+sentiments are far from Platonic, and have been severely censured by the
+best critics. Among the young gallants of Euphuistic habitudes, Sidney was
+known as _Astrophel_; and Spenser wrote a poem mourning the death of
+Astrophel: _Stella_, of course, was the star of his worship.
+
+
+GABRIEL HARVEY.--Among the friends of both Sidney and Spenser, was one who
+had the pleasure of making them acquainted--Gabriel Harvey. He was born,
+it is believed, in 1545, and lived until 1630. Much may be gathered of the
+literary character and tendencies of the age by a perusal of the "three
+proper and wittie familiar letters" which passed between Spenser and
+himself, and the "four letters and certain sonnets," containing valuable
+notices of contemporary poets. He also prefixed a poem entitled
+_Hobbinol_, to the Faery Queene. But Harvey most deserves our notice
+because he was the champion of the hexameter verse in English, and imbued
+even Spenser with an enthusiasm for it.
+
+Each language has its own poetic and rhythmic capacities. Actual
+experiment and public taste have declared their verdict against hexameter
+verse in English. The genius of the Northern languages refuses this old
+heroic measure, which the Latins borrowed from the Greeks, and all the
+scholarship and finish of Longfellow has not been able to establish it in
+English. Harvey was a pedant so thoroughly tinctured with classical
+learning, that he would trammel his own language by ancient rules, instead
+of letting it grow into the assertion of its own rules.
+
+
+EDMUND SPENSER--THE SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR.--Having noticed these lesser
+lights of the age of Spenser, we return to a brief consideration of that
+poet, who, of all others, is the highest exponent and representative of
+literature in the age of Queen Elizabeth, and whose works are full of
+contemporary history.
+
+Spenser was born in the year of the accession of Queen Mary, 1553, at
+London, and of what he calls "a house of ancient fame." He was educated at
+Cambridge, where he early displayed poetic taste and power, and he went,
+after leaving college, to reside as a tutor in the North of England. A
+love affair with "a skittish female," who jilted him, was the cause of his
+writing the _Shepherd's Calendar_; which he soon after took with him in
+manuscript to London, as the first fruits of a genius that promised far
+nobler things.
+
+Harvey introduced him to Sidney, and a tender friendship sprang up between
+them: he spent much of his time with Sidney at Pennshurst, and dedicated
+to him the _Shepherd's Calendar_. He calls it "an olde name for a newe
+worke." The plan of it is as follows: There are twelve parts,
+corresponding to twelve months: these he calls _aeglogues_, or
+goat-herde's songs, (not _eclogues_ or [Greek: eklogai]--well-chosen
+words.) It is a rambling work in varied melody, interspersed and relieved
+by songs and lays.
+
+
+HIS ARCHAISMS.--In view of its historical character, there are several
+points to be observed. It is of philological importance to notice that in
+the preliminary epistle, he explains and defends his use of archaisms--for
+the language of none of his poems is the current English of the day, but
+always that of a former period--saying that he uses old English words
+"restored as to their rightful heritage;" and it is also evident that he
+makes new ones, in accordance with just principles of philology. This fact
+is pointed out, lest the cursory reader should look for the current
+English of the age of Elizabeth in Spenser's poems.
+
+How much, or rather how little he thought of the poets of the day, may be
+gathered from his saying that he "scorns and spews the rakebelly rout of
+ragged rymers." It further displays the boldness of his English, that he
+is obliged to add "a Glosse or Scholion," for the use of the reader.
+
+Another historical point worthy of observation is his early adulation of
+Elizabeth, evincing at once his own courtiership and her popularity. In
+"February" (Story of the Oak and Briar) he speaks of "colours meete to
+clothe a mayden queene." The whole of "April" is in her honor:
+
+    Of fair Eliza be your silver song,
+      That blessed wight,
+    The floure of virgins, may she flourish long,
+      In princely plight.
+
+In "September" "he discourseth at large upon the loose living of Popish
+prelates," an historical trait of the new but cautious reformation of the
+Marian Church, under Elizabeth. Whether a courtier like Spenser could
+expect the world to believe in the motto with which he concludes the
+epilogue, "Merce non mercede," is doubtful, but the words are significant;
+and it is not to his discredit that he strove for both.
+
+
+HIS GREATEST WORK.--We now approach _The Faerie Queene_, the greatest of
+Spenser's works, the most remarkable poem of that age, and one of the
+greatest landmarks in English literature and English history. It was not
+published in full until nearly all the great events of Elizabeth's reign
+had transpired, and it is replete with the history of nearly half a
+century in the most wonderful period of English history. To courtly
+readers of that day the history was only pleasantly illustrative--to the
+present age it is invaluable for itself: the poem illustrates the history.
+
+He received, through the friendship of Sidney, the patronage of his uncle,
+Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester--a powerful nobleman, because, besides
+his family name, and the removal of the late attainder, which had been in
+itself a distinction, he was known to be the lover of the queen; for
+whatever may be thought of her conduct, we know that in recommending him
+as a husband to the widowed Queen of Scots, she said she would have
+married him herself had she designed to marry at all; or, it may be said,
+she would have married him had she dared, for that act would have ruined
+her.
+
+Spenser was a loyal and enthusiastic subject, a poet, and a scholar. From
+these characteristics sprang the Faerie Queene. After submitting the first
+book to the criticism of his friend and his patron, he dedicated the work
+to "The most high, mighty, and magnificent empress, renowned for piety,
+virtue, and all gracious government, Elizabeth, by the grace of God Queen
+of England, France, and Ireland, and of Virginia."[26]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE HISTORY IN THE FAERIE QUEENE.
+
+
+   The Faerie Queene. The Plan Proposed. Illustrations of the History. The
+   Knight and the Lady. The Wood of Error and the Hermitage. The Crusades.
+   Britomartis and Sir Artegal. Elizabeth. Mary Queen of Scots. Other
+   Works. Spenser's Fate. Other Writers.
+
+
+
+THE FAERIE QUEENE.
+
+
+The Faerie Queene is an allegory, in many parts capable of more than one
+interpretation. Some of the characters stand for two, and several of them
+even for three distinct historical personages.
+
+The general plan and scope of the poem may be found in the poet's letter
+to his friend, Sir Walter Raleigh. It is designed to enumerate and
+illustrate the moral virtues which should characterize a noble or gentle
+person--to present "the image of a brave knight perfected in the twelve
+private morall vertues, as Aristotle hath devised." It appears that the
+author designed twelve books, but he did not accomplish his purpose. The
+poem, which he left unfinished, contains but six books or legends, each of
+which relates the adventures of a knight who is the patron and
+representative of a special virtue.
+
+   _Book_ I. gives the adventures of St. George, the Red-Cross Knight, by
+   whom is intended the virtue of Holiness.
+
+   _Book_ II., those of Sir Guyon, or Temperance.
+
+   _Book_ III., Britomartis, a lady-knight, or Chastity.
+
+   _Book_ IV., Cambel and Triamond, or Friendship.
+
+   _Book_ V., Sir Artegal, or Justice.
+
+   _Book_ VI., Sir Calydore, or Courtesy.
+
+The perfect hero of the entire poem is King Arthur, chosen "as most fitte,
+for the excellency of his person, being made famous by many men's former
+workes, and also furthest from the daunger of envy and suspition of
+present time."
+
+It was manifestly thus, too, that the poet solved a difficult and delicate
+problem: he pleased the queen by adopting this mythic hero, for who else
+was worthy of her august hand?
+
+And in the person of the faerie queene herself Spenser informs us: "I mean
+_glory_ in my general intention, but in my particular, I conceive the most
+excellent and glorious person of our sovereign, the _Queene_."
+
+Did we depend upon the poem for an explanation of Spenser's design, we
+should be left in the dark, for he intended to leave the origin and
+connection of the adventures for the twelfth book, which was never
+written; but he has given us his plan in the same preliminary letter to
+Raleigh.
+
+
+THE PLAN PROPOSED.--"The beginning of my history," he says, "should be in
+the twelfth booke, which is the last; where I devise that the Faerie
+Queene kept her Annual Feaste XII days; uppon which XII severall days the
+occasions of the XII severall adventures hapned, which being undertaken by
+XII severall knights, are in these XII books handled and discoursed."
+
+First, a tall, clownish youth falls before the queen and desires a boon,
+which she might not refuse, viz. the achievement of any adventure which
+might present itself. Then appears a fair lady, habited in mourning, and
+riding on an ass, while behind her comes a dwarf, leading a caparisoned
+war-horse, upon which was the complete armor of a knight. The lady falls
+before the queen and complains that her father and mother, an ancient king
+and queen, had, for many years, been shut up by a dragon in a brazen
+castle, and begs that one of the knights may be allowed to deliver them.
+
+The young clown entreats that he may take this adventure, and
+notwithstanding the wonder and misgiving of all, the armor is found to fit
+him well, and when he had put it on, "he seemed the goodliest man in all
+the company, and was well liked by the lady, and eftsoones taking on him
+knighthood, and mounting on that strounge courser, he went forth with her
+on that adventure; where beginneth the First Booke."
+
+In a similar manner, other petitions are urged, and other adventures
+undertaken.
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE HISTORY.--The history in this poem lies directly upon
+the surface. Elizabeth was the Faery Queen herself--faery in her real
+person, springing Cinderella-like from durance and danger to the most
+powerful throne in Europe. Hers was a reign of faery character, popular
+and august at home, after centuries of misrule and civil war; abroad
+English influence and power were exerted in a magical manner. It is she
+who holds a court such as no Englishman had ever seen; who had the power
+to transform common men into valiant warriors, elegant courtiers, and
+great statesmen; to send forth her knights upon glorious
+adventures--Sidney to die at Zutphen, Raleigh to North and South America,
+Frobisher--with a wave of her hand as he passes down the Thames--to try
+the northwest passage to India; Effingham, Drake, and Hawkins to drive off
+to the tender mercy of northern storms the Invincible Armada, and then to
+point out to the coming generations the distant fields of English
+enterprise.
+
+"Chivalry was dying; the abbey and the castle were soon together to
+crumble into ruins; and all the forms, desires, beliefs, convictions of
+the old world were passing away, never to return;"[27] but this virgin
+queen was the founder of a new chivalry, whose deeds were not less
+valiant, and far more useful to civilization.
+
+It is not our purpose, for it would be impossible, to interpret all the
+history contained in this wonderful poem: a few of the more striking
+presentations will be indicated, and thus suggest to the student how he
+may continue the investigation for himself.
+
+
+THE KNIGHT AND THE LADY.--In the First Book we are at once struck with the
+fine portraiture of the Red Crosse Knight, the Patron of Holinesse, which
+we find in the opening lines:
+
+    A gentle knight was pricking on the plain,
+    Ycladd in mighty arms and silver shield.
+
+As we read we discover, without effort, that he is the St. George of
+England, or the impersonation of England herself, whose red-cross banner
+distinguishes her among the nations of the earth. It is a description of
+Christian England with which the poet thus opens his work:
+
+    And on his brest a bloodie cross he bore,
+      The dear remembrance of his dying Lord,
+    For whose sweet sake that glorious badge he wore,
+      And dead, as living ever, Him adored.
+    Upon his shield the like was also scored,
+    For sovereign hope which in his help he had.
+
+Then follows his adventure--that of St. George and the Dragon. By slaying
+this monster, he will give comfort and aid to a peerless lady, the
+daughter of a glorious king; this fair lady, _Una_, who has come a long
+distance, and to whom, as a champion, the Faery Queene has presented the
+red-cross knight. Thus is presented the historic truth that the reformed
+and suffering Church looked to Queen Elizabeth for succor and support, for
+the Lady Una is one of several portraitures of the Church in this poem.
+
+As we proceed in the poem, the history becomes more apparent. The Lady
+Una, riding upon a lowly ass, shrouded by a veil, covered with a black
+stole, "as one that inly mourned," and leading "a milk-white lamb," is the
+Church. The ass is the symbol of her Master's lowliness, who made even his
+triumphant entry into Jerusalem upon "a colt the foal of an ass;" the
+lamb, the emblem of the innocence and of the helplessness of the "little
+flock;" the black stole is meant to represent the Church's trials and
+sorrows in her former history as well as in that naughty age. The dragon
+is the old serpent, her constant and bitter foe, who, often discomfited,
+returns again and again to the attack in hope of her overthrow.
+
+
+THE WOOD OF ERROR.--The adventures of the knight and the lady take them
+first into the Wood of Error, a noble and alluring grove, within which,
+however, lurks a loathsome serpent. The knight rushes upon this female
+monster with great boldness, but
+
+    ... Wrapping up her wreathed body round,
+      She leaped upon his shield and her huge train
+    All suddenly about his body wound,
+      That hand and foot he strove to stir in vain.
+      God help the man so wrapt in Error's endless chain.
+
+The Lady Una cries out:
+
+    ... Now, now, sir knight, shew what ye bee,
+      _Add faith unto thy force_, and be not faint.
+    Strangle her, else she sure will strangle thee.
+
+He follows her advice, makes one desperate effort, Error is slain, and the
+pilgrimage resumed.
+
+Thus it is taught that the Church has waged successful battle with Error
+in all its forms--paganism, Arianism, Socinianism, infidelity; and in all
+ages of her history, whether crouching in the lofty groves of the Druids,
+or in the more insidious forms of later Christian heresy.
+
+
+THE HERMITAGE.--On leaving the Wood of Error, the knight and Lady Una
+encounter a venerable hermit, and are led into his hermitage. This is
+_Archimago_, a vile magician thus disguised, and in his retreat foul
+spirits personate both knight and lady, and present these false doubles to
+each. Each sees what seems to be the other's fall from virtue, and,
+horrified by the sight, the real persons leave the hermitage by separate
+ways, and wander, in inextricable mazes lost, until fortune and faery
+bring them together again and disclose the truth.
+
+Here Spenser, who was a zealous Protestant, designs to present the
+monastic system, the disfavor into which the monasteries had fallen, and
+the black arts secretly studied among better arts in the cloisters,
+especially in the period just succeeding the Norman conquest.
+
+
+THE CRUSADES.--As another specimen of the historic interpretation, we may
+trace the adventures of England in the Crusades, as presented in the
+encounter of St. George with _Sansfoy_, (without faith,) or the Infidel.
+
+From the hermitage of Archimago,
+
+    The true St. George had wandered far away,
+      Still flying from his thoughts and jealous fear,
+    Will was his guide, and grief led him astray;
+    At last him chanced to meet upon the way
+      A faithless Saracen all armed to point,
+    In whose great shield was writ with letters gay
+      SANSFOY: full large of limb, and every joint
+      He was, and cared not for God or man a point.
+
+Well might the poet speak of Mohammedanism as large of limb, for it had
+stretched itself like a Colossus to India, and through Northern Africa
+into Spain, where it threatened Christendom, beyond the Pyrenees. It was
+then that the unity of the Church, the concurrence of Europe in one form
+of Christianity, made available the enthusiasm which succeeded in stemming
+the torrent of Islam, and setting bounds to its conquests.
+
+It is not our purpose to pursue the adventures of the Church, but to
+indicate the meaning of the allegory and the general interpretation; it
+will give greater zest to the student to make the investigation for
+himself, with the all-sufficient aids of modern criticism.
+
+Assailed in turn by error in doctrine, superstition, hypocrisy,
+enchantments, lawlessness, pride, and despair, the red-cross knight
+overcomes them all, and is led at last by the Lady Una into the House of
+Holiness, a happy and glorious house. There, anew equipped with the shield
+of Faith, the helmet of Salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, he goes
+forth to greater conquests; the dragon is slain, the Lady Una triumphant,
+the Church delivered, and Holiness to the Lord established as the law of
+his all-subduing kingdom on earth.
+
+
+BRITOMARTIS.--In the third book the further adventures of the red-cross
+knight are related, but a heroine divides our attention with him.
+_Britomartis_, or Chastity, finds him attacked by six lawless knights, who
+try to compel him to give up his lady and serve another. Here Britomartis
+represents Elizabeth, and the historic fact is the conflict of English
+Protestantism carried on upon land and sea, in the Netherlands, in France,
+and against the Invincible Armada of Philip. The new mistress offered him
+in the place of Una is the Papal Church, and the six knights are the
+nations fighting for the claims of Rome.
+
+The valiant deeds of Britomartis represent also the power of chastity, to
+which Scott alludes when he says,
+
+    She charmed at once and tamed the heart,
+    Incomparable Britomarte.[28]
+
+And here the poet pays his most acceptable tribute to the Virgin Queen.
+She is in love with Sir Artegal--abstract justice. She has encountered him
+in fierce battle, and he has conquered her. It was the fond boast of
+Elizabeth that she lived for her people, and for their sake refused to
+marry. The following portraiture will be at once recognized:
+
+    And round about her face her yellow hair
+      Having, thro' stirring, loosed its wonted band,
+    Like to a golden border did appear,
+      Framed in goldsmith's forge with cunning hand;
+      Yet goldsmith's cunning could not understand
+    To frame such subtle wire, so shiny clear,
+      For it did glisten like the glowing sand,
+    The which Pactolus with his waters sheer,
+    Throws forth upon the rivage, round about him near.
+
+This encomium upon Elizabeth's hair recalls the description of another
+courtier, that it was like the last rays of the declining sun. Ill-natured
+persons called it red.
+
+
+SIR ARTEGAL, OR JUSTICE.--As has been already said, Artegal, or Justice,
+makes conquest of Britomartis or Elizabeth. It is no earthly love that
+follows, but the declaration of the queen that in her continued maidenhood
+justice to her people shall be her only spouse. Such, whatever the honest
+historian may think, was the poet's conceit of what would best please his
+royal mistress.
+
+It has been already stated that by Gloriana, the Faerie Queene, the poet
+intended the person of Elizabeth in her regnant grandeur: Britomartis
+represents her chastity. Not content with these impersonations, Spenser
+introduces a third: it is Belphoebe, the abstraction of virginity; a
+character for which, however, he designs a dual interpretation. Belphoebe
+is also another representation of the Church; in describing her he rises
+to great splendor of language:
+
+    ... her birth was of the morning dew,
+    And her conception of the glorious prime.
+
+We recur, as we read, to the grandeur of the Psalmist's words, as he
+speaks of the coming of her Lord: "In the day of thy power shall the
+people offer thee free-will offerings with a holy worship; the dew of thy
+birth is of the womb of the morning."
+
+
+ELIZABETH.--In the fifth book a great number of the statistics of
+contemporary history are found. A cruel sultan, urged on by an abandoned
+sultana, is Philip with the Spanish Church. Mercilla, a queen pursued by
+the sultan and his wife, is another name for Elizabeth, for he tells us
+she was
+
+    ... a maiden queen of high renown;
+    For her great bounty knowen over all.
+
+Artegal, assuming the armor of a pagan knight, represents justice in the
+person of Solyman the Magnificent, making war against Philip of Spain. In
+the ninth canto of the sixth book, the court of Elizabeth is portrayed; in
+the tenth and eleventh, the war in Flanders--so brilliantly described in
+Mr. Motley's history. The Lady Belge is the United Netherlands; Gerioneo,
+the oppressor, is the Duke of Alva; the Inquisition appears as a horrid
+but nameless monster, and minor personages occur to complete the historic
+pictures.
+
+The adventure of Sir Artegal in succor of the Lady Irena, (Erin,)
+represents the proceedings of Elizabeth in Ireland, in enforcing the
+Reformation, abrogating the establishments of her sister Mary, and thus
+inducing Tyrone's rebellion, with the consequent humiliation of Essex.
+
+
+MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.--With one more interpretation we close. In the fifth
+book, Spenser is the apologist of Elizabeth for her conduct to her cousin,
+Mary Queen of Scots, and he has been very delicate in his distinctions. It
+is not her high abstraction of justice, Sir Artegal, who does the
+murderous deed, but his man _Talus_, retributive justice, who, like a
+limehound, finds her hidden under a heap of gold, and drags her forth by
+her fair locks, in such rueful plight that even Artegal pities her:
+
+    Yet for no pity would he change the course
+      Of justice which in Talus hand did lie,
+    Who rudely haled her forth without remorse,
+      Still holding up her suppliant hands on high,
+      And kneeling at his feet submissively;
+    But he her suppliant hands, those _hands of gold_,
+      And eke her feet, those feet of _silver try_,
+    Which sought unrighteousness and justice sold,
+    Chopped off and nailed on high that all might them behold.
+
+She was a royal lady, a regnant queen: her hands held a golden sceptre,
+and her feet pressed a silver footstool. She was thrown down the castle
+wall, and drowned "in the dirty mud."
+
+"But the stream washed away her guilty blood." Did it wash away
+Elizabeth's bloody guilt? No. For this act she stands in history like Lady
+Macbeth, ever rubbing her hands, but "the damned spot" will not out at her
+bidding. Granted all that is charged against Mary, never was woman so
+meanly, basely, cruelly treated as she.
+
+What has been said is only in partial illustration of the plan and manner
+of Spenser's great poem: the student is invited and encouraged to make an
+analysis of the other portions himself. To the careless reader the poem is
+harmonious, the pictures beautiful, and the imagery gorgeous; to the
+careful student it is equally charming, and also discloses historic
+pictures of great value.
+
+It is so attractive that the critic lingers unconsciously upon it.
+Spenser's tributes to the character of woman are original, beautiful, and
+just, and the fame of his great work, originally popular and designed for
+a contemporary purpose only, has steadily increased. Next to Milton, he is
+the most learned of the British poets. Warton calls him the _serious
+Spenser_. Thomson says he formed himself upon Spenser. He took the ottava
+rima, or eight-lined stanza of the Italian poets, and by adding an
+Alexandrine line, formed it into what has since been called the Spenserian
+stanza, which has been imitated by many great poets since, and by Byron,
+the greatest of them, in his Childe Harold. Of his language it has already
+been said that he designedly uses the archaic, or that of Chaucer; or, as
+Pope has said,
+
+   Spenser himself affects the obsolete.
+
+The plan of the poem, neglecting the unities of an epic, is like that of a
+general history, rambling and desultory, or like the transformations of a
+fairy tale, as it is: his descriptions are gorgeous, his verse exceedingly
+melodious, and his management of it very graceful. The Gerusalemme
+Liberata of Tasso appeared while he was writing the Faery Queene, and he
+imitated portions of that great epic in his own, but his imitations are
+finer than the original.
+
+
+HIS OTHER WORKS.--His other works need not detain us: Hymns in honor of
+Love and Beauty, Prothalamion, and Epithalamion, Mother Hubbard's Tale,
+Amoretti or Sonnets, The Tears of the Muses or Brittain's Ida, are little
+read at the present day. His Astrophel is a tender "pastoral elegie" upon
+the death of the most noble and valorous knight, Sir Philip Sidney; and is
+better known for its subject than for itself. This was a favorite theme of
+the friendly and sensitive poet; he has also written several elegies and
+æglogues in honor of Sidney.
+
+
+SPENSER'S FATE.--The fate of Spenser is a commentary upon courtiership,
+even in the reign of Elizabeth, the Faery Queene. Her requital of his
+adoration was an annual pension of fifty pounds, and the ruined castle and
+unprofitable estate of Kilcolman in Ireland, among a half-savage
+population, in a period of insurrections and massacres, with the
+requirement that he should reside upon his grant. An occasional visit from
+Raleigh, then a captain in the army, a rambler along the banks of the
+picturesque Mulla, and the composition and arrangement of the great poem
+with the suggestions of his friend, were at once his labors and his only
+recreations. He sighed after the court, and considered himself as hardly
+used by the queen.
+
+At length an insurrection broke out, and his home was set on fire: he fled
+from his flaming castle, and in the confusion his infant child was left
+behind and burned to death. A few months after, he died in London, on
+January 16, 1598-9, broken-hearted and poor, at an humble tavern, in King
+Street. Buried at the expense of the Earl of Essex, Ann Countess of Dorset
+bore the expense of his monument in Westminster Abbey, in gratitude for
+his noble championship of woman. Upon that are inscribed these words:
+_Anglorum poetarum nostri seculi facile princeps_--truer words, great as
+is the praise, than are usually found in monumental inscriptions.
+
+Whatever our estimate of Spenser, he must be regarded as the truest
+literary exponent and representative of the age of Elizabeth, almost as
+much her biographer as Miss Strickland, and her historian as Hume: indeed,
+neither biographer nor historian could venture to draw the lineaments of
+her character without having recourse to Spenser and his literary
+contemporaries.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE AGE OF SPENSER.
+
+
+_Richard Hooker_, 1553-1598: educated at Oxford, he became Master of the
+Temple in London, a post which he left with pleasure to take a country
+parish. He wrote a famous work, entitled "A Treatise on the Laws of
+Ecclesiastical Polity," which is remarkable for its profound learning,
+powerful logic, and eloquence of style. In it he defends the position of
+the Church of England, against Popery on the one hand and Calvinism on the
+other.
+
+_Robert Burton_, 1576-1639: author of "The Anatomy of Melancholie," an
+amusing and instructive medley of quotations and classical anecdotes,
+showing a profound erudition. In this all the causes and effects of
+melancholy are set forth with varied illustrations. His _nom de plume_ was
+Democritus, Jr., and he is an advocate of the laughing philosophy.
+
+_Thomas Hobbes_, 1588-1679: tutor to Charles II., when Prince of Wales,
+and author of the _Leviathan_. This is a philosophical treatise, in which
+he advocates monarchical government, as based upon the fact that all men
+are selfish, and that human nature, being essentially corrupt, requires an
+iron control: he also wrote upon _Liberty and Necessity_, and on _Human
+Nature_.
+
+John Stow, 1525-1605: tailor and antiquary. Principally valuable for his
+"Annales," "Summary of English Chronicles," and "A Survey of London." The
+latter is the foundation of later topographical descriptions of the
+English metropolis.
+
+Raphael Hollinshed, or Holinshed, died about 1580: his _Chronicles of
+Englande, Scotlande, and Irelande_, were a treasure-house to Shakspeare,
+from which he drew materials for King Lear, Cymbeline, Macbeth, and other
+plays.
+
+Richard Hakluyt, died 1616: being greatly interested in voyages and
+travels, he wrote works upon the adventures of others. Among these are,
+"Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America," and "Four Voyages
+unto Florida," which have been very useful in the compilation of early
+American history.
+
+Samuel Purchas, 1577-1628: like Hakluyt, he was exceedingly industrious in
+collecting material, and wrote "Hakluyt's Posthumus, or Purchas, his
+Pilgrimes," a history of the world "in Sea Voyages and Land Travels."
+
+Sir Walter Raleigh, 1552-1618: a man famous for his personal strength and
+comeliness, vigor of mind, valor, adventures, and sufferings. A prominent
+actor in the stirring scenes of Elizabeth's reign, he was high in the
+favor of the queen. Accused of high treason on the accession of James I.,
+and imprisoned under sentence of death, an unsuccessful expedition to
+South America in search of El Dorado, which caused complaints from the
+Spanish king, led to his execution under the pending sentence. He wrote,
+chiefly in prison, a History of the World, in which he was aided by his
+literary friends, and which is highly commended. It extends to the end of
+the second Macedonian war. Raleigh was also a poet, and wrote several
+special treatises.
+
+William Camden, 1551-1623: author of Britannia, or a chorographic
+description of the most flourishing kingdoms of England, Scotland,
+Ireland, and the adjacent islands, from the earliest antiquity. This work,
+written in Latin, has been translated into English. He also wrote a sketch
+of the reign of Elizabeth.
+
+_George Buchanan_, 1506-1581: celebrated as a Latin writer, an historian,
+a poet, and an ecclesiastical polemic. He wrote a _History of Scotland_, a
+Latin version of the Psalms, and a satire called _Chamæleon_. He was a
+man of profound learning and indomitable courage; and when told, just
+before his death, that the king was incensed at his treatise _De Jure
+Regni_, he answered that he was not concerned at that, for he was "going
+to a place where there were few kings."
+
+Thomas Sackville, Earl Dorset, Lord Buckhurst, 1536-1608: author, or
+rather originator of "The Mirror for Magistrates," showing by illustrious,
+unfortunate examples, the vanity and transitory character of human
+success. Of Sackville and his portion of the Mirror for Magistrates, Craik
+says they "must be considered as forming the connecting link between the
+Canterbury Tales and the Fairy Queen."
+
+_Samuel Daniel_, 1562-1619: an historian and a poet. His chief work is
+"The Historie of the Civile Warres between the Houses of York and
+Lancaster," "a production," says Drake, "which reflects great credit on
+the age in which it was written." This work is in poetical form; and,
+besides it, he wrote many poems and plays, and numerous sonnets.
+
+Michael Drayton, 1563-1631: a versatile writer, most favorably known
+through his _Polyolbion_, a poem in thirty books, containing a detailed
+description of the topography of England, in Alexandrine verses. His
+_Barons' Wars_ describe the civil commotions during the reign of Edward
+II.
+
+Sir John Davies, 1570-1626: author of _Nosce Teipsum_ and _The Orchestra_.
+The former is commended by Hallam; and another critic calls it "the best
+poem, except Spenser's Faery Queen, in Queen Elizabeth's, or even, in
+James VI.'s time."
+
+John Donne, 1573-1631: a famous preacher, Dean of St. Paul's: considered
+at the head of the metaphysical school of poets: author of
+_Pseudo-Martyr_, _Polydoron_, and numerous sermons. He wrote seven
+_satires_, which are valuable, but his style is harsh, and his ideas
+far-fetched.
+
+Joseph Hall, 1574-1656: an eminent divine, author of six books of
+_satires_, of which he called the first three _toothless_, and the others
+_biting_ satires. These are valuable as presenting truthful pictures of
+the manners and morals of the age and of the defects in contemporary
+literature.
+
+Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, 1554-1628: he wrote the Life of Sidney,
+and requested to have placed upon his tomb, "The friend of Sir Philip
+Sidney." He was also the author of numerous treatises: "Monarchy," "Humane
+Learning," "Wars," etc., and of two tragedies.
+
+George Chapman, 1557-1634: author of a translation of Homer, in verses of
+fourteen syllables. It retains much of the spirit of the original, and is
+still considered one of the best among the numerous versions of the
+ancient poet. He also wrote _Cæsar and Pompey, Byron's Tragedy_, and other
+plays.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE ENGLISH DRAMA.
+
+
+   Origin of the Drama. Miracle Plays. Moralities. First Comedy. Early
+   Tragedies. Christopher Marlowe. Other Dramatists. Playwrights and
+   Morals.
+
+
+
+ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH DRAMA.
+
+
+To the Elizabethan period also belongs the glory of having produced and
+fostered the English drama, itself so marked a teacher of history, not
+only in plays professedly historical, but also in the delineations of
+national character, the indications of national taste, and the satirical
+scourgings of the follies of the day. A few observations are necessary as
+to its feeble beginnings. The old Greek drama indeed existed as a model,
+especially in the tragedies of Euripides and the comedies of Aristophanes;
+but until the fall of Constantinople, these were a dead letter to Western
+Europe, and when the study of Greek was begun in England, they were only
+open to men of the highest education and culture; whereas the drama
+designed for the people was to cater in its earlier forms to the rude
+tastes and love of the marvellous which are characteristic of an
+unlettered people. And, besides, the Roman drama of Plautus and of Terence
+was not suited to the comprehension of the multitude, in its form and its
+preservation of the unities. To gratify the taste for shows and
+excitement, the people already had the high ritual of the Church, but they
+demanded something more: the Church itself acceded to this demand, and
+dramatized Scripture at once for their amusement and instruction. Thus the
+_mysteria_ or _miracle play_ originated, and served a double purpose.
+
+"As in ancient Greece, generations before the rise of the great dramas of
+Athens, itinerant companies wandered from village to village, carrying
+their stage furniture in their little carts, and acted in their booths and
+tents the grand stories of the mythology--so in England the mystery
+players haunted the wakes and fairs, and in barns or taverns, taprooms, or
+in the farm-house kitchen, played at saints and angels, and transacted on
+their petty stage the drama of the Christian faith."[29]
+
+
+THE MYSTERY, OR MIRACLE PLAY.--The subjects of these dramas were taken
+from such Old Testament narratives as the creation, the lives of the
+patriarchs, the deluge; or from the crucifixion, and from legends of the
+saints: the plays were long, sometimes occupying portions of several days
+consecutively, during seasons of religious festival. They were enacted in
+monasteries, cathedrals, churches, and church-yards. The _mise en scène_
+was on two stages or platforms, on the upper of which were represented the
+Persons of the Trinity, and on the lower the personages of earth; while a
+yawning cellar, with smoke arising from an unseen fire, represented the
+infernal regions. This device is similar in character to the plan of
+Dante's poem--Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.
+
+The earliest of these mysteries was performed somewhere about the year
+1300, and they held sway until 1600, being, however, slowly supplanted by
+the _moralities_, which we shall presently consider. Many of these
+_mysteries_ still remain in English, and notices of them may be found in
+_Collier's History of Dramatic Poetry_.
+
+A miracle play was performed to celebrate the birth of Philip II. of
+Spain. They are still performed in Andalusia, and one written within a few
+years for such representation, was enacted at Seville, with great pomp of
+scenic effect, in the Holy Week of 1870. Similar scenes are also
+witnessed by curious foreigners at the present day in the Ober-Ammergau of
+Bavaria. These enable the traveller of to-day to realize the former
+history.
+
+To introduce a comic element, the devil was made to appear with horns,
+hoof, and tail, to figure with grotesque malignity throughout the play,
+and to be reconsigned at the close to his dark abode by the divine power.
+
+
+MORALITIES.--As the people became enlightened, and especially as religious
+knowledge made progress, such childish shows were no longer able to
+satisfy them. The drama undertook a higher task of instruction in the form
+of what was called a _morality_, or _moral play_. Instead of old stories
+reproduced to please the childish fancy of the ignorant, genius invented
+scenes and incidents taken indeed from common life, but the characters
+were impersonal; they were the ideal virtues, _morality, hope, mercy,
+frugality_, and their correlative vices. The _mystery_ had endeavored to
+present similitudes; the _moralities_ were of the nature of allegory, and
+evinced a decided progress in popular intelligence.
+
+These for a time divided the interest with the mysteries, but eventually
+superseded them. The impersonality of the characters enabled the author to
+make hits at political circumstances and existent follies with impunity,
+as the multitude received advice and reproof addressed to them abstractly,
+without feeling a personal sting, and the government would not condescend
+to notice such abstractions. The moralities were enacted in court-yards or
+palaces, the characters generally being personated by students, or
+merchants from the guilds. A great improvement was also made in the length
+of the play, which was usually only an hour in performance. The public
+taste was so wedded to the devil of the mysteries, that he could not be
+given up in the moral plays: he kept his place; but a rival buffoon
+appeared in the person of _the vice_, who tried conclusions with the
+archfiend in serio-comic style until the close of the performance, when
+Satan always carried the vice away in triumph, as he should do.
+
+The moralities retained their place as legitimate drama throughout the
+sixteenth century, and indeed after the modern drama appeared. It is
+recorded that Queen Elizabeth, in 1601, then an old woman, witnessed one
+of these plays, entitled "The Contention between Liberality and
+Prodigality." This was written by Lodge and Greene, two of the regular
+dramatists, after Ben Jonson had written "Every Man in his Humour," and
+while Shakspeare was writing Hamlet. Thus the various progressive forms of
+the drama overlapped each other, the older retaining its place until the
+younger gained strength to assert its rights and supersede its rival.
+
+
+THE INTERLUDE.--While the moralities were slowly dying out, another form
+of the drama had appeared as a connecting link between them and the
+legitimate drama of Shakspeare. This was the _interlude_, a short play, in
+which the _dramatis personæ_ were no longer allegorical characters, but
+persons in real life, usually, however, not all bearing names even
+assumed, but presented as a friar, a curate, a tapster, etc. The chief
+characteristic of the interlude was, however, its satire; it was a more
+outspoken reformer than the morality, scourged the evils of the age with
+greater boldness, and plunged into religious controversy with the zeal of
+opposing ecclesiastics. The first and principal writer of these interludes
+was John Heywood, a Roman Catholic, who wrote during the reign of Henry
+VIII., and, while a professed jester, was a great champion of his Church.
+
+As in all cases of progress, literary and scientific, the lines of
+demarcation cannot be very distinctly drawn, but as the morality had
+superseded the mystery, and the interlude the morality, so now they were
+all to give way before the regular drama. The people were becoming more
+educated; the greater spread of classical knowledge had caused the
+dramatists to study and assimilate the excellences of Latin and Greek
+models; the power of the drama to instruct and refine, as well as to
+amuse, was acknowledged, and thus its capability of improvement became
+manifest. The forms it then assumed were more permanent, and indeed have
+remained almost unchanged down to our own day.
+
+What is called the _first_ comedy in the language cannot be expected to
+show a very decided improvement over the last interludes or moralities,
+but it bears those distinctive marks which establish its right to the
+title.
+
+
+THE FIRST COMEDY.--This was _Ralph Roister Doister_, which appeared in the
+middle of the sixteenth century: (a printed copy of 1551 was discovered in
+1818.) Its author was Nicholas Udall, the master of Eton, a clergyman, but
+very severe as a pedagogue; an ultra Protestant, who is also accused of
+having stolen church plate, which may perhaps mean that he took away from
+the altar what he regarded as popish vessels and ornaments. He calls the
+play "a comedy and interlude," but claims that it is imitated from the
+Roman drama. It is regularly divided into acts and scenes, in the form of
+our modern plays. The plot is simple: Ralph, a gay Lothario, courts as gay
+a widow, and the by-play includes a designing servant and an intriguing
+lady's-maid: these are the stock elements of a hundred comedies since.
+
+Contemporary with this was _Gammer Gurton's Needle_, supposed to be
+written, but not conclusively, by John Still, Bishop of Bath and Wells,
+about 1560. The story turns upon the loss of a steel needle--a rare
+instrument in that day, as it was only introduced into England from Spain
+during the age of Elizabeth. This play is a coarser piece than Ralph
+Roister Doister; the buffoon raises the devil to aid him in finding the
+lost needle, which is at length found, by very palpable proof, to be
+sticking in the seat of Goodman Hodge's breeches.
+
+
+THE FIRST TRAGEDY.--Hand in hand with these first comedies came the
+earliest tragedy, _Gorboduc_, by Sackville and Norton, known under another
+name as _Ferrex and Porrex_; and it is curious to observe that this came
+in while the moralities still occupied the stage, and before the
+interludes had disappeared, as it was played before the queen at White
+Hall, in 1562. It is also to be noted that it introduced a chorus like
+that of the old Greek drama. Ferrex and Porrex are the sons of King
+Gorboduc: the former is killed by the latter, who in turn is slain by his
+own mother. Of Gorboduc, Lamb says, "The style of this old play is stiff
+and cumbersome, like the dresses of the times. There may be flesh and
+blood underneath, but we cannot get at it."
+
+With the awakened interest of the people, the drama now made steady
+progress. In 1568 the tragedy of _Tancred and Gismunda_, based upon one of
+the stories of Boccaccio, was enacted before Elizabeth.
+
+A license for establishing a regular theatre was got out by Burbage in
+1574. Peele and Greene wrote plays in the new manner: Marlowe, the
+greatest name in the English drama, except those of Shakspeare and Ben
+Jonson, gave to the world his _Tragical History of the Life and Death of
+Doctor Faustus_, which many do not hesitate to compare favorably with
+Goethe's great drama, and his _Rich Jew of Malta_, which contains the
+portraiture of Barabas, second only to the Shylock of Shakspeare. Of
+Marlowe a more special mention will be made.
+
+
+PLAYWRIGHTS AND MORALS.--It was to the great advantage of the English
+regular drama, that the men who wrote were almost in every case highly
+educated in the classics, and thus able to avail themselves of the best
+models. It is equally true that, owing to the religious condition of the
+times, when Puritanism launched forth its diatribes against all
+amusements, they were men in the opposition, and in most cases of
+irregular lives. Men of the world, they took their characters from among
+the persons with whom they associated; and so we find in their plays
+traces of the history of the age, in the appropriation of classical forms,
+in the references to religious and political parties, and in their
+delineation of the morals, manners, and follies of the period: if the
+drama of the present day owes to them its origin and nurture, it also
+retains as an inheritance many of the faults and deformities from which in
+a more refined period it is seeking to purge itself. It is worthy of
+notice, that as the drama owes everything to popular patronage, its moral
+tone reflects of necessity the moral character of the people who frequent
+it, and of the age which sustains it.
+
+
+CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE.--Among those who may be regarded as the immediate
+forerunners and ushers of Shakspeare, and who, although they prepared the
+way for his advent, have been obscured by his greater brilliance, the one
+most deserving of special mention is Marlowe.
+
+Christopher Marlowe was born at Canterbury, about the year 1564. He was a
+wild, irregular genius, of bad morals and loose life, but of fine
+imagination and excellent powers of expression. He wrote only tragedies.
+
+His _Tamburlaine the Great_ is based upon the history of that _Timour
+Leuk_, or _Timour the Lame_, the great Oriental conqueror of the
+fourteenth century:
+
+    So large of limb, his joints so strongly knit,
+    Such breadth of shoulders as might mainly bear
+    Old Atlas' burthen.
+
+The descriptions are overdrawn, and the style inflated, but the subject
+partakes of the heroic, and was popular still, though nearly two
+centuries had passed since the exploits of the historic hero.
+
+_The Rich Jew of Malta_ is of value, as presenting to us Barabas the Jew
+as he appeared to Christian suspicion and hatred in the fifteenth century.
+As he sits in his country-house with heaps of gold before him, and
+receives the visits of merchants who inform him of the safe arrival of his
+ships, it is manifest that he gave Shakspeare the first ideal of his
+Shylock, upon which the greater dramatist greatly improved.
+
+_The Tragicall Life and Death of Doctor John Faustus_ certainly helped
+Goethe in the conception and preparation of his modern drama, and contains
+many passages of rare power. Charles Lamb says: "The growing horrors of
+Faustus are awfully marked by the hours and half-hours which expire and
+bring him nearer and nearer to the enactment of his dire compact. It is
+indeed an agony and bloody sweat."
+
+_Edward II._ presents in the assassination scene wonderful power and
+pathos, and is regarded by Hazlitt as his best play.
+
+Marlowe is the author of the pleasant madrigal, called by Izaak Walton
+"that smooth song":
+
+    Come live with me and be my love.
+
+The playwright, who had led a wild life, came to his end in a tavern
+brawl: he had endeavored to use his dagger upon one of the waiters, who
+turned it upon him, and gave him a wound in the head of which he died, in
+1593.
+
+His talents were of a higher order than those of his contemporaries; he
+was next to Shakspeare in power, and was called by Phillips "a second
+Shakspeare."
+
+
+
+OTHER DRAMATIC WRITERS BEFORE SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+Thomas Lodge, 1556-1625: educated at Oxford. Wrote _The Wounds of
+Civil-War_, and other tragedies. Rosalynd, a novel, from which Shakspeare
+drew in his _As You Like It_. He translated _Josephus_ and _Seneca_.
+
+Thomas Kyd, died about 1600: _The Spanish Tragedy, or, Hieronymo is Mad
+Again_. This contains a few highly wrought scenes, which have been
+variously attributed to Ben Jonson and to Webster.
+
+Robert Tailor: wrote _The Hog hath Lost his Pearl_, a comedy, published in
+1614. This partakes of the character of the _morality_.
+
+John Marston: wrote _Antonio and Mellida_, 1602; _Antonio's Revenge_,
+1602; _Sophonisba, a Wonder of Women_, 1606; _The Insatiate Countess_,
+1603, and many other plays. Marston ranks high among the immediate
+predecessors of Shakspeare, for the number, variety, and vigorous handling
+of his plays.
+
+George Peele, born about 1553: educated at Oxford. Many of his pieces are
+broadly comic. The principal plays are: _The Arraignment of Paris_,
+_Edward I._ and _David and Bethsabe_. The latter is overwrought and full
+of sickish sentiment.
+
+Thomas Nash, 1558-1601: a satirist and polemic, who is best known for his
+controversy with Gabriel Harvey. Most of his plays were written in
+conjunction with others. He was imprisoned for writing _The Isle of Dogs_,
+which was played, but not published. He is very licentious in his
+language.
+
+John Lyly, born about 1553: wrote numerous smaller plays, but is chiefly
+known as the author of _Euphues, Anatomy of Wit_, and _Euphues and his
+England_.
+
+Robert Greene, died 1592: educated at Cambridge. Wrote _Alphonsus, King of
+Arragon_, _James IV._, _George-a-Greene_, _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_,
+and other plays. After leading a profligate life, he left behind him a
+pamphlet entitled, "A Groat's-worth of Wit, bought with a Million of
+Repentance:" this is full of contrition, and of advice to his
+fellow-actors and fellow-sinners. It is mainly remarkable for its abuse of
+Shakspeare, "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers;" "Tygre's
+heart wrapt in a player's hide;" "an absolute Johannes factotum, in his
+own conceyt the onely _shakescene_ in the country."
+
+Most of these dramatists wrote in copartnership with others, and many of
+the plays which bear their names singly, have parts composed by
+colleagues. Such was the custom of the age, and it is now very difficult
+to declare the distinct authorship of many of the plays.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+   The Power of Shakspeare. Meagre Early History. Doubts of his Identity.
+   What is known. Marries, and goes to London. "Venus" and "Lucrece."
+   Retirement and Death. Literary Habitudes. Variety of the Plays. Table
+   of Dates and Sources.
+
+
+
+THE POWER OF SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+We have now reached, in our search for the historic teachings in English
+literature, and in our consideration of the English drama, the greatest
+name of all, the writer whose works illustrate our position most strongly,
+and yet who, eminent type as he is of British culture in the age of
+Elizabeth, was truly and pithily declared by his friend and contemporary,
+Ben Jonson, to be "not for an age, but for all time." It is also
+singularly true that, even in such a work as this, Shakspeare really
+requires only brief notice at our hands, because he is so universally
+known and read: his characters are among our familiar acquaintance; his
+simple but thoughtful words are incorporated in our common conversation;
+he is our every-day companion. To eulogize him to the reading public is
+
+    To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
+    To lend a perfume to the violet ...
+
+The Bible and Shakspeare have been long conjoined as the two most
+necessary books in a family library; and Mrs. Cowden Clarke, the author of
+the Concordance to Shakspeare, has pointedly and truthfully said: "A poor
+lad, possessing no other book, might on this single one make himself a
+gentleman and a scholar: a poor girl, studying no other volume, might
+become a lady in heart and soul."
+
+
+MEAGRE EARLY HISTORY.--It is passing strange, considering the great value
+of his writings, and his present fame, that of his personal history so
+little is known. In the words of Steevens, one of his most successful
+commentators: "All that is known, with any degree of certainty, concerning
+Shakspeare, is--that he was born at Stratford upon Avon--married and had
+children there--went to London, where he commenced actor, and wrote poems
+and plays--returned to Stratford, made his will, died, and was buried."
+
+This want of knowledge is in part due to his obscure youth, during which
+no one could predict what he would afterward achieve, and therefore no one
+took notes of his life: to his own apparent ignorance and carelessness of
+his own merits, and to the low repute in which plays, and especially
+playwrights, were then held; although they were in reality making their
+age illustrious in history. The pilgrim to Stratford sees the little low
+house in which he is said to have been born, purchased by the nation, and
+now restored into a smart cottage: within are a few meagre relics of the
+poet's time; not far distant is the foundation--recently uncovered--of his
+more ambitious residence in New Place, and a mulberry-tree, which probably
+grew from a slip of that which he had planted with his own hand. Opposite
+is the old Falcon Inn, where he made his daily potations. Very near rises,
+above elms and lime-trees, the spire of the beautiful church on the bank
+of the Avon, beneath the chancel of which his remains repose, with those
+of his wife and daughter, overlooked by his bust, of which no one knows
+the maker or the history, except that it dates from his own time. His bust
+is of life-size, and was originally painted to imitate nature--eyes of
+hazel, hair and beard auburn, doublet scarlet, and sleeveless gown of
+black. Covered by a false taste with white paint to imitate marble, while
+it destroyed identity and age: it has since been recolored from
+traditional knowledge, but it is too rude to give us the expression of his
+face.
+
+The only other probable likeness is that from an old picture, an engraving
+of which, by Droeshout, is found in the first folio edition of his plays,
+published in 1623, seven years after his death: it was said by Ben Jonson
+to be a good likeness. We are very fortunate in having these,
+unsatisfactory as they are, for it is simple truth that beyond these
+places and things, there is little, if anything, to illustrate the
+personal history of Shakspeare. All that we can know of the man is found
+in his works.
+
+
+DOUBTS OF HIS IDENTITY.--This ignorance concerning him has given rise to
+numerous doubts as to his literary identity, and many efforts have been
+made to find other authors for his dramas. Among the most industrious in
+this deposing scheme, have been Miss Delia Bacon and Mr. Nathaniel Holmes,
+who concur in attributing his best plays to Francis Bacon. That Bacon did
+not acknowledge his own work, they say, is because he rated the dramatic
+art too far beneath his dignity to confess any complicity with it. In
+short, he and other great men of that day wrote immortal works which they
+were ashamed of, and were willing to father upon the common actor and
+stage-manager, one William Shakspeare!
+
+While it is not within the scope of this volume to enter into the
+controversy, it is a duty to state its existence, and to express the
+judgment that these efforts have been entirely unsuccessful, but have not
+been without value in that they have added a little to the meagre history
+by their researches, and have established the claims of Shakspeare on a
+firmer foundation than before.
+
+
+WHAT IS KNOWN.--William Shakspeare (spelt _Shackspeare_ in the body of his
+will, but signed _Shakspeare_) was the third of eight children, and the
+eldest son of John Shakspeare and Mary Arden: he was born at the beautiful
+rural town of Stratford, on the little river Avon, on the 23d of April,
+1564. His father, who was of yeoman rank, was probably a dealer in wool
+and leather. Aubrey, a gossiping chronicler of the next generation, says
+he was a butcher, and some biographers assert that he was a glover. He may
+have exercised all these crafts together, but it is more to our purpose to
+know that in his best estate he was a property holder and chief burgess of
+the town. Shakspeare's mother seems to have been of an older family.
+Neither of them could write. Shakspeare received his education at the free
+grammar-school, still a well-endowed institution in the town, where he
+learned the "small Latin and less Greek" accorded to him by Ben Jonson at
+a later day.
+
+There are guesses, rather than traditions, that he was, after the age of
+fifteen, a student in a law-office, that he was for a time at one of the
+universities, and also that he was a teacher in the grammar-school. These
+are weak inventions to account for the varied learning displayed in his
+dramas. His love of Nature and his power to delineate her charms were
+certainly fostered by the beautiful rural surroundings of Stratford;
+beyond this it is idle to seek to penetrate the obscure processes of his
+youth.
+
+
+MARRIES, AND GOES TO LONDON.--Finding himself one of a numerous and poor
+family, to the support of which his father's business was inadequate, he
+determined, to shift for himself, and to push his fortunes in the best way
+he could.
+
+Whether he regarded matrimony as one element of success we do not know,
+but the preliminary bond of marriage between himself and Anne Hathaway,
+was signed on the 28th of November, 1582, when he was eighteen years old.
+The woman was seven years older than himself; and it is a sad commentary
+on the morality of both, that his first child, Susanna, was baptized on
+the 25th of May, 1583.
+
+Strolling bands of players, in passing through England, were in the habit
+of stopping at Stratford, and setting upon wheels their rude stage with
+weather-stained curtains; and these, it should be observed, were the best
+dramatic companies of the time, such as the queen's company, and those in
+the service of noblemen like Leicester, Warwick, and others. If he did not
+see he must have heard of the great pageant in 1575, when Leicester
+entertained Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth, which is so charmingly
+described by Sir Walter Scott. Young Shakspeare became stage-struck, and
+probably joined one of these companies, with other idle young men of the
+neighborhood.
+
+Various legends, without sufficient foundation of truth, are related of
+him at this time, which indicate that he was of a frolicsome and
+mischievous turn: among these is a statement that he was arraigned for
+deer-poaching in the park of Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote. A satirical
+reference to Sir Thomas in one of his plays,[30] leads us to think that
+there is some truth in the story, although certain of his biographers have
+denied it.
+
+In February, 1584-5, he became the father of twins, Hamnet and Judith, and
+in 1586, leaving his wife and children at Stratford, he went up with a
+theatrical company to London, where for three years he led a hard and
+obscure life. He was at first a menial at the theatre; some say he held
+gentlemen's horses at the door, others that he was call-boy, prompter,
+scene-shifter, minor actor. At length he began to find his true vocation
+in altering and adapting plays for the stage. This earlier practice, in
+every capacity, was of great value to him when he began to write plays of
+his own. As an actor he never rose above mediocrity. It is said that he
+played such parts as the Ghost in Hamlet, and Adam in As You Like It; but
+off the stage he became known for a ready wit and convivial humor.
+
+His ready hand for any work caused him to prosper steadily, and so in
+1589 we find his name the twelfth on the list of sixteen shareholders in
+the Blackfriars Theatre, one of the first play-houses built in London.
+That he was steadily growing in public favor, as well as in private
+fortune, might be inferred from Spenser's mention of him in the "Tears of
+the Muses," published in 1591, if we were sure he was the person referred
+to. If he was, this is the first great commendation he had received:
+
+    The man whom nature's self had made,
+      To mock herself and truth to imitate,
+    With kindly counter under mimic shade,
+      Our pleasant Willie.
+
+There is, however, a doubt whether the reference is to him, as he had
+written very little as early as 1591.
+
+
+VENUS AND ADONIS.--In 1593 appeared his _Venus and Adonis_, which he now
+had the social position and interest to dedicate to the Earl of
+Southampton. It is a harmonious and beautiful poem, but the display of
+libidinous passion in the goddess, however in keeping with her character
+and with the broad taste of the age, is disgusting to the refined reader,
+even while he acknowledges the great power of the poet. In the same year
+was built the Globe Theatre, a hexagonal wooden structure, unroofed over
+the pit, but thatched over the stage and the galleries. In this, too,
+Shakspeare was a shareholder.
+
+
+THE RAPE OF LUCRECE.--The _Rape of Lucrece_ was published in 1594, and was
+dedicated to the same nobleman, who, after the custom of the period,
+became Shakspeare's patron, and showed the value of his patronage by the
+gift to the poet of a thousand pounds.
+
+Thus in making poetical versions of classical stories, which formed the
+imaginative pabulum of the age, and in readapting older plays, the poet
+was gaining that skill and power which were to produce his later immortal
+dramas.
+
+These, as we shall see, he began to write as early as 1589, and continued
+to produce until 1612.
+
+
+RETIREMENT AND DEATH.--A few words will complete his personal history: His
+fortune steadily increased; in 1602 he was the principal owner of the
+Globe; then, actuated by his home feeling, which had been kept alive by
+annual visits to Stratford, he determined, as soon as he could, to give up
+the stage, and to take up his residence there. He had purchased, in 1597,
+the New Place at Stratford, but he did not fully carry out his plan until
+1612, when he finally retired with ample means and in the enjoyment of an
+honorable reputation. There he exercised a generous hospitality, and led a
+quiet rural life. He planted a mulberry-tree, which became a pilgrim's
+shrine to numerous travellers; but a ruthless successor in the ownership
+of New Place, the Reverend Francis Gastrell, annoyed by the concourse of
+visitors, was Vandal enough to cut it down. Such was the anger of the
+people that he was obliged to leave the place, which he did after razing
+the mansion to the ground. His name is held in great detestation at
+Stratford now, as every traveller is told his story.
+
+Shakspeare's death occurred on his fifty-second birthday, April 23d, 1616.
+He had been ill of a fever, from which he was slowly recovering, and his
+end is said to have been the result of an over-conviviality in
+entertaining Drayton and Ben Jonson, who had paid him a visit at
+Stratford.
+
+His son Hamnet had died in 1596, at the age of twelve. In 1607, his
+daughter Susannah had married Dr. Hall; and in 1614 died Judith, who had
+married Thomas Quiney. Shakspeare's wife survived him, and died in 1623.
+
+
+LITERARY HABITUDES.--Such, in brief, is the personal history of
+Shakspeare: of his literary habitudes we know nothing. The exact dates of
+the appearance of his plays are, in most cases, doubtful. Many of these
+had been printed singly during his life, but the first complete edition
+was published in folio, in 1623. It contains _thirty-six_ plays, and is
+the basis of the later editions, which contain thirty-_seven_. Many
+questions arise which cannot be fully answered: Did he write all the plays
+contained in the volume? Are the First Part of Henry VI., Titus
+Andronicus,[31] and Pericles his work? Did he not write others not found
+among these? Had he, as was not uncommon then and later, collaboration in
+those which bear his name? Was he a Beaumont to some Fletcher, or a
+Sackville to some Norton? Upon these questions generations of Shakspearean
+scholars have expended a great amount of learned inquiry ever since his
+day, and not without results: it is known that many of his dramas are
+founded upon old plays, as to plots; and that he availed himself of the
+labor of others in casting his plays.
+
+But the real value of his plays, the insight into human nature, the
+profound philosophy, "the myriad-soul" which they display, are
+Shakspeare's only. By applying just rules of evidence, we conclude that he
+did write thirty-five of the plays attributed to him, and that he did not
+write, or was not the chief writer of others. It is certainly very strong
+testimony on these points, that seven years after his death, and _three
+years before that of Bacon_, a large folio should have been published by
+his professional friends Heminge and Condell, prefaced with ardent
+eulogies, claiming thirty-six plays as his, and that it did not meet with
+the instant and indignant cry that his claims were false. The players of
+that day were an envious and carping set, and the controversy would have
+been fierce from the very first, had there been just grounds for it.
+
+
+VARIETY OF PLAYS.--No attempt will be made to analyze any of the plays of
+Shakspeare: that is left for the private study and enjoyment of the
+student, by the use of the very numerous aids furnished by commentators
+and critics. It will be found often that in their great ardor, the
+dramatist has been treated like the Grecian poet:
+
+    [Shakspeare's] critics bring to view
+    Things which [Shakspeare] never knew.
+
+Many of the plays are based upon well-known legends and fictional tales,
+some of them already adopted in old plays: thus the story of King Lear and
+his daughters is found in Holinshed's Chronicle, and had been for years
+represented; from this Shakspeare has borrowed the story, but has used
+only a single passage. The play is intended to represent the ancient
+Celtic times in Britain, eight hundred years before Christ; and such is
+its power and pathos, that we care little for its glaring anachronisms and
+curious errors. In Holinshed are also found the stories of Cymbeline and
+Macbeth, the former supposed to have occurred during the Roman occupancy
+of Britain, and the latter during the Saxon period.
+
+With these before us, let us observe that names, chronology, geography,
+costumes, and customs are as nothing in his eyes. His aim is human
+philosophy: he places his living creations before us, dressing them, as it
+were, in any garments most conveniently at hand. These lose their
+grotesqueness as his characters speak and act. Paternal love and weakness,
+met by filial ingratitude; these are the lessons and the fearful pictures
+of Lear: sad as they are, the world needed them, and they have saved many
+a later Lear from expulsion and storm and death, and shamed many a Goneril
+and Regan, while they have strengthened the hearts of many a Cordelia
+since. Chastity and constancy shine like twin stars from the forest of
+Cymbeline. And what have we in Macbeth? Mad ambition parleying with the
+devil, in the guise of a woman lost to all virtue save a desire to
+aggrandize her husband and herself. These have a pretence of history; but
+Hamlet, with hardly that pretence, stands alone supreme in varied
+excellence. Ambition, murder, resistless fate, filial love, the love of
+woman, revenge, the power of conscience, paternal solicitude, infinite
+jest: what a volume is this!
+
+
+TABLE OF DATES AND SOURCES.--The following table, which presents the plays
+in chronological order,[32] the times when they were written, as nearly as
+can be known, and the sources whence they were derived, will be of more
+service to the student than any discursive remarks upon the several plays.
+
+Plays.                       Dates.                Sources.
+
+ 1. Henry VI., first part     1589   Denied to Shakspeare; attributed to
+                                       Marlowe or Kyd.
+ 2. Pericles                  1590   From the "Gesta Romanorum."
+ 3. Henry VI., second part    1591     "  an older play.
+ 4. Henry VI., third part     1591     "  "    "    "
+ 5. Two Gentlemen of Verona   1591     "  an old tale.
+ 6. Comedy of Errors          1592     "  a comedy of Plautus.
+ 7. Love's Labor Lost         1592     "  an Italian play.
+ 8. Richard II.               1593     "  Holinshed and other
+                                          chronicles.
+ 9. Richard III.              1593   From an old play and Sir Thomas
+                                       More's History.
+10. Midsummer Night's Dream   1594   Suggested by Palamon and Arcite,
+                                       The Knight's Tale, of Chaucer.
+11. Taming of the Shrew       1596   From an older play.
+12. Romeo and Juliet          1596     "  " old tale. Boccaccio.
+13. Merchant of Venice        1597     " Gesta Romanorum, with suggestions
+                                         from Marlowe's Jew of Malta.
+14. Henry IV., part 1         1597   From an old play.
+15. Henry IV., part 2         1598    "   "  "   "
+16. King John                 1598    "   "  "   "
+17. All's Well that Ends Well 1598    "  Boccaccio.
+18. Henry V.                  1599  From an older play.
+19. As You Like It            1600  Suggested in part by Lodge's novel,
+                                      Rosalynd.
+20. Much Ado About Nothing    1600  Source unknown.
+21. Hamlet                    1601  From the Latin History of Scandinavia,
+                                      by Saxo, called Grammaticus.
+22. Merry Wives of Windsor    1601  Said to have been suggested by
+                                      Elizabeth.
+23. Twelfth Night             1601  From an old tale.
+24. Troilus and Cressida      1602  Of classical origin, through Chaucer.
+25. Henry VIII.               1603  From the chronicles of the day.
+26. Measure for Measure       1603   "  an old tale.
+27. Othello                   1604   "  "   "   "
+28. King Lear                 1605   "  Holinshed.
+29. Macbeth                   1606   "      "
+30. Julius Cæsar              1607   "  Plutarch's Parallel Lives.
+31. Antony and Cleopatra      1608   "      "         "       "
+32. Cymbeline                 1609   "  Holinshed.
+33. Coriolanus                1610   "  Plutarch.
+34. Timon of Athens           1610   "     "      and other sources.
+35. Winter's Tale             1611   "  a novel by Greene.
+36. Tempest                   1612   "  Italian Tale.
+37. Titus Andronicus          1593  Denied to Shakspeare; probably by
+                                      Marlowe or Kyd.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, (CONTINUED.)
+
+
+   The Grounds of his Fame. Creation of Character. Imagination and Fancy.
+   Power of Expression. His Faults. Influence of Elizabeth. Sonnets.
+   Ireland and Collier. Concordance. Other Writers.
+
+
+
+THE GROUNDS OF HIS FAME.
+
+
+From what has been said, it is manifest that as to his plots and
+historical reproductions, Shakspeare has little merit but taste in
+selection; and indeed in most cases, had he invented the stories, his
+merit would not have been great: what then is the true secret of his power
+and of his fame? This question is not difficult to answer.
+
+First, these are due to his wonderful insight into human nature, and the
+philosophy of human life: he dissects the human mind in all its
+conditions, and by this vivisection he displays its workings as it lives
+and throbs; he divines the secret impulses of all ages and
+characters--childhood, boyhood, manhood, girlhood, and womanhood; men of
+peace, and men of war; clowns, nobles, and kings. His large heart was
+sympathetic with all, and even most so with the lowly and suffering; he
+shows us to ourselves, and enables us to use that knowledge for our
+profit. All the virtues are held up to our imitation and praise, and all
+the vices are scourged and rendered odious in our sight. To read
+Shakspeare aright is of the nature of honest self-examination, that most
+difficult and most necessary of duties.
+
+
+CREATION OF CHARACTER.--Second: He stands supreme in the creation of
+character, which may be considered the distinguishing mark of the highest
+literary genius. The men and women whom he has made are not stage-puppets
+moved by hidden strings; they are real. We know them as intimately as the
+friends and acquaintances who visit us, or the people whom we accost in
+our daily walks.
+
+And again, in this varied delineation of character, Shakspeare less than
+any other author either obtrudes or repeats himself. Unlike Byron, he is
+nowhere his own hero: unlike most modern novelists, he fashions men who,
+while they have the generic human resemblance, differ from each other like
+those of flesh and blood around us: he has presented a hundred phases of
+love, passion, ambition, jealousy, revenge, treachery, and cruelty, and
+each distinct from the others of its kind; but lest any character should
+degenerate into an allegorical representation of a single virtue or vice,
+he has provided it with the other lineaments necessary to produce in it a
+rare human identity.
+
+The stock company of most writers is limited, and does arduous duty in
+each new play or romance; so that we detect in the comic actor, who is now
+convulsing the pit with laughter, the same person who a little while ago
+died heroically to slow music in the tragedy. Each character in Shakspeare
+plays but one part, and plays it skilfully and well. And who has portrayed
+the character of woman like Shakspeare?--the grand sorrow of the
+repudiated Catharine, the incorruptible chastity of Isabella, the
+cleverness of Portia, the loves of Jessica and of Juliet, the innocent
+curiosity of Miranda, the broken heart and crazed brain of the fair
+Ophelia.
+
+In this connection also should be noticed his powers of grouping and
+composition; which, in the words of one of his biographers, "present to us
+pictures from the realms of spirits and from fairyland, which in deep
+reflection and in useful maxims, yield nothing to the pages of the
+philosophers, and which glow with all the poetic beauty that an
+exhaustless fancy could shower upon them."
+
+
+IMAGINATION AND FANCY.--And this brings us to notice, in the third place,
+his rare gifts of imagination and of fancy; those instruments of the
+representative faculty by which objects of sense and of mind are held up
+to view in new, varied, and vivid lights. Many of his tragedies abound in
+imaginative pictures, while there are not in the realm of Fancy's fairy
+frostwork more exquisite representations than those found in the _Tempest_
+and the _Midsummer Night's Dream_.
+
+
+POWER OF EXPRESSION.--Fourth, Shakspeare is remarkable for the power and
+felicity of his expression. He adapts his language to the persons who use
+it, and thus we pass from the pompous grandiloquence of king and herald to
+the common English and coarse conceits of clown and nurse and
+grave-digger; from the bombastic speech of Glendower and the rhapsodies of
+Hotspur to the slang and jests of Falstaff.
+
+But something more is meant by felicity of expression than this. It
+applies to the apt words which present pithy bits of household philosophy,
+and to the beautiful words which convey the higher sentiments and flights
+of fancy; to the simple words couching grand thoughts with such exquisite
+aptness that they seem made for each other, so that no other words would
+do as well, and to the dainty songs, like those of birds, which fill his
+forests and gardens with melody. Thus it is that orators and essayists
+give dignity and point to their own periods by quoting Shakspeare.
+
+Such are a few of Shakspeare's high merits, which constitute him the
+greatest poet who has ever used the English tongue--poet, moralist, and
+philosopher in one.
+
+
+HIS FAULTS.--If it be necessary to point out his faults, it should be
+observed that most of them are those of the age and of his profession. To
+both may be charged the vulgarity and lewdness of some of his
+representations; which, however, err in this respect far less than the
+writings of his contemporaries.
+
+Again: in the short time allowed for the presentation of a play, before a
+restless audience, as soon as the plot was fairly shadowed, the hearers
+were anxious for the _dénouement_. And so Shakspeare, careless of future
+fame, frequently displays a singular disparity between the parts. He has
+so much of detail in the first two acts, that in order to preserve the
+symmetry, five or six more would be necessary. Thus conclusions are
+hurried, when, as works of art, they should be the most elaborated.
+
+He has sometimes been accused of obscurity in expression, which renders
+some of his passages difficult to be understood by commentators; but this,
+in most cases, is the fault of his editors. The cases are exceptional and
+unimportant. His anachronisms and historical inaccuracies have already
+been referred to. His greatest admirers will allow that his wit and humor
+are very often forced and frequently out of place; but here, too, he
+should be leniently judged. These sallies of wit were meant rather to
+"tickle the ears of the groundlings" than as just subjects for criticism
+by later scholars. We know that old jokes, bad puns, and innuendoes are
+needed on the stage at the present day. Shakspeare used them for the same
+ephemeral purpose then; and had he sent down corrected versions to
+posterity, they would have been purged of these.
+
+
+INFLUENCE OF ELIZABETH.--Enough has been said to show in what manner
+Shakspeare represents his age, and indeed many former periods of English
+history. There are numerous passages which display the influence of
+Elizabeth. It was at her request that he wrote the _Merry Wives of
+Windsor_, in which Falstaff is depicted as a lover: the play of Henry
+VIII., criticizing the queen's father, was not produced until after her
+death. His pure women, like those of Spenser, are drawn after a queenly
+model. It is known that Elizabeth was very susceptible to admiration, but
+did not wish to be considered so; and Shakspeare paid the most delicate
+and courtly tribute to her vanity, in those exquisite lines from the
+_Midsummer Night's Dream_, showing how powerless Cupid was to touch her
+heart:
+
+            A certain aim he took
+    At a fair vestal, throned by the west;
+    And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
+    As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:
+    But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
+    Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon;
+    And _the imperial votaress passed on_,
+    In maiden meditation, fancy free.
+
+
+SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS.--Before his time, the sonnet had been but little
+used in England, the principal writers being Surrey, Sir Walter Raleigh,
+Sidney, Daniel, and Drayton. Shakspeare left one hundred and fifty-four,
+which exhibit rare poetical power, and which are most of them addressed to
+a person unknown, perhaps an ideal personage, whose initials are W. H.
+Although chiefly addressed to a man, they are of an amatory nature, and
+dwell strongly upon human frailty, infidelity, and treachery, from which
+he seems to have suffered: the mystery of these poems has never been
+penetrated. They were printed in 1609. "Our language," says one of his
+editors, "can boast no sonnets altogether worthy of being placed by the
+side of Shakspeare's, except the few which Milton poured forth--so severe
+and so majestic."
+
+It need hardly be said that Shakspeare has been translated into all modern
+languages, in whole or in part. In French, by Victor Hugo and Guizot, Leon
+de Wailly and Alfred de Vigny; in German, by Wieland, A. W. Schlegel, and
+Bürger; in Italian, by Leoni and Carcano, and in Portuguese by La Silva.
+Goethe's Apprenticeship of Wilhelm Meister is a long and profound critique
+of Hamlet; and to the Germans he is quite as familiar and intelligible as
+to the English.
+
+
+IRELAND: COLLIER.--The most celebrated forgery of Shakspeare was that by
+Samuel Ireland, the son of a Shakspearean scholar, who was an engraver and
+dealer in curiosities. He wrote two plays, called _Vortigern_ and _Henry
+the Second_, which he said he had discovered; and he forged a deed with
+Shakspeare's autograph. By these he imposed upon his father and many
+others, but eventually confessed the forgery.
+
+One word should be said concerning the Collier controversy. John Payne
+Collier was a lawyer, born in 1789, and is known as the author of an
+excellent history of _English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of Shakspeare_
+and _Annals of the Stage to the Restoration_. In the year 1849, he came
+into possession of a copy of the folio edition of Shakspeare, published in
+1632, _full of emendations_, by an early owner of the volume. In 1852 he
+published these, and at once great enthusiasm was excited, for and against
+the emendations: many thought them of great value, while others even went
+so far as to accuse Mr. Collier of having made some of them himself. The
+chief value of the work was that it led to new investigations, and has
+thus thrown additional light upon the works of Shakspeare.
+
+
+CONCORDANCE.--The student is referred to a very complete concordance of
+Shakspeare, by Mrs. Mary Cowden Clarke, the labor of many years, by which
+every line of Shakspeare may be found, and which is thus of incalculable
+utility to the Shakspearean scholar.
+
+
+
+OTHER DRAMATIC WRITERS OF THE AGE OF SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+Ben Jonson, 1573-1637: this great dramatist, who deserves a larger space,
+was born in London; his father became a Puritan preacher, but after his
+death, his mother's second husband put the boy at brick-making. His spirit
+revolted at this, and he ran away, and served as a soldier in the Low
+Countries. On his return he killed Gabriel Spencer, a fellow-actor, in a
+duel, and was for some time imprisoned. His first play was a comedy
+entitled _Every Man in his Humour_, acted in 1598. This was succeeded,
+the next year, by _Every Man out of his Humour_. He wrote a great number
+of both tragedies and comedies, among which the principal are _Cynthia's
+Revels_, _Sejanus_, _Volpone_, _Catiline's Conspiracy_, and _The
+Alchemist_. In 1616, he received a pension from the crown of one hundred
+marks, which was increased by Charles I., in 1630, to one hundred pounds.
+He was the friend of Shakspeare, and had many wit-encounters with him. In
+these, Fuller compares Jonson to a great Spanish galleon, "built far
+higher in learning, solid and slow in performance," and Shakspeare to an
+"English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn
+with all tides, tack about and take advantage of all winds, by the
+quickness of his wit and invention."
+
+Massinger, 1548-1640: born at Salisbury. Is said to have written
+thirty-eight plays, of which only eighteen remain. The chief of these is
+the _Virgin Martyr_, in which he was assisted by Dekker. The best of the
+others are _The City Madam_ and _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_, _The Fatal
+Dowry_, _The Unnatural Combat_, and _The Duke of Milan_. _A New Way to Pay
+Old Debts_ keeps its place upon the modern stage.
+
+John Ford, born 1586: author of _The Lover's Melancholy_, _Love's
+Sacrifice_, _Perkin Warbeck_, and _The Broken Heart_. He was a pathetic
+delineator of love, especially of unhappy love. Some of his plots are
+unnatural, and abhorrent to a refined taste.
+
+Webster (dates unknown): this author is remarkable for his handling of
+gloomy and terrible subjects. His best plays are _The Devil's Law Case_,
+_Appius and Virginia_, _The Duchess of Malfy_, and _The White Devil_.
+Hazlitt says "his _White Devil_ and _Duchess of Malfy_ come the nearest to
+Shakspeare of anything we have upon record."
+
+Francis Beaumont, 1586-1615, and John Fletcher, 1576-1625: joint authors
+of plays, numbering fifty-two. A prolific union, in which it is difficult
+to determine the exact authorship of each. Among the best plays are _The
+Maid's Tragedy_, _Philaster_, and _Cupid's Revenge_. Many of the plots are
+licentious, but in monologues they frequently rise to eloquence, and in
+descriptions are picturesque and graphic.
+
+Shirley, 1594-1666: delineates fashionable life with success. His best
+plays are _The Maid's Revenge_, _The Politician_, and _The Lady of
+Pleasure_. The last suggested to Van Brugh his character of Lady Townly,
+in _The Provoked Husband_. Lamb says Shirley "was the last of a great
+race, all of whom spoke the same language, and had a set of moral feelings
+and notions in common. A new language and quite a new turn of tragic and
+comic interest came in at the Restoration."
+
+Thomas Dekker, died about 1638: wrote, besides numerous tracts,
+twenty-eight plays. The principal are _Old Fortunatus_, _The Honest
+Whore_, and _Satiro-Mastix, or, The Humorous Poet Untrussed_. In the last,
+he satirized Ben Jonson, with whom he had quarrelled, and who had
+ridiculed him in _The Poetaster_. In the Honest Whore are found those
+beautiful lines so often quoted:
+
+                            ... the best of men
+    That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer;
+    A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit;
+    The first true gentleman that ever breathed.
+
+Extracts from the plays mentioned may be found in Charles Lamb's
+"Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of
+Shakspeare."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+BACON, AND THE RISE OF THE NEW PHILOSOPHY.
+
+
+   Birth and Early Life. Treatment of Essex. His Appointments. His Fall.
+   Writes Philosophy. Magna Instauratio. His Defects. His Fame. His
+   Essays.
+
+
+
+BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE OF BACON.
+
+
+Contemporary with Shakspeare, and almost equal to him in English fame at
+least, is Francis Bacon, the founder of the system of experimental
+philosophy in the Elizabethan age. The investigations of the one in the
+philosophy of human life, were emulated by those of the other in the realm
+of general nature, in order to find laws to govern further progress, and
+to evolve order and harmony out of chaos.
+
+Bacon was born in London, on the 22d of January, 1560-61, to an enviable
+social lot. His father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, was for twenty years lord
+keeper of the great seal, and was eulogized by George Buchanan as "Diu
+Britannici regni secundum columen." His mother was Anne Cook, a person of
+remarkable acquirements in language and theology. Francis Bacon was a
+delicate, attractive, and precocious child, noticed by the great, and
+kindly called by the queen "her little lord keeper." Ben Jonson refers to
+this when he writes, at a later day:
+
+    England's high chancellor, the destined heir
+    In his soft cradle to his father's chair.
+
+Thus, in his early childhood, he became accustomed to the forms and
+grandeur of political power, and the modes by which it was to be striven
+for.
+
+In his thirteenth year he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, then,
+as now, the more mathematical and scientific of the two universities. But,
+like Gibbon at Oxford, he thought little of his alma mater, under whose
+care he remained only three years. It is said that at an early age he
+disliked the Logic of Aristotle, and began to excogitate his system of
+Induction: not content with the formal recorded knowledge, he viewed the
+universe as a great storehouse of facts to be educed, investigated, and
+philosophically classified.
+
+After leaving the university, he went in the suite of Sir Amyas Paulet,
+the English ambassador, to France; and recorded the observations made
+during his travels in a treatise _On the State of Europe_, which is
+thoughtful beyond his years. The sudden death of his father, in February,
+1579-80, recalled him to England, and his desire to study led him to apply
+to the government for a sinecure, which would permit him to do so without
+concern as to his support. It is not strange--considering his youth and
+the entire ignorance of the government as to his abilities--that this was
+refused. He then applied himself to the study of the law; and whatever his
+real ability, the jealousy of the Cecils no doubt prompted the opinion of
+the queen, that he was not very profound in the branch he had chosen, an
+opinion which was fully shared by the blunt and outspoken Lord Coke, who
+was his rival in love, law, and preferment. Prompted no doubt by the
+coldness of Burleigh, he joined the opposition headed by the Earl of
+Essex, and he found in that nobleman a powerful friend and generous
+patron, who used his utmost endeavors to have Bacon appointed
+attorney-general, but without success. To compensate Bacon for his
+failure, Essex presented him with a beautiful villa at Twickenham on the
+Thames, which was worth £2,000.
+
+
+TREATMENT OF ESSEX.--Essex was of a bold, eccentric, and violent temper.
+It is not to the credit of Bacon that when Essex, through his rashness and
+eccentricities, found himself arraigned for treason, Bacon deserted him,
+and did not simply stand aloof, but was the chief agent in his
+prosecution. Nor is this all: after making a vehement and effective speech
+against him, as counsel for the prosecution--a speech which led to his
+conviction and execution--Bacon wrote an uncalled-for and malignant paper,
+entitled "A Declaration of the Treasons of Robert, Earl of Essex."
+
+A high-minded man would have aided his friend; a cautious man would have
+remained neutral; but Bacon was extravagant, fond of show, eager for
+money, and in debt: he sought only to push his own fortunes, without
+regard to justice or gratitude, and he saw that he had everything to gain
+from his servility to the queen, and nothing from standing by his friend.
+Even those who thought Essex justly punished, regarded Bacon with aversion
+and contempt, and impartial history has not reversed their opinion.
+
+
+HIS APPOINTMENTS.--He strove for place, and he obtained it. In 1590 he was
+appointed counsel extraordinary to the queen: such was his first reward
+for this conduct, and such his first lesson in the school where thrift
+followed fawning. In 1593 he was brought into parliament for Middlesex,
+and there he charmed all hearers by his eloquence, which has received the
+special eulogy of Ben Jonson. In his parliamentary career is found a
+second instance of his truckling to power: in a speech touching the rights
+of the crown, he offended the queen and her ministers; and as soon as he
+found they resented it, he made a servile and unqualified apology.
+
+At this time he began to write his _Essays_, which will be referred to
+hereafter, and published two treatises, one on _The Common Law_, and one
+on _The Alienation Office_.
+
+In 1603 he was, by his own seeking, among the crowd of gentlemen knighted
+by James I. on his accession; and in 1604 he added fortune to his new
+dignity by marrying Alice Barnham, "a handsome maiden," the daughter of a
+London alderman. He had before addressed the dowager Lady Hatton, who had
+refused him and bestowed her hand upon his rival, Coke.
+
+In 1613 he attained to the long-desired dignity of attorney-general, a
+post which he filled with power and energy, but which he disgraced by the
+torture of Peacham, an old clergyman, who was charged with having written
+treason in a sermon which he never preached nor published. As nothing
+could be extorted from him by the rack, Bacon informed the king that
+Peacham "had a dumb devil." It should be some palliation of this deed,
+however, that the government was quick and sharp in ferretting out
+treason, and that torture was still authorized.
+
+In 1616 he was sworn of the privy council, and in the next year inherited
+his father's honors, being made lord keeper of the seal, principally
+through the favor of the favorite Buckingham. His course was still upward:
+in 1618 he was made lord high chancellor, and Baron Verulam, and the next
+year he was created Viscount St. Albans. Such rapid and high promotion
+marked his great powers, but it belonged to the period of despotism. James
+had been ruling without a parliament. At length the necessities of the
+government caused the king to summon a parliament, and the struggle began
+which was to have a fatal issue twenty-five years later. Parliament met,
+began to assert popular rights, and to examine into the conduct of
+ministers and high officials; and among those who could ill bear such
+scrutiny, Bacon was prominent.
+
+
+HIS FALL.--The charges against him were varied and numerous, and easy of
+proof. He had received bribes; he had given false judgments for money; he
+had perverted justice to secure the smiles of Buckingham, the favorite;
+and when a commission was appointed to examine these charges he was
+convicted. With abject humility, he acknowledged his guilt, and implored
+the pity of his judges. The annals of biography present no sorrier picture
+than this. "Upon advised consideration of the charges," he wrote,
+"descending into my own conscience, and calling my memory to account so
+far as I am able, I do plainly and ingenuously confess that I am guilty of
+corruption, and do renounce all defence. O my lords, spare a broken reed!"
+
+It is useless for his defenders, among whom the chief are Mr. Basil
+Montagu and Mr. Hepworth Dixon, to inform us that judges in that day were
+ill paid, and that it was the custom to receive gifts. If Bacon had a
+defence to make and did not make it, he was a coward or a sycophant: if
+what he said is true, he was a dishonest man, an unjust judge. He was
+sentenced to pay a fine of £40,000, and to be imprisoned in the Tower at
+the king's pleasure; the fine was remitted, and the imprisonment lasted
+but two days, a result, no doubt foreseen, of his wretched confession.
+This was the end of his public career. In retirement, with a pension of
+£1,200, making, with his other means, an annual income of £2,500, this
+"meanest of mankind" set himself busily to work to prove to the world that
+he could also be the "wisest and brightest;"[33] a duality of fame
+approached by others, but never equalled. He was, in fact, two men in one:
+a dishonest, truckling politician, and a large-minded and truth-seeking
+philosopher.
+
+
+BEGINS HIS PHILOSOPHY.--Retired in disgrace from his places at court, the
+rest of his life was spent in developing his _Instauratio Magna_, that
+revolution in the very principles and institutes of science--that
+philosophy which, in the words of Macaulay, "began in observations, and
+ended in arts." A few words will suffice to close his personal history.
+While riding in his coach, he was struck with the idea that snow would
+arrest animal putrefaction. He alighted, bought a fowl, and stuffed it
+with snow, with his own hands. He caught cold, stopped at the Earl of
+Arundel's mansion, and slept in damp sheets; fever intervened, and on
+Easter Day, 1626, he died, leaving his great work unfinished, but in such
+condition that the plan has been sketched for the use of the philosophers
+who came after him.
+
+He is said to have made the first sketch of the _Instauratio_ when he was
+twenty-six years old, but it was much modified in later years. He fondly
+called it also _Temporis Partus Maximus_, the greatest birth of Time.
+After that he wrote his _Advancement of Learning in 1605_, which was to
+appear in his developed scheme, under the title _De Augmentis
+Scientiarum_, written in 1623. His work advanced with and was modified by
+his investigations.
+
+In 1620 he wrote the _Novum Organum_, which, when it first appeared,
+called forth from James I. the profane _bon mot_ that it was like the
+peace of God, "because it passeth all understanding." Thus he was
+preparing the component parts, and fitting them into his system, which has
+at length become quite intelligible. A clear notion of what he proposed to
+himself and what he accomplished, may be found in the subjoined meagre
+sketch, only designed to indicate the outline of that system, which it
+will require long and patient study to master thoroughly.
+
+
+THE GREAT RESTORATION, (MAGNA INSTAURATIO.)--He divided it into six parts,
+bearing a logical relation to each other, and arranged in the proper order
+of study.
+
+I. Survey and extension of the sciences, (_De Augmentis Scientiarum_.)
+"Gives the substance or general description of the knowledge which mankind
+_at present possesses_." That is, let it be observed, not according to the
+received system and divisions, but according to his own. It is a new
+presentation of the existent state of knowledge, comprehending "not only
+the things already invented and known, but also those omitted and wanted,"
+for he says the intellectual globe, as well as the terrestrial, has its
+broils and deceits.
+
+In the branch "_De Partitione Scientiarum_," he divides all human learning
+into _History_, which uses the memory; _Poetry_, which employs the
+imagination; and _Philosophy_, which requires the reason: divisions too
+vague and too few, and so overlapping each other as to be of little
+present use. Later classifications into numerous divisions have been
+necessary to the progress of scientific research.
+
+II. Precepts for the interpretation of nature, (_Novum Organum_.) This
+sets forth "the doctrine of a more perfect use of the reason, and the true
+helps of the intellectual faculties, so as to raise and enlarge the powers
+of the mind." "A kind of logic, by us called," he says, "the art of
+interpreting nature: differing from the common logic ... in three things,
+the end, the order of demonstrating, and the grounds of inquiry."
+
+Here he discusses induction; opposes the syllogism; shows the value and
+the faults of the senses--as they fail us, or deceive us--and presents in
+his _idola_ the various modes and forms of deception. These _idola_, which
+he calls the deepest fallacies of the human mind, are divided into four
+classes: Idola Tribus, Idola Specus, Idola Fori, Idola Theatri. The first
+are the errors belonging to the whole human race, or _tribe_; the
+second--_of the den_--are the peculiarities of individuals; the third--_of
+the market-place_--are social and conventional errors; and the
+fourth--_those of the theatre_--include Partisanship, Fashion, and
+Authority.
+
+III. Phenomena of the Universe, or Natural and Experimental History, on
+which to found Philosophy, (_Sylva Sylvarum_.) "Our natural history is
+not designed," he says, "so much to please by vanity, or benefit by
+gainful experiments, as to afford light to the discovery of causes, and
+hold out the breasts of philosophy." This includes his patient search for
+facts--nature _free_, as in the history of plants, minerals, animals,
+etc.--nature _put to the torture_, as in the productions of art and human
+industry.
+
+IV. Ladder of the Understanding, (_Scala Intellectûs_.) "Not illustrations
+of rules and precepts, but perfect models, which will exemplify the second
+part of this work, and represent to the eye the whole progress of the
+mind, and the continued structure and order of invention, in the most
+chosen subjects, after the same manner as globes and machines facilitate
+the more abstruse and subtle demonstrations in mathematics."
+
+V. Precursors or anticipations of the second philosophy, (_Prodromi sive
+anticipationes philosophiæ secundæ_.) "These will consist of such things
+as we have invented, experienced, or added by the same common use of the
+understanding that others employ"--a sort of scaffolding, only of use till
+the rest are finished--a set of suggestive helps to the attainment of this
+second philosophy, which is the goal and completion of his system.
+
+VI. Second Philosophy, or Active Science, (_Philosophia Secunda_.) "To
+this all the rest are subservient--_to lay down that philosophy_ which
+shall flow from the just, pure, and strict inquiry hitherto proposed." "To
+perfect this is beyond both our abilities and our hopes; yet we shall lay
+the foundations of it, and recommend the superstructure to posterity."
+
+An examination of this scheme will show a logical procession from the
+existing knowledge, and from existing defects, by right rules of reason,
+and the avoidance of deceptions, with a just scale of perfected models, to
+the _second philosophy_, or science in useful practical action, diffusing
+light and comfort throughout the world.
+
+In a philosophic instead of a literary work, these heads would require
+great expansion in order adequately to illustrate the scheme in its six
+parts. This, however, would be entirely out of our province, which is to
+present a brief outline of the works of a man who occupies a prominent
+place in the intellectual realm of England, as a profound philosopher, and
+as a writer of English prose; only as one might introduce a great man in a
+crowd: those who wish to know the extent and character of his greatness
+must study his works.
+
+They were most of them written in Latin, but they have been ably
+translated and annotated, and are within the ready reach and comprehension
+of students. The best edition in English, is that by Spedding, Ellis, and
+Heath, which has been republished in America.
+
+
+BACON'S DEFECTS.--Further than this tabular outline, neither our space nor
+the scope of our work will warrant us in going; but it is important to
+consider briefly the elements of Bacon's remarkable fame. His system and
+his knowledge are superseded entirely. Those who have studied physics and
+chemistry at the present day, know a thousand-fold more than Bacon could;
+for such knowledge did not exist in his day. But he was one of those--and
+the chief one--who, in that age of what is called the childhood of
+experimental philosophy, helped to clear away the mists of error, and
+prepare for the present sunshine of truth. "I have been laboring," says
+some writer, (quoted by Bishop Whately, Pref. to Essay XIV.,) "to render
+myself useless." Such was Bacon's task, and such the task of the greatest
+inventors, discoverers, and benefactors of the human race.
+
+Nor did Bacon rank high even as a natural philosopher or physicist in his
+own age: he seems to have refused credence to the discoveries of
+Copernicus and Galileo, which had stirred the scientific world into great
+activity before his day; and his investigations in botany and vegetable
+physiology are crude and full of errors.
+
+His mind, eminently philosophic, searched for facts only to establish
+principles and discover laws; and he was often impatient or obstinate in
+this search, feeling that it trammelled him in his haste to reach
+conclusions.
+
+In the consideration of the reason, he unduly despised the _Organon_ of
+Aristotle, which, after much indignity and misapprehension, still remains
+to elucidate the universal principle of reasoning, and published his new
+organon--_Novum Organum_--as a sort of substitute for it: Induction
+unjustly opposed to the Syllogism. In what, then, consists that wonderful
+excellence, that master-power which has made his name illustrious?
+
+
+HIS FAME.--I. He labored earnestly to introduce, in the place of fanciful
+and conjectural systems--careful, patient investigation: the principle of
+the procurement of well-known facts, in order that, by severe induction,
+philosophy might attain to general laws, and to a classification of the
+sciences. The fault of the ages before him had been hasty, careless, often
+neglected observation, inaccurate analysis, the want of patient successive
+experiment. His great motto was experiment, and again and again
+experiment; and the excellent maxims which he laid down for the proper
+conduct of experimental philosophy have outlived his own facts and system
+and peculiar beliefs. Thus he has fitly been compared to Moses. He led
+men, marshalled in strong array, to the vantage ground from which he
+showed them the land of promise, and the way to enter it; while he
+himself, after all his labors, was not permitted to enjoy it. Such men
+deserve the highest fame; and thus the most practical philosophers of
+to-day revere the memory of him who showed them from the mountain-top,
+albeit in dim vision, the land which they now occupy.
+
+II. Again, Bacon is the most notable example among natural philosophers of
+a man who worked for science and truth alone, with a singleness of purpose
+and entire unconcern as to immediate and selfish rewards. Bacon the
+philosopher was in the strongest contrast to Bacon the politician. He
+left, he said, his labors to posterity; his name and memory to foreign
+nations, and "to (his) own country, after some time is past over." His own
+time could neither appreciate nor reward them. Here is an element of
+greatness worthy of all imitation: he who works for popular applause, may
+have his reward, but it is fleeting and unsatisfying; he who works for
+truth alone, has a grand inner consequence while he works, and his name
+will be honored, if for nothing else, for this loyalty to truth. After
+what has been said of his servility and dishonesty, it is pleasing to
+contemplate this unsullied side of his escutcheon, and to give a better
+significance to the motto on his monument--_Sic sedebat_.
+
+
+HIS ESSAYS.--Bacon's _Essays_, or _Counsels Civil and Moral_, are as
+intelligible to the common mind as his philosophy is dry and difficult.
+They are short, pithy, sententious, telling us plain truths in simple
+language: he had been writing them through several years. He dedicated
+them, under the title of _Essays_, to Henry, Prince of Wales, the eldest
+son of King James I., a prince of rare gifts, and worthy such a
+dedication, who unfortunately died in 1612. They show him to be the
+greatest master of English prose in his day, and to have had a deep
+insight into human nature.
+
+Bacon is said to have been the first person who applied the word _essay_
+in English to such writings: it meant, as the French word shows, a little
+trial-sketch, a suggestion, a few loose thoughts--a brief of something to
+be filled in by the reader. Now it means something far more--a long
+composition, dissertation, disquisition. The subjects of the essays, which
+number sixty-eight, are such as are of universal interest--fame, studies,
+atheism, beauty, ambition, death, empire, sedition, honor, adversity, and
+suchlike.
+
+The Essays have been ably edited and annotated by Archbishop Whately, and
+his work has been republished in America.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE ENGLISH BIBLE.
+
+
+   Early Versions. The Septuagint. The Vulgate. Wiclif; Tyndale.
+   Coverdale; Cranmer. Geneva; Bishop's Bible. King James's Bible.
+   Language of the Bible. Revision.
+
+
+
+EARLY VERSIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES.
+
+
+When we consider the very extended circulation of the English Bible in the
+version made by direction of James I., we are warranted in saying that no
+work in the language, viewed simply as a literary production, has had a
+more powerful historic influence over the world of English-speaking
+people.
+
+Properly to understand its value as a version of the inspired writings, it
+is necessary to go back to the original history, and discover through what
+precedent forms they have come into English.
+
+All the canonical books of the Old Testament were written in Hebrew. The
+apocryphal books were produced either in a corrupted dialect, or in Greek.
+
+
+THE SEPTUAGINT.--Limiting our inquiry to the canonical books, and
+rejecting all fanciful traditions, it is known that about 286 or 285 B.C.,
+Ptolemy Philadelphus, King of Egypt, probably at the instance of his
+librarian, Demetrius Phalereus, caused seventy-two Jews, equally learned
+in Hebrew and in Greek, to be brought to Alexandria, to prepare a Greek
+version of the Hebrew Scriptures. This was for the use of the Alexandrian
+Jews. The version was called the Septuagint, or translation of the
+seventy. The various portions of the translation are of unequal merit,
+the rendering of the Pentateuch being the best; but the completed work was
+of great value, not only to the Jews dispersed in the countries where
+Greek had been adopted as the national language, but it opened the way for
+the coming of Christianity: the study of its prophecies prepared the minds
+of men for the great Advent, and the version was used by the earlier
+Christians as the historic ground of their faith.
+
+The books of the New Testament were written in Greek, with the probable
+exception of St. Matthew's Gospel, which, if written in Hebrew, or
+Aramæan, was immediately translated into Greek.
+
+Contemporary with the origin of Christianity, and the vast extension of
+the Roman Empire, the Latin had become the all-absorbing tongue; and, as
+might be expected, numerous versions of the whole and of parts of the
+Scriptures were made in that language, and one of these complete versions,
+which grew in favor, almost superseding all others, was called the _Vetus
+Itala_.
+
+
+THE VULGATE.--St. Jerome, a doctor of the Latin Church in the latter part
+of the fourth century, undertook, with the sanction of Damasus, the Bishop
+of Rome, a new Latin version upon the basis of the _Vetus Itala_, bringing
+it nearer to the Septuagint in the Old Testament, and to the original
+Greek of the New.
+
+This version of Jerome, corrected from time to time, was approved by
+Gregory I., (the Great,) and, since the seventh century, has been used by
+the Western Church, under the name of the _Vulgate_, (from _vulgatus_--for
+general or common use.) The Council of Trent, in the sixteenth century,
+declared it alone to be authentic.
+
+Throughout Western Europe this was used, and made the basis of further
+translations into the national languages. It was from the Vulgate that
+Aldhelm made his Anglo-Saxon version of the Psalter in 706; Bede, his
+entire Saxon Bible in the same period; Alfred, his portion of the Psalms;
+and other writers, fragmentary translations.
+
+As soon as the newly formed English language was strong enough, partial
+versions were attempted in it: one by an unknown hand, as early as 1290;
+and one by John de Trevisa, about one hundred years later.
+
+
+WICLIF: TYNDALE.--Wiclif's Bible was translated from the Latin Vulgate,
+and issued about 1378. If it be asked why he did not go to the original
+sources, and thus avoid the errors of successive renderings, the answer is
+plain: he was not sufficiently acquainted with Hebrew and Greek to
+translate from them. Wiclif's translation was eagerly sought, and was
+multiplied by the hands of skilful scribes. Its popularity was very great,
+as is attested by the fact that when, in the House of Lords, in the year
+1390, a bill was offered to suppress it, the measure signally failed. The
+first copy of Wiclif's Bible was not printed until the year 1731.
+
+About a century after Wiclif, the Greek language and the study of Greek
+literature came into England, and were of great effect in making the
+forthcoming translations more accurate.
+
+First among these new translators was William Tyndale, who was born about
+the year 1477. He was educated at Oxford and Cambridge, and left England
+for fear of persecution. He translated the Scriptures from the Greek, and
+printed the volume at Antwerp--the first printed translation of the
+Scriptures in English--in the year 1526. This work was largely circulated
+in England. It was very good for a first translation, and the language is
+very nearly that of King James's Bible. It met the fury of the Church, all
+the copies which could be found being burned by Tonstall, Bishop of
+London, at St. Paul's Cross. When Sir Thomas More asked how Tyndale
+subsisted abroad, he was pithily answered that Tyndale was supported by
+the Bishop of London, who sent over money to buy up his books. To the
+fame of being a translator of the Scriptures, Tyndale adds that of
+martyrdom. He was seized, at the instance of Henry VIII., in Antwerp, and
+condemned to death by the Emperor of Germany. He was strangled in the year
+1536, at Villefort, near Brussels, praying, just before his death, that
+the Lord would open the King of England's eyes.
+
+The Old Testament portion of Tyndale's Bible is principally from the
+Septuagint, and has many corruptions and errors, which have been corrected
+by more modern translators.
+
+
+MILES COVERDALE: CRANMER'S BIBLE.--In 1535, Miles Coverdale, a co-laborer
+of Tyndale, published "Biblia; The Bible, that is, the Holy Scriptures of
+the Olde and New Testament, faithfully and truly translated out of the
+Douche and Latyn into Englishe: Zurich." In the next year, 1536, Coverdale
+issued another edition, which was dedicated to Henry VIII., who ordered a
+copy to be placed in every parish church in England. This translation is
+in part that of Tyndale, and is based upon it. Another edition of this
+appeared in 1537, and was called Matthew's Bible, probably a pseudonym of
+Coverdale. Of this, from the beginning to the end of Chronicles is
+Tyndale's version. The rest of the Old Testament is Coverdale's
+translation. The entire New Testament is Tyndale's. This was published by
+royal license. Strange mutation! The same king who had caused Tyndale to
+be strangled for publishing the English Scriptures at Antwerp, was now
+spreading Tyndale's work throughout the parishes of England. Coverdale
+published many editions, among which the most noted was Cranmer's Bible,
+issued in 1539, so called because Cranmer wrote a preface to it. Coverdale
+led an eventful life, being sometimes in exile and prisoner, and at others
+in high favor. He was Bishop of Exeter, from which see he was ejected by
+Mary, in 1553. He died in 1568, at the age of eighty-one.
+
+
+THE GENEVAN: BISHOPS' BIBLE.--In the year 1557 he had aided those who were
+driven away by Mary, in publishing a version of the Bible at Geneva. It
+was much read in England, and is known as the Genevan Bible. The Great
+Bible was an edition of Coverdale issued in 1562. The Bishops' Bible was
+so called because, at the instance of Archbishop Parker, it was translated
+by a royal commission, of whom eight were bishops. And in 1571, a canon
+was passed at Canterbury, requiring a large copy of this work to be in
+every parish church, and in the possession of every bishop and dignitary
+among the clergy. Thus far every new edition and issue had been an
+improvement on what had gone before, and all tended to the production of a
+still more perfect and permanent translation. It should be mentioned that
+Luther, in Germany, after ten years of labor, from 1522 to 1532, had
+produced, unaided, his wonderful German version. This had helped the cause
+of translations everywhere.
+
+
+KING JAMES'S BIBLE.--At length, in 1603, just after the accession of James
+I., a conference was held at Hampton Court, which, among other tasks,
+undertook to consider what objections could be made to the Bishops' Bible.
+The result was that the king ordered a new version which should supersede
+all others. The number of eminent and learned divines appointed to make
+the translation was fifty-four; seven of these were prevented by
+disability of one kind or another. The remaining forty-seven were divided
+into six classes, and the labor was thus apportioned: ten, who sat at
+Westminster, translated from Genesis through Kings; eight, at Cambridge,
+undertook the other historical books and the Hagiographa, including the
+Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Ruth, Esther, and a few
+other books; seven at Oxford, the four greater Prophets, the Lamentations
+of Jeremiah, and the twelve minor Prophets; eight, also at Oxford, the
+four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Revelation of St. John;
+seven more at Westminster, the Epistles of St. Paul, and the remaining
+canonical books; and five more at Cambridge, the Apocryphal books. The
+following was the mode of translation: Each individual in one of the
+classes translated himself every book confided to that class; each class
+then met and compared these translations, and thus completed their task.
+The work thus done was sent by each class to all the other classes; after
+this, all the classes met together, and while one read the others
+criticized. The translation was commenced in the year 1607, and was
+finished in three years. The first public issue was in 1611, when the book
+was dedicated to King James, and has since been known as King James's
+Bible. It was adopted not only in the English Church, but by all the
+English people, so that the other versions have fallen into entire disuse,
+with the exception of the Psalms, which, according to the translation of
+Cranmer's Bible, were placed in the Book of Common Prayer, where they have
+since remained, constituting the Psalter. It should be observed that the
+Psalter, which is taken principally from the Vulgate, is not so near the
+original as the Psalms in King James's version: the language is, however,
+more musical and better suited to chanting in the church service.
+
+
+THE LANGUAGE OF THE BIBLE.--There have been numerous criticisms, favorable
+and adverse, to the language of King James's Bible. It is said to have
+been written in older English than that of its day, and Selden remarks
+that "it is rather translated into English words than into English
+phrase." The Hebraisms are kept, and the phraseology of that language is
+retained. This leads to the opinion of Bishop Horsley, that the adherence
+to the Hebrew idiom is supposed to have at once enriched and adorned our
+language. Bishop Middleton says "the style is simple, it is harmonious, it
+is energetic, and, which is of no small importance, use has made it
+familiar, and time has rendered it sacred." That it has lasted two
+hundred and fifty years without a rival, is the strongest testimony in
+favor of its accuracy and the beauty of its diction. Philologically
+considered, it has been of inestimable value as a strong rallying-point
+for the language, keeping it from wild progress in any and every
+direction. Many of our best words, which would otherwise have been lost,
+have been kept in current use because they are in the Bible. The peculiar
+language of the Bible expresses our most serious sentiments and our
+deepest emotions. It is associated with our holiest thoughts, and gives
+phraseology to our prayers. It is the language of heavenly things, but not
+only so: it is interwreathed in our daily discourse, kept fresh by our
+constant Christian services, and thus we are bound by ties of the same
+speech to the devout men of King James's day.
+
+
+REVISION.--There are some inaccuracies and flaws in the translation which
+have been discerned by the superior excellence of modern learning. In the
+question now mooted of a revision of the English Bible, the correction of
+these should be the chief object. A version in the language of the present
+day, in the course of time would be as archaic as the existing version is
+now; and the private attempts which have been made, have shown us the
+great danger of conflicting sectarian views.
+
+In any event, it is to be hoped that those who authorize a new translation
+will emulate the good sense and judgment of King James, by placing it in
+the hands of the highest learning, most liberal scholarship, and most
+devoted piety.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+JOHN MILTON, AND THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH.
+
+
+   Historical Facts. Charles I. Religious Extremes. Cromwell. Birth and
+   Early Works. Views of Marriage. Other Prose Works. Effects of the
+   Restoration. Estimate of his Prose.
+
+
+
+HISTORICAL FACTS.
+
+
+It is Charles Lamb who says "Milton almost requires a solemn service to be
+played before you enter upon him." Of Milton, the poet of _Paradise Lost_,
+this is true; but for Milton the statesman the politician, and polemic,
+this is neither necessary nor appropriate. John Milton and the
+Commonwealth! Until the present age, Milton has been regarded almost
+solely as a poet, and as the greatest imaginative poet England has
+produced; but the translation and publication of his prose works have
+identified him with the political history of England, and the discovery in
+1823, of his _Treatise on Christian Doctrine_, has established him as one
+of the greatest religious polemics in an age when every theological sect
+was closely allied to a political party, and thus rendered the strife of
+contending factions more bitter and relentless. Thus it is that the name
+of John Milton, as an author, is fitly coupled with the commonwealth, as a
+political condition.
+
+It remains for us to show that in all his works he was the strongest
+literary type of history in the age in which he lived. Great as he would
+have been in any age, his greatness is mainly English and historical. In
+his literary works may be traced every cardinal event in the history of
+that period: he aided in the establishment of the Commonwealth, and of
+that Commonwealth he was one of the principal characters. His pen was as
+sharp and effective as the sabres of Cromwell's Ironsides.
+
+A few words of preliminary history must introduce him to our reader. Upon
+the death of Queen Elizabeth, in 1603, James I. ascended the throne with
+the highest notions of kingly prerogative and of a church establishment;
+but the progress of the English people in education and intelligence, the
+advance in arts and letters which had been made, were vastly injurious to
+the autocratic and aristocratic system which James had received from his
+predecessor. His foolish arrogance and contempt for popular rights
+incensed the people thus enlightened as to their own position and
+importance. They soon began to feel that he was not only unjust, but
+ungrateful: he had come from a rustic throne in Scotland, where he had
+received £5,000 per annum, with occasional presents of fruits, grain, and
+poultry, to the greatest throne in Europe; and, besides, the Stuart
+family, according to Thackeray, "as regards mere lineage, were no better
+than a dozen English and Scottish houses that could be named."
+
+They resisted his illegal taxes and forced loans; they clamored against
+the unconstitutional Court of High Commission; they despised his arrogant
+favorites; and what they might have patiently borne from a gallant,
+energetic, and handsome monarch, they found it hard to bear from a
+pedantic, timid, uncouth, and rickety man, who gave them neither glory nor
+comfort. His eldest son, Prince Henry, the universal favorite of the
+nation, had died in 1612, before he was eighteen.
+
+
+CHARLES I.--When, after a series of struggles with the parliament, which
+he had reluctantly convened, James died in 1625, Charles I. came to an
+inheritance of error and misfortune. Imbued with the principles of his
+father, he, too, insisted upon "governing the people of England in the
+seventeenth century as they had been governed in the sixteenth," while in
+reality they had made a century of progress. The cloud increased in
+blackness and portent; he dissolved the parliament, and ruled without one;
+he imposed and collected illegal and doubtful taxes; he made forced loans,
+as his father had done; he was artful, capricious, winding and doubling in
+his policy; he made promises without intending to perform them; and found
+himself, finally, at direct issue with his parliament and his people.
+First at war with the political principles of the court, the nation soon
+found itself in antagonism with the religion and morals of the court.
+Before the final rupture, the two parties were well defined, as Cavaliers
+and Roundheads: each party went to extremes, through the spite and fury of
+mutual opposition. The Cavaliers affected a recklessness and dissoluteness
+greater than they really felt to be right, in order to differ most widely
+from those purists who, urged by analogous motives, decried all amusements
+as evil. Each party repelled the other to the extreme of opposition.
+
+
+RELIGIOUS EXTREMES.--Loyalty was opposed by radicalism, and the invectives
+of both were bitter in the extreme. The system and ceremonial of a
+gorgeous worship restored by Laud, and accused by its opposers of
+formalism and idolatry, were attacked by a spirit of excess, which, to
+religionize daily life, took the words of Scripture, and especially those
+of the Old Testament, as the language of common intercourse, which issued
+them from a gloomy countenance, with a nasal twang, and often with a false
+interpretation.
+
+As opposed to the genuflections of Laud and the pomp of his ritual, the
+land swarmed with unauthorized preachers; then came out from among the
+Presbyterians the Independents; the fifth-monarchy men, shouting for King
+Jesus; the Seekers, the Antinomians, who, like Trusty Tomkins, were elect
+by the fore-knowledge of God, who were not under the law but under grace,
+and who might therefore gratify every lust, and give the rein to every
+passion, because they were sealed to a certain salvation. Even in the army
+sprang up the Levellers, who wished to abolish monarchy and aristocracy,
+and to level all ranks to one. To each religious party, there was a
+political character, ranging from High Church and the divine right of
+kings, to absolute levellers in Church and State. This disintegrating
+process threatened not only civil war, with well-defined parties, but
+entire anarchy in the realm of England. It was long resisted by the
+conservative men of all opinions. At length the issue came: the king was a
+prisoner, without a shadow of power.
+
+The parliament was still firm, and would have treated with the king by a
+considerable majority; but Colonel Pride surrounded it with two regiments,
+excluded more than two hundred of the Presbyterians and moderate men; and
+the parliament, thus _purged_, appointed the High Court of Justice to try
+the king for treason.
+
+Charles I. fell before the storm. His was a losing cause from the day he
+erected his standard at Nottingham, in 1642, to that on which, after his
+noble bearing on the scaffold, the masked executioner held up his head and
+cried out, "This is the head of a traitor."
+
+With a fearful consistency the Commons voted soon after to abolish
+monarchy and the upper house, and on their new seal inscribed, "On the
+first year of freedom by God's blessing restored, 1648." The dispassionate
+historian of the present day must condemn both parties; and yet, out of
+this fierce travail of the nation, English constitutional liberty was
+born.
+
+
+CROMWELL.--The power which the parliament, under the dictation of the
+army, had so furiously wielded, passed into the hands of Cromwell, a
+mighty man, warrior, statesman, and fanatic, who mastered the crew, seized
+the helm, and guided the ship of State as she drove furiously before the
+wind. He became lord protector, a king in everything but the name. We
+need not enter into an analysis of these parties: the history is better
+known than any other part of the English annals, and almost every reader
+becomes a partisan. Cromwell, the greatest man of his age, was still a
+creature of the age, and was led by the violence of circumstances to do
+many things questionable and even wicked, but with little premeditation:
+like Rienzi and Napoleon, his sudden elevation fostered an ambition which
+robbed him of the stern purpose and pure motives of his earlier career.
+
+The establishment of the commonwealth seemed at first to assure the
+people's liberty; but it was only in seeming, and as the sequel shows,
+they liked the rule of the lord protector less than that of the
+unfortunate king; for, ten years after the beheading of Charles I., they
+restored the monarchy in the person of his son, Charles.
+
+Such, very briefly and in mere outline, was the political situation. And
+now to return to Milton: It is claimed that of all the elements of these
+troublous times, he was the literary type, and this may be demonstrated--
+
+   I. By observing his personal characteristics and political
+   appointments;
+
+   II. By the study of his prose works; and
+
+   III. By analyzing his poems.
+
+
+BIRTH AND EARLY WORKS.--John Milton was born on the 9th of December, 1608,
+in London. His grandfather, John Mylton, was a Papist, who disinherited
+his son, the poet's father, for becoming a Church-of-England man. His
+mother was a gentlewoman. Milton was born just in time to grow up with the
+civil troubles. When the outburst came in 1642, he was thirty-four years
+old, a solemn, cold, studious, thoughtful, and dogmatic Puritan. In 1624
+he entered Christ College, Cambridge, where, from his delicate and
+beautiful face and shy airs, he was called the "Lady of the College." It
+is said that he left the university on account of peculiar views in
+theology and politics; but eight years after, in 1632, he took his degree
+as master of arts. Meanwhile, in December, 1629, he had celebrated his
+twenty-first birthday, when the Star of Bethlehem was coming into the
+ascendant, with that pealing, organ-like hymn, "On the Eve of Christ's
+Nativity"--the worthiest poetic tribute ever laid by man, along with the
+gold, frankincense, and myrrh of the Eastern sages, at the feet of the
+Infant God:
+
+    See how from far upon the Eastern road,
+      The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet;
+    O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
+      And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;
+      Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,
+    And join thy voice unto the angel choir,
+    From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.
+
+Some years of travel on the Continent matured his mind, and gave full
+scope to his poetic genius. At Paris he became acquainted with Grotius,
+the illustrious writer upon public law; and in Rome, Genoa, Florence, and
+other Italian cities, he became intimate with the leading minds of the
+age. He returned to England on account of the political troubles.
+
+
+MILTON'S VIEWS OF MARRIAGE.--In the consideration of Milton's personality,
+we do not find in him much to arouse our heart-sympathy. His opinions
+concerning marriage and divorce, as set forth in several of his prose
+writings, would, if generally adopted, destroy the sacred character of
+divinely appointed wedlock. His views may be found in his essay on _The
+Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce;_ in his _Tetrachordon, or the four
+chief places in Scripture, which treat of Marriage, or Nullities in
+Marriage_; in his _Colasterion_, and in his translation of Martin Bucer's
+_Judgment Concerning Divorce_, addressed to the Parliament of England.
+Where women were concerned he was a hard man and a stern master.
+
+In 1643 he married Mary Powell, the daughter of a Cavalier; and, taking
+her from the gay life of her father's house, he brought her into a gloom
+and seclusion almost insupportable. He loved his books better than he did
+his wife. He fed and sheltered her, indeed, but he gave her no tender
+sympathy. Then was enacted in his household the drama of the rebellion in
+miniature; and no doubt his domestic troubles had led to his extended
+discussion of the question of divorce. He speaks, too, almost entirely in
+the interest of husbands. With him woman is not complementary to man, but
+his inferior, to be cherished if obedient, to minister to her husband's
+welfare, but to have her resolute spirit broken after the manner of
+Petruchio, the shrew-tamer. In all this, however, Milton was eminently a
+type of the times. It was the canon law of the established Church of
+England at which he aimed, and he endeavored to lead the parliament to
+legislation upon the most sacred ties and relations of human life.
+Happily, English morals were too strong, even in that turbulent period, to
+yield to this unholy attempt. It was a day when authority was questioned,
+a day for "extending the area of freedom," but he went too far even for
+emancipated England; and the mysterious power of the marriage tie has
+always been reverenced as one of the main bulwarks of that righteousness
+which exalteth a nation.
+
+His apology for Smectymnuus is one of his pamphlets against Episcopacy,
+and receives its title from the initial letters of the names of five
+Puritan ministers, who also engaged in controversy: they were Stephen
+Marshall, Edward Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcome, William Spenston.
+The Church of England never had a more intelligent and relentless enemy
+than John Milton.
+
+
+OTHER PROSE WORKS.--Milton's prose works are almost all of them of an
+historical character. Appointed Latin Secretary to the Council, he wrote
+foreign dispatches and treatises upon the persons and events of the day.
+In 1644 he published his _Areopagitica_, a noble paper in favor of
+_Unlicensed Printing_, and boldly directed against the Presbyterian party,
+then in power, which had continued and even increased the restraints upon
+the press. No stouter appeal for the freedom of the press was ever heard,
+even in America. But in the main, his prose pen was employed against the
+crown and the Church, while they still existed; against the king's memory,
+after the unfortunate monarch had fallen, and in favor of the parliament
+and all its acts. Milton was no trimmer; he gave forth no uncertain sound;
+he was partisan to the extreme, and left himself no loop-hole of retreat
+in the change that was to come.
+
+A famous book appeared in 1649, not long after Charles's execution,
+proclaimed to have been written by King Charles while in prison, and
+entitled _Eikon Basilike_, or _The Kingly Image_, being the portraiture of
+his majesty in his solitude and suffering. It was supposed that it might
+influence the people in favor of royalty, and so Milton was employed to
+answer it in a bitter invective, an unnecessary and heartless attack upon
+the dead king, entitled _Eikonoklastes_, or _The Image-breaker_. The Eikon
+was probably in part written by the king, and in part by Bishop Gauden,
+who indeed claimed its authorship after the Restoration.
+
+Salmasius having defended Charles in a work of dignified and moderate
+tone, Milton answered in his first _Defensio pro Populo Anglicano_; in
+which he traverses the whole ground of popular rights and kingly
+prerogative, in a masterly and eloquent manner. This was followed by a
+second _Defensio_. For the two he received £1,000, and by his own account
+accelerated the disease of the eyes which ended in complete blindness.
+
+No pen in England worked more powerfully than his in behalf of the
+parliament and the protectorate, or to stay the flood tide of loyalty,
+which bore upon its sweeping heart the restoration of the second Charles.
+He wrote the last foreign despatches of Richard Cromwell, the weak
+successor of the powerful Oliver; but nothing could now avail to check the
+return of monarchy. The people were tired of turmoil and sick of blood;
+they wanted rest, at any cost. The powerful hand of Cromwell was removed,
+and astute Monk used his army to secure his reward. The army, concurring
+with the popular sentiment, restored the Stuarts. The conduct of the
+English people in bringing Charles back stamped Cromwell as a usurper, and
+they have steadily ignored in their list of governors--called
+monarchs--the man through whose efforts much of their liberty had been
+achieved; but history asserts itself, and the benefits of the "Great
+Rebellion" are gratefully acknowledged by the people, whether the
+protectorate appears in the court list or not.
+
+
+THE EFFECT OF THE RESTORATION.--Charles II. came back to such an
+overwhelming reception, that he said, in his witty way, it must have been
+his own fault to stay away so long from a people who were so glad to see
+him when he did come. This restoration forced Milton into concealment: his
+public day was over, and yet his remaining history is particularly
+interesting. Inheriting weak eyes from his mother, he had overtasked their
+powers, especially in writing the _Defensiones_, and had become entirely
+blind. Although his person was included in the general amnesty, his
+polemical works were burned by the hangman; and the pen that had so
+powerfully battled for a party, now returned to the service of its first
+love, poetry. His loss of power and place was the world's gain. In his
+forced seclusion, he produced the greatest of English poems--religious,
+romantic, and heroic.
+
+
+ESTIMATE OF HIS PROSE.--Before considering his poems, we may briefly state
+some estimate of his prose works. They comprise much that is excellent,
+are full of learning, and contain passages of rarest rhetoric. He said
+himself, that in prose he had only "the use of his left hand;" but it was
+the left hand of a Milton. To the English scholar they are chiefly of
+historical value: many of them are written in Latin, and lose much of
+their terseness in a translation which retains classical peculiarities of
+form and phrase.
+
+His _History of England from the Earliest Times_ is not profound, nor
+philosophical; he followed standard chronicle authorities, but made few,
+if any, original investigations, and gives us little philosophy. His
+tractate on _Education_ contains peculiar views of a curriculum of study,
+but is charmingly written. He also wrote a treatise on _Logic_. Little
+known to the great world outside of his poems, there is one prose work,
+discovered only in 1823, which has been less read, but which contains the
+articles of his Christian belief. It is a tractate on Christian doctrine:
+no one now doubts its genuineness; and it proves him to have been a
+Unitarian, or High Arian, by his own confession. This was somewhat
+startling to the great orthodox world, who had taken many of their
+conceptions of supernatural things from Milton's _Paradise Lost_; and yet
+a careful study of that poem will disclose similar tendencies in the
+poet's mind. He was a Puritan whose theology was progressive until it
+issued in complete isolation: he left the Presbyterian ranks for the
+Independents, and then, startled by the rise and number of sects, he
+retired within himself and stood almost alone, too proud to be instructed,
+and dissatisfied with the doctrines and excesses of his earlier
+colleagues.
+
+In 1653 he lost his wife, Mary Powell, who left him three daughters. He
+supplied her place in 1656, by marrying Catherine Woodstock, to whom he
+was greatly attached, and who also died fifteen months after. Eight years
+afterward he married his third wife, Elizabeth Minshull, who survived him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE POETRY OF MILTON.
+
+
+   The Blind Poet. Paradise Lost. Milton and Dante. His Faults.
+   Characteristics of the Age. Paradise Regained. His Scholarship. His
+   Sonnets. His Death and Fame.
+
+
+
+THE BLIND POET.
+
+
+Milton's blindness, his loneliness, and his loss of power, threw him upon
+himself. His imagination, concentrated by these disasters and troubles,
+was to see higher things in a clear, celestial light: there was nothing to
+distract his attention, and he began that achievement which he had long
+before contemplated--a great religious epic, in which the heroes should be
+celestial beings and our sinless first parents, and the scenes Heaven,
+Hell, and the Paradise of a yet untainted Earth. His first idea was to
+write an epic on King Arthur and his knights: it is well for the world
+that he changed his intention, and took as a grander subject the loss of
+Paradise, full as it is of individual interest to mankind.
+
+In a consideration of his poetry, we must now first recur to those pieces
+which he had written at an earlier day. Before settling in London, he had,
+as we have seen, travelled fifteen months on the Continent, and had been
+particularly interested by his residence in Italy, where he visited the
+blind Galileo. The poems which most clearly show the still powerful
+influence of Italy in all European literature, and upon him especially,
+are the _Arcades, Comus, L'Allegro, Il Penseroso_, and _Lycidas_, each
+beautiful and finished, and although Italian in their taste, yet full of
+true philosophy couched in charming verse.
+
+The _Arcades_, (Arcadians,) composed in 1684, is a pastoral masque,
+enacted before the Countess Dowager of Derby at Harefield, by some noble
+persons of her family. The _Allegro_ is the song of Mirth, the nymph who
+brings with her
+
+    Jest and youthful jollity,
+    Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
+    Nods and becks and wreathèd smiles,
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
+    And Laughter holding both his sides.
+
+The poem is like the nymph whom he addresses,
+
+    Buxom, blithe, and debonaire.
+
+The _Penseroso_ is a tribute to tender melancholy, and is designed as a
+pendant to the _Allegro_:
+
+    Pensive nun devout and pure,
+    Sober, steadfast, and demure,
+    All in a robe of darkest grain,
+    Flowing with majestic train.
+
+We fall in love with each goddess in turn, and find comfort for our
+varying moods from "grave to gay."
+
+Burke said he was certain Milton composed the _Penseroso_ in the aisle of
+a cloister, or in an ivy-grown abbey.
+
+_Comus_ is a noble poem, philosophic and tender, but neither pastoral nor
+dramatic, except in form; it presents the power of chastity in disarming
+_Circe, Comus_, and all the libidinous sirens. _L'Allegro_ and _Il
+Penseroso_ were written at Horton, about 1633.
+
+_Lycidas_, written in 1637, is a tender monody on the loss of a friend
+named King, in the Irish Channel, in that year, and is a classical
+pastoral, tricked off in Italian garb. What it loses in adherence to
+classic models and Italian taste, is more than made up by exquisite lines
+and felicitous phrases. In it he calls fame "that last infirmity of noble
+mind." Perhaps he has nowhere written finer lines than these:
+
+    So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed.
+    And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
+    And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
+    _Flames in the forehead of the morning sky_.
+
+Besides these, Milton wrote Latin poems with great vigor, if not with
+remarkable grace; and several Italian sonnets and poems, which have been
+much admired even by Italian critics. The sonnet, if not of Italian
+origin, had been naturalized there when its birth was forgotten; and this
+practice in the Italian gave him that power to produce them in English
+which he afterward used with such effect.
+
+
+PARADISE LOST.--Having thus summarily disposed of his minor poems, each of
+which would have immortalized any other man, we come to that upon which
+his highest fame rests; which is familiarly known by men who have never
+read the others, and who are ignorant of his prose works; which is used as
+a parsing exercise in many schools, and which, as we have before hinted,
+has furnished Protestant pulpits with pictorial theology from that day to
+this. It occupied him several years in the composition; from 1658, when
+Cromwell died, through the years of retirement and obscurity until 1667.
+It came forth in an evil day, for the merry monarch was on the throne, and
+an irreligious court gave tone to public opinion.
+
+The hardiest critic must approach the _Paradise Lost_ with wonder and
+reverence. What an imagination, and what a compass of imagination! Now
+with the lost peers in Hell, his glowing fancy projects an empire almost
+as grand and glorious as that of God himself. Now with undazzled,
+presumptuous gaze he stands face to face with the Almighty, and records
+the words falling from His lips; words which he has dared to place in the
+mouth of the Most High--words at the utterance of which
+
+               ... ambrosial fragrance filled
+    All heaven, and in the blessed spirits elect
+    Sense of new joy ineffable diffused.
+
+Little wonder that in his further flight he does not shrink from colloquy
+with the Eternal Son--in his theology not the equal of His Father--or that
+he does not fear to describe the fearful battle between Christ with his
+angelic hosts against the kingdom of darkness:
+
+              ... At his right hand victory
+    Sat eagle-winged: beside him hung his bow
+    And quiver with three-bolted thunder stored.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+         ... Them unexpected joy surprised,
+    When the great ensign of Messiah blazed,
+    Aloft by angels borne his sign in heaven.
+
+How heart-rending his story of the fall, and of the bitter sorrow of our
+first parents, whose fatal act
+
+    Brought death into the world and all our woe,
+    With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
+    Restore us, and regain the blissful seat.
+
+How marvellous is the combat at Hell-gate, between Satan and Death; how
+terrible the power at which "Hell itself grew darker"! How we strive to
+shade our mind's eye as we enter again with him into the courts of Heaven.
+How refreshingly beautiful the perennial bloom of Eden:
+
+    Picta velut primo Vere coruscat humus.
+
+What a wonderful story of the teeming creation related to our first
+parents by the lips of Raphael:
+
+    When from the Earth appeared
+    The tawny lion, pawing to get free
+    His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds,
+    And rampant shakes his brinded mane.
+
+And withal, how compact the poem, how perfect the drama. It is Paradise,
+perfect in beauty and holiness; attacked with devilish art; in danger;
+betrayed; lost!
+
+    Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked and ate;
+    Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat,
+    Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe
+    That all was lost!
+
+Unit-like, complete, brilliant, sublime, awful, the poem dazzles
+criticism, and belittles the critic. It is the grandest poem ever written.
+It almost sets up a competition with Scripture. Milton's Adam and Eve walk
+before us instead of the Adam and Eve of Genesis. Milton's Satan usurps
+the place of that grotesque, malignant spirit of the Bible, which, instead
+of claiming our admiration, excites only our horror, as he goes about like
+a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He it is who can declare
+
+    The mind is its own place, and in itself
+    Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
+    What matter where, if I be still the same,
+    And what I should be?
+
+
+MILTON AND DANTE.--It has been usual for the literary critic to compare
+Milton and Dante; and it is certain that in the conception, at least, of
+his great themes, Milton took Dante for his guide. Without an odious
+comparison, and conceding the great value, principally historical, of the
+_Divina Commedia_, it must be said that the palm remains with the English
+poet. Take, for a single illustration, the fall of the arch-fiend. Dante's
+Lucifer falls with such force that he makes a conical hole in the earth to
+its centre, and forces out a hill on the other side--a physical
+prediction, as the antipodes had not yet been established. The cavity is
+the seat of Hell; and the mountain, that of Purgatory. So mathematical is
+his fancy, that in vignette illustrations we have right-lined drawings of
+these surfaces and their different circles. Science had indeed progressed
+in Milton's time, but his imagination scorns its aid; everything is with
+him grandly ideal, as well as rhetorically harmonious:
+
+                  ... Him the Almighty power,
+    Hurled headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky,
+    With hideous ruin and combustion down
+    To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
+    In adamantine chains and penal power,
+    Who durst defy th' Omnipotent in arms.
+
+And when a lesser spirit falls, what a sad Æolian melody describes the
+downward flight:
+
+                       ... How he fell
+    From Heaven they fabled thrown by angry Jove,
+    Sheer o'er the crystal battlements: from morn
+    To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve
+    A summer's day; and with the setting sun,
+    Dropt from the zenith like a falling star.
+
+The heavenly colloquies to which we have alluded between the Father and
+the Son, involve questions of theology, and present peculiar views--such
+as the subordination of the Son, and the relative unimportance of the
+third Person of the Blessed Trinity. They establish Milton's Arianism
+almost as completely as his Treatise on Christian Doctrine.
+
+
+HIS FAULTS.--Grand, far above all human efforts, his poems fail in these
+representations. God is a spirit; he is here presented as a body, and that
+by an uninspired pen. The poet has not been able to carry us up to those
+infinite heights, and so his attempt only ends in a humanitarian
+philosophy: he has been obliged to lower the whole heavenly hierarchy to
+bring it within the scope of our objective comprehension. He blinds our
+poor eyes by the dazzling effulgence of that light which is
+
+    ... of the Eternal co-eternal beam.
+
+And it must be asserted that in this attempt Milton has done injury to the
+cause of religion, however much he has vindicated the power of the human
+intellect and the compass of the human imagination. He has made sensuous
+that which was entirely spiritual, and has attempted with finite powers to
+realize the Infinite.
+
+The fault is not so great when he delineates created intelligences,
+ranging from the highest seraph to him who was only "less than archangel
+ruined." We gaze, unreproved by conscience, at the rapid rise of
+Pandemonium; we watch with eager interest the hellish crew as they "open
+into the hill a spacious wound, and dig out ribs of gold." We admire the
+fabric which springs
+
+       ... like an exhalation, with the sound
+    Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet.
+
+Nothing can be grander or more articulately realized than that arched
+roof, from which,
+
+    Pendent by subtle magic, many a row
+    Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed
+    With naphtha and asphaltus, yields the light
+    As from a sky.
+
+It is an illustrative criticism that while the painter's art has seized
+these scenes, not one has dared to attempt his heavenly descriptions with
+the pencil. Art is less bold or more reverent than poetry, and rebukes the
+poet.
+
+
+CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AGE.--And here it is particularly to our purpose to
+observe, that in this very boldness of entrance into the holy of
+holies--in this attempted grasp with finite hands of infinite things,
+Milton was but a sublimated type of his age, and of the Commonwealth, when
+man, struggling for political freedom, went, as in the later age of the
+French Illuminati, too far in the regions of spirit and of faith. As
+Dante, with a powerful satire, filled his poem with the personages of the
+day, assigning his enemies to the _girone_ of the Inferno, so Milton vents
+his gentler spleen by placing cowls and hood and habits in the limbo of
+vanity and paradise of fools:
+
+             ... all these upwhirled aloft
+    Fly o'er the backside of the world far off,
+    Into a limbo large and broad, since called
+    The paradise of fools.
+
+It was a setting forth of that spirit which, when the Cavaliers were many
+of them formalists, and the Puritans many of them fanatics, led to the
+rise of many sects, and caused rude soldiers to bellow their own riotous
+fancies from the pulpit. In the suddenness of change, when the earthly
+throne had been destroyed, men misconceived what was due to the heavenly;
+the fancy which had been before curbed by an awe for authority, and was
+too ignorant to move without it, now revelled unrebuked among the
+mysteries which are not revealed to angelic vision, and thus "fools rushed
+in where angels fear to tread."
+
+The book could not fail to bring him immense fame, but personally he
+received very little for it in money--less than £20.
+
+
+PARADISE REGAINED.--It was Thomas Ellwood, Milton's Quaker friend, who,
+after reading the _Paradise Lost_, suggested the _Paradise Regained_. This
+poem will bear no comparison with its great companion. It may, without
+irreverence, be called "The gospel according to John Milton." Beauties it
+does contain; but the very foundation of it is false. Milton makes man
+regain Paradise by the success of Christ in withstanding the Devil's
+temptations in the wilderness; a new presentation of his Arian theology,
+which is quite transcendental; whereas, in our opinion, the gate of
+Paradise was opened only "by His precious death and burial; His glorious
+resurrection and ascension; and by the coming of the Holy Ghost." But if
+it is immeasurably inferior in its conception and treatment, it is quite
+equal to the _Paradise Lost_ in its execution.
+
+A few words as to Milton's vocabulary and style must close our notice of
+this greatest of English poets. With regard to the first, the Latin
+element, which is so manifest in his prose works, largely predominates in
+his poems, but accords better with the poetic license. In a list of
+authors which Mr. Marsh has prepared, down to Milton's time, which
+includes an analysis of the sixth book of the _Paradise Lost_, he is found
+to employ only eighty per cent. of Anglo-Saxon words--less than any up to
+that day. But his words are chosen with a delicacy of taste and ear which
+astonishes and delights; his works are full of an adaptive harmony, the
+suiting of sound to sense. His rhythm is perfect. We have not space for
+extended illustrations, but the reader will notice this in the lady's song
+in Comus--the address to
+
+    Sweet Echo, sweeter nymph that liv'st unseen
+          Within thy airy shell,
+    By slow Meander's margent green!
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Sweet queen of parley, daughter of the sphere,
+    So may'st thou be translated to the skies,
+    And give resounding grace to all heaven's harmonies.
+
+And again, the description of Chastity, in the same poem, is inimitable in
+the language:
+
+    So dear to Heaven is saintly Chastity,
+    That when a soul is found sincerely so,
+    A thousand liveried angels lackey her.
+
+
+HIS SCHOLARSHIP.--It is unnecessary to state the well-known fact, attested
+by all his works, of his elegant and versatile scholarship. He was the
+most learned man in England in his day. If, like J. C. Scaliger, he did
+not commit Homer to memory in twenty-one days, and the whole of the Greek
+poets in three months, he had all classical learning literally at his
+fingers' ends, and his works are absolutely glistening with drops which
+show that every one has been dipped in that Castalian fountain which, it
+was fabled, changed the earthly flowers of the mind into immortal jewels.
+
+Nor need we refer to what every one concedes, that a vein of pure but
+austere morals runs through all his works; but Puritan as he was, his
+myriad fancy led him into places which Puritanism abjured: the cloisters,
+with their dim religious light, in _Il Penseroso_--and anon with mirth he
+cries:
+
+    Come and trip it as you go,
+    On the light fantastic toe.
+
+
+SONNETS.--His sonnets have been variously estimated: they are not as
+polished as his other poems, but are crystal-like and sententious, abrupt
+bursts of opinion and feeling in fourteen lines. Their masculine power it
+was which caused Wordsworth, himself a prince of sonneteers, to say:
+
+                        In his hand,
+    The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew
+    Soul-animating strains....
+
+That to his dead wife, whom he saw in a vision; that to Cyriac Skinner on
+his blindness, and that to the persecuted Waldenses, are the most known
+and appreciated. That to Skinner is a noble assertion of heart and hope:
+
+    Cyriac, this three-years-day these eyes, though clear
+      To outward view, of blemish and of spot,
+      Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot:
+    Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
+    Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,
+      Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not
+      Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot
+    Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
+      Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?
+    The conscience friend to have lost them over-plied
+      In liberty's defence, my noble task,
+    Of which all Europe talks from side to side,
+      This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask
+    Content, though blind, had I no better guide.
+
+Milton died in 1674, of gout, which had long afflicted him; and he left
+his name and works to posterity. Posterity has done large but mistaken
+justice to his fame. Men have not discriminated between his real merits
+and his faults: all parties have conceded the former, and conspired to
+conceal the latter. A just statement of both will still establish his
+great fame on the immutable foundations of truth--a fame, the honest
+pursuit of which caused him, throughout his long life,
+
+    To scorn delights, and live laborious days.
+
+No writer has ever been the subject of more uncritical, ignorant, and
+senseless panegyric: like Bacon, he is lauded by men who never read his
+works, and are entirely ignorant of the true foundation of his fame. Nay,
+more; partisanship becomes very warlike, and we are reminded in this
+controversy of the Italian gentleman, who fought three duels in
+maintaining that Ariosto was a better poet than Tasso: in the third he was
+mortally wounded, and he confessed before dying that he had never read a
+line of either. A similar logomachy has marked the course of Milton's
+champions; words like sharp swords have been wielded by ignorance, and
+have injured the poet's true fame.
+
+He now stands before the world, not only as the greatest English poet,
+except Shakspeare, but also as the most remarkable example and
+illustration of the theory we have adopted, that literature is a very
+vivid and permanent interpreter of contemporary history. To those who ask
+for a philosophic summary of the age of Charles I. and Cromwell, the
+answer may be justly given: "Study the works of John Milton, and you will
+find it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+COWLEY, BUTLER, AND WALTON.
+
+
+   Cowley and Milton. Cowley's Life and Works. His Fame. Butler's Career.
+   Hudibras. His Poverty and Death. Izaak Walton. The Angler; and Lives.
+   Other Writers.
+
+
+
+COWLEY AND MILTON.
+
+
+In contrast with Milton, in his own age, both in political tenets and in
+the character of his poetry, stood Cowley, the poetical champion of the
+party of king and cavaliers during the civil war. Historically he belongs
+to two periods--antecedent and consequent--that of the rebellion itself,
+and that of the Restoration: the latter was a reaction from the former, in
+which the masses changed their opinions, in which the Puritan leaders were
+silenced, and in which the constant and consistent Cavaliers had their day
+of triumph. Both parties, however, modified their views somewhat after the
+whirlwind of excitement had swept by, and both deprecated the extreme
+violence of their former actions. This is cleverly set forth in a charming
+paper of Lord Macaulay, entitled _Cowley and Milton_. It purports to be
+the report of a pleasant colloquy between the two in the spring of 1665,
+"set down by a gentleman of the Middle Temple." Their principles are
+courteously expressed, in a retrospective view of the great rebellion.
+
+
+COWLEY'S LIFE AND WORKS.--Abraham Cowley, the posthumous son of a grocer,
+was born in London, in the year 1618. He is said to have been so
+precocious that he read Spenser with pleasure when he was twelve years
+old; and he published a volume of poems, entitled "Poetical Blossoms,"
+before he was fifteen. After a preliminary education at Westminster
+school, he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1636, and while
+there he published, in 1638, two comedies, one in English, entitled
+_Love's Riddle_, and one in Latin, _Naufragium Joculare, or, The Merry
+Shipwreck_.
+
+When the troubles which culminated in the civil war began to convulse
+England, Cowley, who was a strong adherent of the king, was compelled to
+leave Cambridge; and we find him, when the war had fairly opened, at
+Oxford, where he was well received by the Royal party, in 1643. He
+vindicated the justice of this reception by publishing in that year a
+satire called _Puritan and Papist_. Upon the retirement of the queen to
+Paris, he was one of her suite, and as secretary to Viscount St. Albans he
+conducted the correspondence in cipher between the queen and her
+unfortunate husband.
+
+He remained abroad during the civil war and the protectorate, returning
+with Charles II. in 1660. "The Blessed Restoration" he celebrated in an
+ode with that title, and would seem to have thus established a claim to
+the king's gratitude and bounty. But he was mistaken. Perhaps this led him
+to write a comedy, entitled _The Cutter of Coleman Street_, in which he
+severely censured the license and debaucheries of the court: this made the
+arch-debauchee, the king himself, cold toward the poet, who at once issued
+_A Complaint_; but neither satire nor complaint helped him to the desired
+preferment. He quitted London a disappointed man, and retired to the
+country, where he died on the 28th of July, 1667.
+
+His poems bear the impress of the age in a remarkable degree. His
+_Mistress, or, Love Verses_, and his other Anacreontics or paraphrases of
+Anacreon's odes, were eminently to the taste of the luxurious and immoral
+court of Charles II. His _Davideis_ is an heroic poem on the troubles of
+King David.
+
+His _Poem on the Late Civil War_, which was not published until 1679,
+twelve years after his death, is written in the interests of the monarchy.
+
+His varied learning gave a wide range to his pen. In 1661 appeared his
+_Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy_, which was
+followed in the next year by _Two Books of Plants_, which he increased to
+six books afterward--devoting two to herbs, two to flowers, and two to
+trees. If he does not appear in them to be profound in botanical
+researches, it was justly said by Dr. Johnson that in his mind "botany
+turned into poetry."
+
+His prose pen was as ready, versatile, and charming as his poetic pencil.
+He produced discourses or essays on commonplace topics of general
+interest, such as _myself; the shortness of life; the uncertainty of
+riches; the danger of procrastination_, etc. These are well written, in
+easy-flowing language, evincing his poetic nature, and many of them are
+more truly poetic than his metrical pieces.
+
+
+HIS FAME.--Cowley had all his good things in his lifetime; he was the most
+popular poet in England, and is the best illustration of the literary
+taste of his age. His poetry is like water rippling in the sunlight,
+brilliant but dazzling and painful: it bewilders with far-fetched and
+witty conceits: varied but full of art, there is little of nature or real
+passion to be found even in his amatory verses. He suited the taste of a
+court which preferred an epigram to a proverb, and a repartee to an
+apothegm; and, as a consequence, with the growth of a better culture and a
+better taste, he has steadily declined in favor, so that at the present
+day he is scarcely read at all. Two authoritative opinions mark the
+history of this decline: Milton, in his own day, placed him with Spenser
+and Shakspeare as one of the three greatest English poets; while Pope, not
+much more than half a century later, asks:
+
+    Who now reads Cowley? If he pleases yet,
+    His moral pleases, not his pointed wit.
+
+Still later, Dr. Johnson gives him the credit of having been the first to
+master the Pindaric ode in English; while Cowper expresses, in his Task,
+regret that his "splendid wit" should have been
+
+    Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools.
+
+But if he is neglected in the present day as a household poet, he stands
+prominently forth to the literary student as an historic personage of no
+mean rank, a type and representative of his age, country, and social
+conditions.
+
+
+
+SAMUEL BUTLER.
+
+
+BUTLER'S CAREER.--The author of Hudibras, a satirical poem which may as
+justly be called a comic history of England as any of those written in
+prose in more modern times, was born in Worcestershire, on the 8th of
+February, 1612. The son of poor parents, he received his education at a
+grammar school. Some, who have desired to magnify his learning, have said
+that he was for a time a student at Cambridge; but the chronicler Aubrey,
+who knew him well, denies this. He was learned, but this was due to the
+ardor with which he pursued his studies, when he was clerk to Mr.
+Jeffreys, an eminent justice of the peace, and as an inmate of the mansion
+of the Countess of Kent, in whose fine library he was associated with the
+accomplished Selden.
+
+We next find him domiciled with Sir Samuel Luke, a Presbyterian and a
+parliamentary soldier, in whose household he saw and noted those
+characteristics of the Puritans which he afterward ridiculed so severely
+in his great poem, a poem which he was quietly engaged in writing during
+the protectorate of Cromwell, in hope of the coming of a day when it could
+be issued to the world.
+
+This hope was fulfilled by the Restoration. In the new order he was
+appointed secretary to the Earl of Carbery, and steward of Ludlow Castle;
+and he also increased his frugal fortunes by marrying a widow, Mrs.
+Herbert, whose means, however, were soon lost by bad investments.
+
+
+HUDIBRAS.--The only work of merit which Butler produced was _Hudibras_.
+This was published in three parts: the first appeared in 1663, the second
+in 1664, and the third not until 1678. Even then it was left unfinished;
+but as the interest in the third part seems to flag, it is probable that
+the author did not intend to complete it. His death, two years later,
+however, settled the question.
+
+The general idea of the poem is taken from Don Quixote. As in that
+immortal work, there are two heroes. Sir Hudibras, corresponding to the
+Don, is a Presbyterian justice of the peace, whose features are said to
+have been copied from those of the poet's former employer, Sir Samuel
+Luke. For this, Butler has been accused of ingratitude, but the nature of
+their connection does not seem to have been such as to warrant the charge.
+Ralph the squire, the humble Sancho of the poem, is a cross-grained
+dogmatic Independent.
+
+These two the poet sends forth, as a knight-errant with a squire, to
+correct existing abuses of all kinds--political, religious, and
+scientific. The plot is rambling and disconnected, but the author
+contrives to go over the whole ground of English history in his inimitable
+burlesque. Unlike Cervantes, who makes his reader always sympathize with
+his foolish heroes, Butler brings his knight and squire into supreme
+contempt; he lashes the two hundred religious sects of the day, and
+attacks with matchless ridicule all the Puritan positions. The poem is
+directly historical in its statement of events, tenets, and factions, and
+in its protracted religious discussions: it is indirectly historical in
+that it shows how this ridicule of the Puritans, only four years after the
+death of Cromwell, delighted the merry monarch and his vicious court, and
+was greatly acceptable to the large majority of the English people. This
+fact marks the suddenness of the historic change from the influence of
+Puritanism to that of the restored Stuarts.
+
+Hudibras is written in octosyllabic verse, frequently not rising above
+doggerel: it is full of verbal "quips and cranks and wanton wiles:" in
+parts it is eminently epigrammatic, and many of its happiest couplets seem
+to have been dashed off without effort. Walpole calls Butler "the Hogarth
+of poetry;" and we know that Hogarth illustrated Hudibras. The comparison
+is not inapt, but the pictorial element in Hudibras is not its best claim
+to our praise. This is found in its string of proverbs and maxims
+elucidating human nature, and set forth in such terse language that we are
+inclined to use them thus in preference to any other form of expression.
+
+Hudibras is the very prince of _burlesques_; it stands alone of its kind,
+and still retains its popularity. Although there is much that belongs to
+the age, and much that is of only local interest, it is still read to find
+apt quotations, of which not a few have become hackneyed by constant use.
+With these, pages might be filled; all readers will recognize the
+following:
+
+He speaks of the knight thus:
+
+    On either side he would dispute,
+    Confute, change hands, and still confute:
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    For rhetoric, he could not ope
+    His mouth but out there flew a trope.
+
+Again: he refers, in speaking of religious characters, to
+
+    Such as do build their faith upon
+    The holy text of pike and gun,
+    And prove their doctrine orthodox,
+    By apostolic blows and knocks;
+    Compound for sins they are inclined to
+    By damning those they have no mind to.
+
+Few persons of the present generation have patience to read Hudibras
+through. Allibone says "it is a work to be studied once and gleaned
+occasionally." Most are content to glean frequently, and not to study at
+all.
+
+
+HIS POVERTY AND DEATH.--Butler lived in great poverty, being neglected by
+a monarch and a court for whose amusement he had done so much. They
+laughed at the jester, and let him starve. Indeed, he seems to have had
+few friends; and this is accounted for quaintly by Aubrey, who says:
+"Satirical wits disoblige whom they converse with, and consequently make
+to themselves many enemies, and few friends; and this was his manner and
+case."
+
+The best known of his works, after Hudibras, is the _Elephant in the
+Moon_, a satire on the Royal Society.
+
+It is significant of the popularity of Hudibras, that numerous imitations
+of it have been written from his day to ours.
+
+Butler died on the 25th of September, 1680. Sixty years after, the hand of
+private friendship erected a monument to him in Westminster Abbey. The
+friend was John Barber, Lord Mayor of London, whose object is thus stated:
+"That he who was destitute of all things when alive, might not want a
+monument when he was dead." Upon the occasion of erecting this, Samuel
+Wesley wrote:
+
+    While Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive,
+    No generous patron would a dinner give;
+    See him, when starved to death and turned to dust,
+    Presented with a monumental bust.
+    The poet's fate is here in emblem shown,
+    He asked for bread, and he received a stone.
+
+To his own age he was the prince of jesters; to English literature he has
+given its best illustration of the burlesque in rhetoric. To the reader of
+the present day he presents rare historical pictures of his day, of far
+greater value than his wit or his burlesque.
+
+
+
+IZAAK WALTON.
+
+
+If men are to be measured by their permanent popularity, Walton deserves
+an enthusiastic mention in literary annals, not for the greatness of his
+achievements, but for his having touched a chord in the human heart which
+still vibrates without hint of cessation wherever English is spoken.
+
+Izaak Walton was born at Stafford, on the 9th of August, 1593. In his
+earlier life he was a linen-draper, but he had made enough for his frugal
+wants by his shop to enable him to retire from business in 1643, and then
+he quietly assumed a position as _pontifex piscatorum_. His fishing-rod
+was a sceptre which he swayed unrivalled for forty years. He gathered
+about him in his house and on the borders of fishing streams an admiring
+and congenial circle, principally of the clergy, who felt it a privilege
+to honor the retired linen-draper. There must have been a peculiar charm,
+a personal magnetism about him, which has also imbued his works. His first
+wife was Rachel Floud, a descendant of the ill-fated Cranmer; and his
+second was Anne Ken, the half-sister of the saintly Bishop Ken. Whatever
+may have been his deficiencies of early education, he was so constant and
+varied a reader that he made amends for these.
+
+
+THE COMPLETE ANGLER.--His first and most popular work was _The Complete
+Angler, or, The Contemplative Man's Recreation_. It has been the delight
+of all sorts of people since, and has gone through more than forty
+respectable editions in England, besides many in America. Many of these
+editions are splendidly illustrated and sumptuous. The dialogues are
+pleasant and natural, and his enthusiasm for the art of angling is quite
+contagious.
+
+
+HIS LIVES.--Nor is Walton less esteemed by a smaller but more appreciative
+circle for his beautiful and finished biographies or _Lives_ of Dr.
+Donne, Wotton, Richard Hooker, George Herbert, and Bishop Robert
+Sanderson.
+
+Here Walton has bestowed and received fame: the simple but exquisite
+portraitures of these holy and worthy men have made them familiar to
+posterity; and they, in turn, by the virtues which Walton's pen has made
+manifest, have given distinction to the hand which portrayed them.
+Walton's good life was lengthened out to fourscore and ten. He died at the
+residence of his son-in-law, the Reverend William Hawkins, prebendary of
+Winchester Cathedral, in 1683. Bishop Jebb has judiciously said of his
+_Lives_: "They not only do ample justice to individual piety and learning,
+but throw a mild and cheerful light upon the manners of an interesting
+age, as well as upon the venerable features of our mother Church." Less,
+however, than any of his contemporaries can Walton be appreciated by a
+sketch of the man: his works must be read, and their spirit imbibed, in
+order to know his worth.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE AGE.
+
+
+George Wither, born in Hampshire, June 11, 1588, died May 2, 1667: he was
+a voluminous and versatile writer. His chief work is _The Shepherd's
+Hunting_, which, with beautiful descriptions of rural life, abounds in
+those strained efforts at wit and curious conceits, which were acceptable
+to the age, but which have lost their charm in a more sensible and
+philosophic age. Wither was a Parliament man, and was imprisoned and
+ill-treated after the Restoration. He, and most of those who follow, were
+classed by Dr. Johnson as _metaphysical poets_.
+
+Francis Quarles, 1592-1644: he was a Royalist, but belongs to the literary
+school of Withers. He is best known by his collection of moral and
+religious poems, called _Divine Emblems_, which were accompanied with
+quaint engraved illustrations. These allegories are full of unnatural
+conceits, and are many of them borrowed from an older source. He was
+immensely popular as a poet in his own day, and there was truth in the
+statement of Horace Walpole, that "Milton was forced to wait till the
+world had done admiring Quarles."
+
+George Herbert, 1593-1632: a man of birth and station, Herbert entered the
+Church, and as the incumbent of the living at Bemerton, he illustrated in
+his own piety and devotion "the beauty of holiness." Conscientious and
+self-denying in his parish work, he found time to give forth those devout
+breathings which in harmony of expression, fervor of piety, and simplicity
+of thought, have been a goodly heritage to the Church ever since, while
+they still retain some of those "poetical surprises" which mark the
+literary taste of the age. His principal work is _The Temple, or, Sacred
+Poems and Private Ejaculations_. The short lyrics which form the stones of
+this temple are upon the rites and ceremonies of the Church and other
+sacred subjects: many of them are still in great favor, and will always
+be. In his portraiture of the _Good Parson_, he paints himself. He
+magnifies the office, and he fulfilled all the requirements he has laid
+down.
+
+Robert Herrick, 1591-1674: like Herbert, Herrick was a clergyman, but,
+unlike Herbert, he was not a holy man. He wrote Anacreontic poems, full of
+wine and love, and appears to us like a reveller masking in a surplice.
+Being a cavalier in sentiment, he was ejected from his vicarage in 1648,
+and went to London, where he assumed the lay habit. In 1647 he published
+_Hesperides_, a collection of small poems of great lyric beauty,
+Anacreontic, pastoral, and amatory, but containing much that is coarse and
+indelicate. In 1648 he in part atoned for these by publishing his _Noble
+Numbers_, a collection of pious pieces, in the beginning of which he asks
+God's forgiveness for his "unbaptized rhymes," "writ in my wild,
+unhallowed times." The best comment upon his works may be found in the
+words of a reviewer: "Herrick trifled in this way solely in compliment to
+the age; whenever he wrote to please himself, he wrote from the heart to
+the heart." His _Litanie_ is a noble and beautiful penitential petition.
+
+Sir John Suckling, 1609-1641: a writer of love songs. That by which he is
+most favorably known is his exquisite _Ballad upon a Wedding_. He was a
+man of versatile talents; an officer in the army of Gustavus Adolphus, and
+a captain of horse in the army of Charles I. He wrote several plays, of
+which the best are _Aglaura_ and _The Discontented Colonel_. While
+evidently tinctured by the spirit of the age, he exceeded his
+contemporaries in the purity of his style and manliness of his expression.
+His wit is not so forced as theirs.
+
+Edmund Waller, 1605-1687: he was a cousin of John Hampden. By great care
+and adroitness he seems to have trimmed between the two parties in the
+civil war, but was suspected by both. His poetry was like himself,
+artificial and designed to please, but has little depth of sentiment. Like
+other poets, he praised Cromwell in 1654 in _A Panegyric_, and welcomed
+Charles II. in 1660, upon _His Majesty's Happy Return_. His greatest
+benefaction to English poetry was in refining its language and harmonizing
+its versification. He has all the conceits and strained wit of the
+metaphysical school.
+
+Sir William Davenant, 1605-1668: he was the son of a vintner, but
+sometimes claimed to be the natural son of Shakspeare, who was intimate
+with his father and mother. An ardent Loyalist, he was imprisoned at the
+beginning of the civil war, but escaped to France. He is best known by his
+heroic poem _Gondibert_, founded upon the reign of King Aribert of
+Lombardy, in the seventh century. The French taste which he brought back
+from his exile, is shown in his own dramas, and in his efforts to restore
+the theatre at the Restoration. His best plays are the _Cruel Brother_ and
+_The Law against Lovers_. He was knighted by Charles I., and succeeded Ben
+Jonson as poet laureate. On his monument in Westminster Abbey are these
+words: "O rare Sir William Davenant."
+
+Charles Cotton, 1630-1687: he was a wit and a poet, and is best known as
+the friend of Izaak Walton. He made an addition to _Walton's Complete
+Angler_, which is found in all the later editions. The companion of Walton
+in his fishing excursions on the river Dove, Cotton addressed many of his
+poems to his "Adopted Father." He made travesties upon Virgil and Lucian,
+which are characterized by great licentiousness; and wrote a gossiping and
+humorous _Voyage to Ireland_.
+
+Henry Vaughan, 1614-1695: he was called the _Silurist_, from his residence
+in Wales, the country of the Silures. He is favorably known by the _Silex
+Scintillans, or, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations_. With a rigid
+religious tone, he has all the attempt at rhetorical effect which mark the
+metaphysical school, but his language is harsher and more rugged. He has
+more heart than most of his colleagues, and extracts of great terseness
+and beauty are still made from his poems. He reproves the corruptions of
+the age, and while acknowledging an indebtedness, he gives us a clue to
+his inspiration: "The first, that with any effectual success attempted a
+diversion of this foul and overflowing stream, was that blessed man, Mr.
+George Herbert, whose holy life and verse gained many pious converts, of
+whom I am the least."
+
+The Earl of Clarendon, 1608-1674: Edward Hyde, afterward the Earl of
+Clarendon, played a conspicuous part in the history of England during his
+life, and also wrote a history of that period, which, although in the
+interests of the king's party, is an invaluable key to a knowledge of
+English life during the rebellion and just after the Restoration. A
+member of parliament in 1640, he rose rapidly in favor with the king, and
+was knighted in 1643. He left England in charge of the Prince of Wales in
+1646, and at once began his History of the Great Rebellion, which was to
+occupy him for many years before its completion. After the death of
+Charles I., he was the companion of his son's exile, and often without
+means for himself and his royal master, he was chancellor of the
+exchequer. At the Restoration in 1660, Sir Edward Hyde was created Earl of
+Clarendon, and entered upon the real duties of his office. He retained his
+place for seven years, but became disagreeable to Charles as a troublesome
+monitor, and at the same time incurred the hatred of the people. In 1667
+he was accused of high treason, and made his escape to France. Neglected
+by his master, ignored by the French monarch, he wandered about in France,
+from time to time petitioning his king to permit him to return and die in
+England, but without success. Seven years of exile, which he reminded the
+king "was a time prescribed and limited by God himself for the expiation
+of some of his greatest judgments," passed by, and the ex-chancellor died
+at Rouen. He had begun his history in exile as the faithful servant of a
+dethroned prince; he ended it in exile, as the cast-off servant of an
+ungrateful monarch. As a writer of contemporary history, Clarendon has
+given us the form and color of the time. The book is in title and handling
+a Royalist history. Its faults are manifest: first those of partisanship;
+and secondly, those which spring from his absence, so that much of the
+work was written without an observant knowledge. His delineation of
+character is wonderful: the men of the times are more pictorially
+displayed than in the portraits of Van Dyk. The style is somewhat too
+pompous, being more that of the orator than of the historian, and
+containing long and parenthetic periods. Sir Walter Scott says: "His
+characters may match those of the ancient historians, and one thinks he
+would know the very men if he were to meet them in society." Macaulay
+concedes to him a strong sense of moral and religious obligation, a
+sincere reverence for the laws of his country, and a conscientious regard
+for the honor and interests of the crown; but adds that "his temper was
+sour, arrogant, and impatient of opposition." No one can rightly
+understand the great rebellion without reading Clarendon's history of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+DRYDEN, AND THE RESTORED STUARTS.
+
+
+   The Court of Charles II. Dryden's Early Life. The Death of Cromwell.
+   The Restoration. Dryden's Tribute. Annus Mirabilis. Absalom and
+   Achitophel. The Death of Charles. Dryden's Conversion. Dryden's Fall.
+   His Odes.
+
+
+
+THE COURT OF CHARLES II.
+
+
+The antithetic literature which takes its coloring from the great
+rebellion, was now to give place to new forms not immediately connected
+with it, but incident to the Restoration. Puritanism was now to be
+oppressed, and the country was to be governed, under a show of
+constitutional right, more arbitrarily than ever before. The moral
+rebound, too, was tremendous; the debaucheries of the cavaliers of Charles
+I. were as nothing in comparison with the lewdness and filth of the court
+of Charles II. To say that he brought in French fashions and customs, is
+to do injustice to the French: there never was a viler court in Europe
+than his own. It is but in accordance with our historical theory that the
+literature should partake of and represent the new condition of things;
+and the most remarkable illustrations of this are to be found in the works
+of Dryden.
+
+It may indeed with truth be said that we have now reached the most
+absolute of the literary types of English history. There was no great
+event, political or social, which is not mirrored in his poems; no
+sentiment or caprice of the age which does not there find expression; no
+kingly whim which he did not prostitute his great powers to gratify; no
+change of creed, political or religious, of which he was not the
+recorder--few indeed, where royal favor was concerned, to which he was not
+the convert. To review the life of Dryden himself, is therefore to enter
+into the chronicle and philosophy of the times in which he lived. With
+this view, we shall dwell at some length upon his character and works.
+
+
+EARLY LIFE.--Dryden was born on the 10th of August, 1631, and died on the
+1st of May, 1700. He lived, therefore, during the reign of Charles I., the
+interregnum of Parliament, the protectorate of Cromwell, the restoration
+and reign of Charles II., and the reign of James II.; he saw and suffered
+from the accession of William and Mary--a wonderful and varied volume in
+English history. And of all these Dryden was, more than any other man, the
+literary type. He was of a good family, and was educated at Westminster
+and Cambridge, where he gave early proofs of his literary talents.
+
+His father, a zealous Presbyterian, had reared his children in his own
+tenets; we are not therefore astonished to find that his earliest poetical
+efforts are in accordance with the political conditions of the day. He
+settled in London, under the protection of his kinsman, Sir Gilbert
+Pickering, who was afterward one of the king's judges in 1649, and one of
+the council of eight who controlled the kingdom after Charles lost his
+head. As secretary to Sir Gilbert, young Dryden learned to scan the
+political horizon, and to aspire to preferment.
+
+
+CROMWELL'S DEATH, AND DRYDEN'S MONODY.--But those who had depended upon
+Cromwell, forgot that he was not England, and that his breath was in his
+nostrils. The time of his departure was at hand. He had been offered the
+crown (April 9, 1656,) by a subservient parliament, and wanted it; but his
+friends and family opposed his taking it; and the officers of the army,
+influenced by Pride, sent such a petition against it, that he felt obliged
+to refuse it. After months of mental anxiety and nervous torture--fearing
+assassination, keeping arms under his pillow, never sleeping above three
+nights together in the same chamber, disappointed that even after all his
+achievements, and with all his cunning efforts, he had been unable to put
+on the crown, and to be numbered among the English sovereigns--Cromwell
+died in 1658, leaving his title as Lord Protector to his son Richard, a
+weak and indolent man, who, after seven months' rule, fled the kingdom at
+the Restoration, to return after a generation had passed away, a very old
+man, to die in his native land. The people of Hertfordshire knew Richard
+Cromwell as the excellent and benevolent Mr. Clarke.
+
+Very soon after the death of Oliver Cromwell, Dryden, not yet foreseeing
+the Restoration, presented his tribute to the Commonwealth, in the shape
+of "Heroic Stanzas on the Death of Oliver Cromwell; written after his
+funeral." A few stanzas will show his political principles, and are in
+strange contrast with what was soon to follow:
+
+    How shall I then begin, or where conclude,
+      To draw a fame so truly circular?
+    For, in a round, what order can be showed,
+      Where all the parts so equal perfect are?
+
+    He made us freemen of the continent,
+      Whom nature did like captives treat before;
+    To nobler preys the English lion sent,
+      And taught him first in Belgian walks to roar.
+
+    His ashes in a peaceful urn shall rest;
+      His name a great example stands, to show
+    How strangely high endeavors may be blest,
+      Where piety and valor jointly go.
+
+
+THE RESTORATION.--Cromwell died in September: early in the next year these
+stanzas were written. One year later was the witness of a great event,
+which stirred England to its very depths, because it gave vent to
+sentiments for some time past cherished but concealed. The Long Parliament
+was dissolved on the 10th of March, 1660. The new parliament meets April
+25th; it is almost entirely of Royalist opinions; it receives Sir John
+Granville, the king's messenger, with loud acclamations; the old lords
+come forth once more in velvet, ermine, and lawn. It is proclaimed that
+General Monk, the representative of the army, soon to be Duke of
+Albemarle, has gone from St. Albans to Dover,
+
+    To welcome home again discarded faith.
+
+The strong are as tow, and the maker as a spark. From the house of every
+citizen, lately vocal with the praises of the Protector, issues a subject
+ready to welcome his king with the most enthusiastic loyalty.
+
+Royal proclamations follow each other in rapid succession: at length the
+eventful day has come--the 29th of May, 1660. All the bells of London are
+ringing their merriest chimes; the streets are thronged with citizens in
+holiday attire; the guilds of work and trade are out in their uniforms;
+the army, late the organ of Cromwell, is drawn up on Black Heath, and is
+cracking its myriad throat with cheers. In the words of Master Roger
+Wildrake, "There were bonfires flaming, music playing, rumps roasting,
+healths drinking; London in a blaze of light from the Strand to
+Rotherhithe." At length the sound of herald trumpets is heard; the king is
+coming; a cry bursts forth which the London echoes have almost forgotten:
+"God save the king! The king enjoys his own again!"
+
+It seems to the dispassionate reader almost incredible that the English
+people, who shed his father's blood, who rallied round the Parliament, and
+were fulsome in their praises of the Protector, should thus suddenly
+change; but, allowing for "the madness of the people," we look for
+strength and consistency to the men of learning and letters. We feel sure
+that he who sang his eulogy of Cromwell dead, can have now no lyric burst
+for the returning Stuart. We are disappointed.
+
+
+DRYDEN'S TRIBUTE.--The first poetic garland thrown at the feet of the
+restored king was Dryden's _Astræa Redux_, a poem on _The happy
+restoration of his sacred majesty Charles II._ To give it classic force,
+he quotes from the Pollio as a text.
+
+    Jam redit et virgo, redeunt saturnia regna;
+
+thus hailing the saturnian times of James I. and Charles I. A few lines of
+the poem complete the curious contrast:
+
+    While our cross stars deny us Charles his bed,
+    Whom our first flames and virgin love did wed,
+    For his long absence church and state did groan;
+    Madness the pulpit, faction seized the throne.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    How great were then our Charles his woes, who thus
+    Was forced to suffer for himself and us.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Oh happy prince whom Heaven hath taught the way,
+    By paying vows to have more vows to pay:
+    Oh happy age! oh, times like those alone
+    By Fate reserved for great Augustus' throne,
+    When the joint growth of arts and arms foreshow
+    The world a monarch, and that monarch you!
+
+The contrast assumes a clearer significance, if we remember that the real
+time which elapsed between the publications of these two poems was less
+than two years.
+
+This is greatly to Dryden's shame, as it is to Waller's, who did the same
+thing; but it must be clearly pointed out that in this the poets were
+really a type of all England, for whose suffrages they wrote thus. From
+this time the career of Dryden was intimately associated with that of the
+restored king. He wrote an ode for the coronation in 1661, and a poetical
+tribute to Clarendon, the Lord High Chancellor, the king's better self.
+
+To Dryden, as a writer of plays, we shall recur in a later chapter, when
+the other dramatists of the age will be considered.
+
+A concurrence of unusual events in 1665, brought forth the next year the
+"Annus Mirabilis," or _Wonderful Year_, in which these events are recorded
+with the minuteness of a chronicle. This is indeed its chief value; for,
+praised as it was at the time, it does not so well bear the analysis of
+modern criticism.
+
+
+ANNUS MIRABILIS.--It describes the great naval battle with the Dutch; the
+fire of London; and the ravages of the plague. The detail with which these
+are described, and the frequent felicity of expression, are the chief
+charm of the poem. In the refreshingly simple diary of Pepy's, we find
+this jotting under date of 3d February, 1666-7: "_Annus Mirabilis_. I am
+very well pleased this night with reading a poem I brought home with me
+last night from Westminster Hall, of Dryden's, upon the present war: a
+very good poem."
+
+Dryden's subserviency, aided by the power of his pen, gained its reward.
+In 1668, on the death of Sir William Davenant, he was appointed Laureate,
+and historiographer to the king, with an annual salary of £200. He soon
+became the most famous literary man in England. Milton, the Puritan, was
+producing his wonderful visions in darkened retirement, while at court, or
+in the seat of honor on the stage, or in his sacred chair at Will's
+Coffee-house in Covent Garden (near the fire-place in winter, and carried
+into the balcony in summer), "Glorious John" was the observed of all
+observers. Of Will's Coffee-house, Congreve says, in _Love for Love_, "Oh,
+confound that Will's Coffee-house; it has ruined more young men than the
+Royal Oak Lottery:" this speaks at once of the fashion and social license
+of the time.
+
+Charles II. was happy to have so fluent a pen, to lampoon or satirize his
+enemies, or to make indecent comedies for his amusement; while Dryden's
+aim seems to have been scarcely higher than preferment at court and
+honored contemporary notoriety for his genius. But if the great majority
+lauded and flattered him, he was not without his share in those quarrels
+of authors, which were carried on at that day not only with goose-quills,
+but with swords and bludgeons. It is recorded that he was once waylaid by
+the hired ruffians of the Earl of Rochester, and beaten almost to death:
+these broils generally had a political as well as a social significance.
+In his quarrels with the literary men, he used the shafts of satire. His
+contest with Thomas Shadwell has been preserved in his satire called
+McFlecknoe. Flecknoe was an Irish priest who wrote dull plays; and in this
+poem Dryden proposes Shadwell as his successor on the throne of dulness.
+It was the model or suggester of Pope's _Dunciad_; but the model is by no
+means equal to the copy.
+
+
+ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.--Nothing which he had yet written is so true an
+index to the political history as his "Absalom and Achitophel," which he
+published in 1681. The history may be given in few words. Charles II. had
+a natural son by an obscure woman named Lucy Walters. This boy had been
+created Duke of Monmouth. He was put forward by the designing Earl of
+Shaftesbury as the head of a faction, and as a rival to the Duke of York.
+To ruin the Duke was their first object; and this they attempted by
+inflaming the people against his religion, which was Roman Catholic. If
+they could thus have him and his heirs put out of the succession to the
+throne, Monmouth might be named heir apparent; and Shaftesbury hoped to be
+the power behind the throne.
+
+Monmouth was weak, handsome, and vain, and was in truth a puppet in wicked
+hands; he was engaged in the Rye-house plot, and schemed not only against
+his uncle, but against the person of his father himself. To satirize and
+expose these plots and plotters, Dryden (at the instance of the king, it
+is said,) wrote _Absalom and Achitophel_, in which are introduced, under
+Scripture names, many of the principal political characters of the day,
+from the king down to Titus Oates. The number of the names is 61. Charles
+is, of course, David, and Monmouth, the wayward son, is Absalom.
+Shaftesbury is Achitophel, and Dr. Oates figures as Corah. The Ethnic plot
+is the popish plot, and Gath is that land of exile where Charles so long
+resided. Strong in his praise of David, the poet is discreet and delicate
+in his handling of Absalom; his instinct is as acute as that of Falstaff:
+"Beware! instinct, the lion will not touch a true prince," or touch him so
+gently that the lion at least will not suffer. Thus, Monmouth is
+represented as
+
+    Half loath, and half consenting to the ill,
+    For royal blood within him struggled still;
+    He thus replied: "And what pretence have I
+    To take up arms for public liberty?
+    My father governs with unquestioned right,
+    The faith's defender and mankind's delight;
+    Good, gracious, just, observant of the laws,
+    And heaven by wonders has espoused his cause."
+
+But he may, and does, roundly rate Achitophel, who tempts with satanic
+seductions, and proves to the youth, from the Bible, his right to the
+succession, peaceably or forcibly obtained. Among those who conspired with
+Monmouth were honest hearts seeking for the welfare of the realm. Chief of
+these were Lord Russel and Sidney, of whom the latter was in favor of a
+commonwealth; and the former, only sought the exclusion of the Roman
+Catholic Duke of York, and the redress of grievances, but not the
+assassination or deposition of the king. Both fell on the scaffold; but
+they have both been considered martyrs in the cause of civil liberty.
+
+And here we must pause to say that in the literary structure, language,
+and rhythm of the poem, Dryden had made a great step toward that mastery
+of the rhymed pentameter couplet, which is one of his greatest claims to
+distinction.
+
+
+DEATH OF CHARLES.--At length, in 1685, Charles II., after a sudden and
+short illness, was gathered to his fathers. His life had been such that
+England could not mourn: he had prostituted female honor, and almost
+destroyed political virtue; sold English territory and influence to France
+for beautiful strumpets; and at the last had been received, on his
+death-bed, into, the Roman Catholic Church, while nominally the supreme
+head of the Anglican communion. England cannot mourn, but Dryden tortures
+language into crocodile tears in his _Threnodia Augustalis, sacred to the
+happy memory of King Charles II_. A few lines will exhibit at once the
+false statements and the absolute want of a spark of sorrow--dead,
+inanimate words, words, words!
+
+    Thus long my grief has kept me drunk:
+    Sure there 's a lethargy in mighty woe;
+    Tears stand congealed, and cannot flow.
+    ........
+    Tears for a stroke foreseen, afford relief;
+      But unprovided for a sudden blow,
+      Like Niobe, we marble grow,
+    And petrify with grief!
+
+
+DRYDEN'S CONVERSION.--The Duke of York succeeded as James II.: he was an
+open and bigoted Roman Catholic, who at once blazoned forth the death-bed
+conversion of his brother; and who from the first only limited his hopes
+to the complete restoration of the realm to popery. Dryden's course was at
+once taken; but his instinct was at fault, as but three short years were
+to show. He gave in his adhesion to the new king's creed; he who had been
+Puritan with the commonwealth, and churchman with the Restoration, became
+Roman Catholic with the accession of a popish king. He had written the
+_Religio Laici_ to defend the tenets of the Church of England against the
+attacks of papists and dissenters; and he now, to leave the world in no
+doubt as to his reasons and his honesty, published a poem entitled the
+_Hind and Panther_, which might in his earlier phraseology have been
+justly styled "The Christian experience of pious John Dryden." It seems a
+shameless act, but it is one exponent of the loyalty of that day. There
+are some critics who believe him to have been sincere, and who insist that
+such a man "is not to be sullied by suspicion that rests on what after all
+might prove a fortuitous coincidence." But such frequent changes with the
+government--with a reward for each change--tax too far even that charity
+which "thinketh no evil." Dryden's pen was eagerly welcomed by the Roman
+Catholics. He began to write at once in their interest, and thus to
+further his own. Dr. Johnson says: "That conversion will always be
+suspected which apparently concerns with interest. He that never finds his
+error till it hinders his progress toward wealth or honor, will not be
+thought to love truth only for herself."
+
+In this long poem of 2,000 lines, we have the arguments which conducted
+the poet to this change. The different beasts represent the different
+churches and sects. The Church of Rome is thus represented:
+
+    A milk-white hind, immortal and unchanged,
+    Fed on the lawns, and in the forest ranged;
+    Without unspotted, innocent within,
+    She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.
+
+The other beasts were united to destroy her; but she could "venture to
+drink with them at the common watering-place under the protection of her
+friend the kingly lion."
+
+The Panther is the Church of England:
+
+    The Panther, sure the noblest, next the hind,
+    And fairest creature of the spotted kind;
+    Oh, could her inborn stains be washed away,
+    She were too good to be a beast of prey!
+
+Then he Introduces.--
+
+   The _Bloody Bear_, an _Independent_ beast; the _Quaking Hare_, for the
+   _Quakers_; the _Bristled Baptist Boar_.
+
+In this fable, quite in the style of Æsop, we find the Dame, _i.e._, the
+Hind, entering into the subtle points of theology, and trying to prove her
+position. The poem, as might be supposed; was well received, and perhaps
+converted a few to the monarch's faith; for who were able yet to foresee
+that the monarch would so abuse his power, as to be driven away from his
+throne amid the execrations of his subjects.
+
+The harmony of Dryden and the power of James could control progressive
+England no longer. Like one man, the nation rose and uttered a mighty cry
+to William of Orange. James, trembling, flies hither and thither, and at
+length, fearing the fate of his father, he deserts his throne; the commons
+call this desertion abdication, and they give the throne to his nephew
+William and his daughter Mary. Such was the end of the restored Stuarts;
+and we can have no regret that it is: whatever sympathy we may have had
+with the sufferings of Charles I.,--and the English nation shared it, as
+is proved by the restoration of his son,--we can have none with his
+successors: they threw away their chances; they dissipated the most
+enthusiastic loyalty; they squandered opportunities; and had no enemies,
+even the bitterest, who were more fatal than themselves. And now it was
+manifest that Dryden's day was over. Nor does he shrink from his fate. He
+neither sings a Godspeeding ode to the runaway king, nor a salutatory to
+the new comers.
+
+
+DRYDEN'S FALL.--Stripped of his laureate-wreath and all his emoluments, he
+does not sit down to fold his hands and repine. Sixty years of age, he
+girds up his loins to work manfully for his living. He translates from the
+classics; he renders Chaucer into modern English: in 1690 he produced a
+play entitled Don Sebastian, which has been considered his dramatic
+master-piece, and, as if to inform the world that age had not dimmed the
+fire of his genius, he takes as his caption,--
+
+    ... nec tarda senectus
+    Debilitat vires animi, mutat que vigorem.
+
+This latter part of his life claims a true sympathy, because he is every
+inch a man.
+
+It must not be forgotten that Dryden presented Chaucer to England anew,
+after centuries of neglect, almost oblivion; for which the world owes him
+a debt of gratitude. This he did by modernizing several of the Canterbury
+Tales, and thus leading English scholars to seek the beauties and
+instructions of the original. The versions themselves are by no means well
+executed, it must be said. He has lost the musical words and fresh diction
+of the original, as a single comparison between the two will clearly show.
+Perhaps there is no finer description of morning than is contained in
+these lines of Chaucer:
+
+    The besy lark, the messager of day,
+    Saleweth in hir song the morwe gray;
+    And firy Phebus riseth up so bright
+    That all the orient laugheth of the sight.
+
+How expressive the words: the _busy_ lark; the sun rising like a strong
+man; _all the orient_ laughing. The following version by Dryden, loses at
+once the freshness of idea and the felicity of phrase:
+
+    The morning lark, the messenger of day,
+    Saluted in her song the morning gray;
+    And soon the sun arose with beams so bright
+    That all the horizon laughed to see the joyous sight.
+
+The student will find this only one of many illustrations of the manner
+in which Dryden has belittled Chaucer in his versions.
+
+
+ODES.--Dryden has been regarded as the first who used the heroic couplet
+with entire mastery. In his hands it is bold and sometimes rugged, but
+always powerful and handled with great ease: he fashioned it for Pope to
+polish. Of this, his larger poems are full of proof. But there is another
+verse, of irregular rhythm, in which he was even more successful,--lyric
+poetry as found in the irregular ode, varying from the short line to the
+"Alexandrine dragging its slow length along;" the staccato of a harp
+ending in a lengthened flow of melody.
+
+    Thus long ago,
+    Ere heaving billows learned to blow,
+    While organs yet were mute;
+    Timotheus to his breathing flute
+    And sounding lyre
+    Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
+
+When he became a Roman Catholic, St. Cecilia, "inventress of the vocal
+frame," became his chief devotion; and the _Song on St. Cecilia's Day_ and
+_An Ode to St. Cecilia_, are the principal illustrations of this new
+power.
+
+Gray, who was remarkable for his own lyric power, told Dr. Beattie that if
+there were any excellence in his own numbers, he had learned it wholly
+from Dryden.
+
+The _Ode on St. Cecilia's Day_, also entitled "_Alexander's Feast_," in
+which he portrays the power of music in inspiring that famous monarch to
+love, pity, and war, has to the scholar the perfect excellence of the best
+Greek lyric. It ends with a tribute to St. Cecilia.
+
+    At last divine Cecilia came,
+    Inventress of the vocal frame:
+    Now let Timotheus yield the prize,
+    Or both divide the crown.
+    He raised a mortal to the skies;
+    She drew an angel down,
+
+Dryden's prose, principally in the form of prefaces and dedications, has
+been admired by all critics; and one of the greatest has said, that if he
+had turned his attention entirely in that direction, he would have been
+_facile princeps_ among the prose writers of his day. He has, in general
+terms, the merit of being the greatest refiner of the English language,
+and of having given system and strength to English poetry above any writer
+up to his day; but more than all, his works are a transcript of English
+history--political, religious, and social--as valuable as those of any
+professed historian. Dryden married Lady Elizabeth Howard, the daughter of
+an earl, who, it is said, was not a congenial companion, and who
+afterwards became insane. He died from a gangrene in the foot. He declared
+that he died in the profession of the Roman Catholic faith; which raises a
+new doubt as to his sincerity in the change. Near the monument of old
+father Chaucer, in Westminster, is one erected, by the Duke of Buckingham,
+to Dryden. It merely bears name and date, as his life and works were
+supposed to need no eulogy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF THE GREAT REBELLION AND OF THE RESTORATION.
+
+
+   The English Divines. Hall. Chillingworth. Taylor. Fuller. Sir T.
+   Browne. Baxter. Fox. Bunyan. South. Other Writers.
+
+
+
+THE ENGLISH DIVINES.
+
+
+Having come down, in the course of English Literature, to the reign of
+William and Mary, we must look back for a brief space to consider the
+religious polemics which grew out of the national troubles and
+vicissitudes. We shall endeavor to classify the principal authors under
+this head from the days of Milton to the time when the Protestant
+succession was established on the English throne.
+
+The Established Church had its learned doctors before the civil war, many
+of whom contributed to the literature; but when the contest between king
+and parliament became imminent, and during the progress of the quarrel,
+these became controversialists,--most of them on the side of the
+unfortunate but misguided monarch,--and suffered with his declining
+fortunes.
+
+To go over the whole range of theological literature in this extended
+period, would be to study the history of the times from a theological
+point of view. Our space will only permit a brief notice of the principal
+writers.
+
+
+HALL.--First among these was Joseph Hall, who was born in 1574. He was
+educated at Cambridge, and was appointed to the See of Exeter in 1624,
+and transferred to that of Norwich in 1641, the year before Charles I.
+ascended the throne. The scope of his writings was quite extensive. As a
+theological writer, he is known by his numerous sermons, his _Episcopacy
+by Divine Right Asserted_, his _Christian Meditations_, and
+various commentaries and _Contemplations_ upon the Scriptures.
+He was also a poet and a satirist, and excelled in this field. His
+_Satires--Virgidemiarium_--were published at the early age of
+twenty-three; but they are highly praised by the critics, who rank him
+also, for eloquence and learning, with Jeremy Taylor. He suffered for his
+attachment to the king's cause, was driven from his see, and spent the
+last portion of his life in retirement and poverty. He died in 1656.
+
+
+CHILLINGWORTH.--The next in chronological order is William Chillingworth,
+who was born in 1602, and is principally known as the champion of
+Protestantism against Rome and Roman innovations. While a student at
+Oxford, he had been won over to the Roman Catholic Church by John Perse, a
+famous Jesuit; and he went at once to pursue his studies in the Jesuit
+college at Douay. He was so notable for his acuteness and industry, that
+every effort was made to bring him back. Archbishop Laud, his god-father,
+was able to convince him of his errors, and in two months he returned to
+England. A short time after this he left the Roman Catholics, and became
+tenfold more a Protestant than before. He entered into controversies with
+his former friends the Jesuits, and in answer to one of their treatises
+entitled, _Mercy and Truth, or Charity maintained by the Roman Catholics_,
+he wrote his most famous work, _The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to
+Salvation_. Chillingworth was a warm adherent of Charles I.; and was
+captured by the parliamentary forces in 1643. He died the next year. His
+double change of faith gave him the full range of the controversial field;
+and, in addition to this knowledge, the clearness of his language and the
+perspicuity of his logic gave great effect to his writings. Tillotson
+calls him "the glory of this age and nation."
+
+
+TAYLOR.--One of the greatest names in the annals of the English Church and
+of English literature is that of Jeremy Taylor. He was the son of a
+barber, and was born at Cambridge in 1613. A remarkably clever youth, he
+was educated at Cambridge, and soon owed his preferment to his talents,
+eloquence, and learning. An adherent of the king, he was appointed
+chaplain in the royal army, and was several times imprisoned. When the
+king's cause went down, and during the protectorate of Cromwell, he
+retired to Wales, where he kept a school, and was also chaplain to the
+Earl of Carberry. The vicissitudes of fortune compelled him to leave for a
+while this retreat, and he became a teacher in Ireland. The restoration of
+Charles II. gave him rest and preferment: he was made Bishop of Down and
+Connor. Taylor is now principally known for his learned, quaint, and
+eloquent discourses, which are still read. A man of liberal feelings and
+opinions, he wrote on "The liberty of prophesying, showing the
+unreasonableness of prescribing to other men's faith, and the iniquity of
+persecuting different opinions:" the title itself being a very liberal
+discourse. He upholds the Ritual in _An Apology for fixed and set Forms of
+Worship_. In this he considers the divine precepts to be contained within
+narrow limits, and that beyond this everything is a matter of dispute, so
+that we cannot unconditionally condemn the opinions of others.
+
+His _Great Exemplar of Sanctity and Holy Life_, his _Rule and Exercises of
+Holy Living and of Holy Dying_, and his _Golden Grove_, are devotional
+works, well known to modern Christians of all denominations. He has been
+praised alike by Roman Catholic divines and many Protestant Christians not
+of the Anglican Church. There is in all his writings a splendor of
+imagery, combined with harmony of style, and wonderful variety,
+readiness, and accuracy of scholarship. His quotations from the whole
+range of classic authors would furnish the Greek and Latin armory of any
+modern writer. What Shakspeare is in the Drama, Spenser in the Allegory,
+and Milton in the religious Epic, Taylor may claim to be in the field of
+purely religious literature. He died at Lisburn, in 1667.
+
+
+FULLER.--More quaint and eccentric than the writers just mentioned, but a
+rare representative of his age, stands Thomas Fuller. He was born in 1608;
+at the early age of twelve, he entered Cambridge, and, after completing
+his education, took orders. In 1631, he was appointed prebendary of
+Salisbury. Thence he removed to London in 1641, when the civil war was
+about to open. When the king left London, in 1642, Fuller preached a
+sermon in his favor, to the great indignation of the opposite party. Soon
+after, he was appointed to a chaplaincy in the royal army, and not only
+preached to the soldiers, but urged them forward in battle. In 1646 he
+returned to London, where he was permitted to preach, under
+_surveillance_, however. He seems to have succeeded in keeping out of
+trouble until the Restoration, when he was restored to his prebend. He did
+not enjoy it long, as he died in the next year, 1661. His writings are
+very numerous, and some of them are still read. Among these are _Good
+Thoughts in Bad Times, Good Thoughts in Worse Times_, and _Mixt
+Contemplations in Better Times_. The _bad_ and _worse_ times mark the
+progress of the civil war: the _better_ times he finds in the Restoration.
+
+One of his most valuable works is _The Church History of Britain, from the
+birth of Christ to 1648_, in 11 books. Criticized as it has been for its
+puns and quibbles and its occasional caricatures, it contains rare
+descriptions and very vivid stories of the important ecclesiastical eras
+in England.
+
+Another book containing important information is his _History of the
+Worthies of England_, a posthumous work, published by his son the year
+after his death. It contains accounts of eminent Englishmen in different
+countries; and while there are many errors which he would perhaps have
+corrected, it is full of odd and interesting information not to be found
+collated in any other book.
+
+Representing and chronicling the age as he does, he has perhaps more
+individuality than any writer of his time, and this gives a special
+interest to his works.
+
+
+SIR THOMAS BROWNE.--Classed among theological writers, but not a
+clergyman, Sir Thomas Browne is noted for the peculiarity of his subjects,
+and his diction. He was born in 1605, and was educated at Oxford. He
+studied medicine, and became a practising physician. He travelled on the
+continent, and returning to England in 1633, he began to write his most
+important work, _Religio Medici_, at once a transcript of his own life and
+a manifesto of what the religion of a physician should be. It was kept in
+manuscript for some time, but was published without his knowledge in 1642.
+He then revised the work, and published several editions himself. No
+description of the treatise can give the reader a just idea of it; it
+requires perusal. The criticism of Dr. Johnson is terse and just: it is
+remarkable, he says, for "the novelty of paradoxes, the dignity of
+sentiment, the quick succession of images, the multitude of abstruse
+allusions, the subtilty of disquisition, and the strength of language." As
+the portraiture of an inner life, it is admirable; and the accusation of
+heterodoxy brought against him on account of a few careless passages is
+unjust.
+
+Among his other works are _Essays on Vulgar Errors_ (_Pseudoxia
+Epidemica_), and _Hydriotaphica_ or _Urne burial_; the latter suggested by
+the exhumation of some sepulchral remains in Norfolk, which led him to
+treat with great learning of the funeral rites of all nations. To this he
+afterwards added _The Garden of Cyrus, or The Quincunxial Lozenge_, in
+which, in the language of Coleridge, he finds quincunxes "in heaven above,
+in the earth below, in the mind of man, in tones, optic nerves, in the
+roots of trees, in leaves, in everything." He died in 1682.
+
+Numerous sects, all finding doctrine and forms in the Bible, were the
+issue of the religious and political controversies of the day. Without
+entering into a consideration or even an enumeration of these, we now
+mention a few of the principal names among them.
+
+
+RICHARD BAXTER.--Among the most devout, independent, and popular of the
+religious writers of the day, Richard Baxter occupies a high rank. He was
+born in 1615, and was ordained a clergyman in 1638. In the civil troubles
+he desired to remain neutral, and he opposed Cromwell when he was made
+Protector. In 1662 he left the Church, and was soon the subject of
+persecution: he was always the champion of toleration. In prison, poor,
+hunted about from place to place, he was a martyr in spirit. During his
+great earthly troubles he was solaced by a vision, which he embodied in
+his popular work, _The Saints' Everlasting Rest_; and he wrote with great
+fervor _A Call to the Unconverted_. He was a very voluminous writer; the
+brutal Judge Jeffries, before whom he appeared for trial, called him "an
+old knave, who had written books enough to load a cart." He wrote a
+paraphrase of the New Testament, and numerous discourses. Dr. Johnson
+advised Boswell, when speaking of Baxter's works: "Read any of them; they
+are all good." He continued preaching until the close of his life, and
+died peacefully in 1691.
+
+
+GEORGE FOX.--The founder of the Society of Friends was born in 1624, in an
+humble condition of life, and at an early age was apprenticed to a
+shoemaker and grazier. Uneducated and unknown, he considered himself as
+the subject of special religious providence, and at length as
+supernaturally called of God. Suddenly abandoning his servile occupation,
+he came out in 1647, at the age of twenty-three, as the founder of a new
+sect; an itinerant preacher, he rebuked the multitudes which he assembled
+by his fervent words. Much of his success was due to his earnestness and
+self-abnegation. He preached in all parts of England, and visited the
+American colonies. The name Quaker is said to have been applied to this
+sect in 1650, when Fox, arraigned before Judge Bennet, told him to
+"tremble at the word of the Lord." The establishment of this sect by such
+a man is one of the strongest illustrations of the eager religious inquiry
+of the age.
+
+The works of Fox are a very valuable _Journal of his Life and Travels_;
+_Letters and Testimonies_; _Gospel Truth Demonstrated_,--all of which form
+the best statement of the origin and tenets of his sect. Fox was a solemn,
+reverent, absorbed man; a great reader and fluent expounder of the
+Scriptures, but fanatical and superstitious; a believer in witchcraft, and
+in his power to detect witches. The sect which he founded, and which has
+played so respectable a part in later history, is far more important than
+the founder himself. He died in London in 1690.
+
+
+WILLIAM PENN.--The fame of Fox in America has been eclipsed by that of his
+chief convert William Penn. In an historical or biographical work, the
+life of Penn would demand extended mention; but his name is introduced
+here only as one of the theological writers of the day. He was born in
+1644, and while a student at Oxford was converted to the Friends' doctrine
+by the preaching of Thomas Loe, a colleague of George Fox. The son of
+Admiral Sir William Penn, he was the ward of James II., and afterwards
+Lord Proprietary and founder of Pennsylvania. Persecuted for his tenets,
+he was frequently imprisoned for his preaching and writings. In 1668 he
+wrote _Truth Exalted_ and _The Sandy Foundation_, and when imprisoned for
+these, he wrote in jail his most famous work, _No Cross, no Crown_.
+
+After the expulsion of James II., Penn was repeatedly tried and acquitted
+for alleged attempts to aid the king in recovering his throne. The
+malignity of Lord Macaulay has reproduced the charges, but reversed, most
+unjustly, the acquittals. His record occupies a large space in American
+history, and he is reverenced for having established a great colony on the
+basis of brotherly love. Poor and infirm, he died in 1718.
+
+
+ROBERT BARCLAY, who was born in 1648, is only mentioned in this connection
+on account of his Latin apology for the Quakers, written in 1676, and
+translated since into English.
+
+
+JOHN BUNYAN.--Among the curious religious outcroppings of the civil war,
+none is more striking and singular than John Bunyan. He produced a work of
+a decidedly polemical character, setting forth his peculiar doctrines,
+and--a remarkable feature in the course of English literature--a story so
+interesting and vivid that it has met with universal perusal and
+admiration. It is at the same time an allegory which has not its equal in
+the language. Rhetoricians must always mention the Pilgrim's Progress as
+the most splendid example of the allegory.
+
+Bunyan was born in Elston, Bedfordshire, in 1628. The son of a tinker, his
+childhood and early manhood were idle and vicious. A sudden and sharp
+rebuke from a woman not much better than himself, for his blasphemy, set
+him to thinking, and he soon became a changed man. In 1653 he joined the
+Baptists, and soon, without preparation, began to preach. For this he was
+thrown into jail, where he remained for more than twelve years. It was
+during this period that, with no other books than the Bible and Fox's Book
+of Martyrs, he excogitated his allegory. In 1672 he was released through
+the influence of Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln. He immediately began to
+preach, and continued to do so until 1688, when he died from a fever
+brought on by exposure.
+
+In his first work, _Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners_, he gives us
+his own experience,--fearful dreams of early childhood, his sins and
+warnings in the parliamentary army, with divers temptations, falls, and
+struggles.
+
+Of his great work, _The Pilgrim's Progress_, it is hardly necessary to
+speak at length. The story of the Pilgrim, Christian, is known to all
+English readers, large and little; how he left the City of Destruction,
+and journeyed towards the Celestial City; of his thrilling adventures; of
+the men and things that retarded his progress, and of those who helped him
+forward. No one has ever discoursed with such vivid description and
+touching pathos of the Land of Beulah, the Delectable Mountains, the
+Christian's inward rapture at the glimpse of the Celestial City, and his
+faith-sustaining descent into the Valley of the Shadow of Death! As a work
+of art, it is inimitable; as a book of religious instruction, it is more
+to be admired for sentiment than for logic; its influence upon children is
+rather that of a high-wrought romance than of godly precept. It is a
+curious reproduction, with a slight difference in cast, of the morality
+play of an earlier time. Mercy, Piety, Christian, Hopeful, Greatheart,
+Faithful, are representatives of Christian graces; and, as in the
+morality, the Prince of Darkness figures as Apollyon.
+
+Bunyan also wrote _The Holy War_, an allegory, which describes the contest
+between Immanuel and Diabolus for the conquest of the city of Mansoul.
+This does not by any means share the popularity of _The Pilgrim's
+Progress_. The language of all his works is common and idiomatic, but
+precise and strong: it is the vigorous English of an unpretending man,
+without the graces of the schools, but expressing his meaning with
+remarkable clearness. Like Milton's Paradise Lost, Bunyan's allegory has
+been improperly placed by many persons on a par with the Bible as a body
+of Christian doctrine, and for instruction in righteousness.
+
+
+ROBERT SOUTH.--This eccentric clergyman was born in 1633. While king's
+scholar at Dr. Busby's school in London, he led the devotions on the day
+of King Charles' execution, and prayed for his majesty by name. At first a
+Puritan, he became a churchman, and took orders. He was learned and
+eloquent; but his sermons, which were greatly admired at the time, contain
+many oddities, forced conceits, and singular anti-climaxes, which gained
+for him the appellation of the witty churchman.
+
+He is accused of having been too subservient to Charles II.; and he also
+is considered as displaying not a little vindictiveness in his attacks on
+his former colleagues the Puritans. He is only known to this age by his
+sermons, which are still published and read.
+
+
+
+OTHER THEOLOGICAL WRITERS.
+
+
+_Isaac Barrow_, 1630-1677: a man of varied learning, a traveller in the
+East, and an oriental scholar. He was appointed Professor of Greek at
+Cambridge, and also lectured on Mathematics. He was a profound thinker and
+a weighty writer, principally known by his courses of sermons on the
+Decalogue, the Creed, and the Sacraments.
+
+_Edward Stillingfleet_, 1635-1699: a clergyman of the Church of England,
+he was appointed Bishop of Worcester. Many of his sermons have been
+published. Among his treatises is one entitled, _Irenicum, a Weapon-Salve
+for the Churches Wounds, or the Divine Right of Particular Forms of Church
+Government Discussed and Examined_. "The argument," says Bishop Burnet,
+"was managed with so much learning and skill that none of either side ever
+undertook to answer it." He also wrote _Origines Sacræ, or a Rational
+Account of the Christian Faith_, and various treatises in favor of
+Protestantism and against the Church of Rome.
+
+_William Sherlock_, 1678-1761: he was Dean of St. Paul's, and a writer of
+numerous doctrinal discourses, among which are those on _The Trinity_, and
+on _Death and the Future Judgment_. His son, Thomas Sherlock, D.D., born
+1678, was also a distinguished theological writer.
+
+_Gilbert Burnet_, 1643-1715: he was very much of a politician, and played
+a prominent part in the Revolution. He was made Bishop of Salisbury in
+1689. He is principally known by his _History of the Reformation_, written
+in the Protestant interest, and by his greater work, the _History of my
+Own Times_. Not without a decided bias, this latter work is specially
+valuable as the narration of an eye-witness. The history has been
+variously criticized for prejudice and inaccuracy; but it fills what would
+otherwise have been a great vacuum in English historical literature.
+
+_John Locke_, 1632-1704. In a history of philosophy, the name of this
+distinguished philosopher would occupy a prominent place, and his works
+would require extended notice. But it is not amiss to introduce him
+briefly in this connection, because his works all have an ethical
+significance. He was educated as a physician, and occupied several
+official positions, in which he suffered from the vicissitudes of
+political fortune, being once obliged to retreat from persecution to
+Holland. His _Letters on Toleration_ is a noble effort to secure the
+freedom of conscience: his _Treatises on Civil Government_ were specially
+designed to refute Sir John Filmer's _Patriarcha_, and to overthrow the
+principle of the _Jus Divinum_. His greatest work is an _Essay on the
+Human Understanding_. This marks an era in English thought, and has done
+much to invite attention to the subject of intellectual philosophy. He
+derives our ideas from the two sources, _sensation_ and _reflection_; and
+although many of his views have been superseded by the investigations of
+later philosophers, it is due to him in some degree that their inquiries
+have been possible.
+
+
+
+DIARISTS AND ANTIQUARIANS.
+
+
+_John Evelyn_, 1620-1705. Among the unintentional historians of England,
+none are of more value than those who have left detailed and gossiping
+diaries of the times in which they lived: among these Evelyn occupies a
+prominent place. He was a gentleman of education and position, who, after
+the study of law, travelled extensively, and resided several years in
+France. He had varied accomplishments. His _Sylva_ is a discourse on
+forest trees and on the propagation of timber in his majesty's dominions.
+To this he afterwards added _Pomona_, or a treatise on fruit trees. He was
+also the author of an essay on _A Parallel of the Ancient Architecture
+with the Modern_. But the work by which he is now best known is his
+_Diary_ from 1641 to 1705; it is a necessary companion to the study of
+the history of that period; and has been largely consulted by modern
+writers in making up the historic record of the time.
+
+_Samuel Pepys_, 1637-1703. This famous diarist was the son of a London
+tailor. He received a collegiate education, and became a connoisseur in
+literature and art. Of a prying disposition, he saw all that he could of
+the varied political, literary, and social life of England; and has
+recorded what he saw in a diary so quaint, simple, and amusing, that it
+has retained its popularity to the present day, and has greatly aided the
+historian both in facts and philosophy. He held an official position as
+secretary in the admiralty, the duties of which he discharged with great
+system and skill. In addition to this _Diary_, we have also his
+_Correspondence_, published after his death, which is historically of
+great importance. In both diary and correspondence he has the charm of
+great _naïveté_,--as of a curious and gossiping observer, who never
+dreamed that his writings would be made public. Men and women of social
+station are painted in pre-Raphaelite style, and figure before us with
+great truth and vividness.
+
+_Elias Ashmole_, 1617-1693. This antiquarian and virtuoso is principally
+known as the founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. He studied law,
+chemistry, and natural philosophy. Besides an edition of the manuscript
+works of certain English chemists, he wrote _Bennevennu_,--the description
+of a Roman road mentioned in the Itinerary of Antoninus,--and a _History
+of the Order of the Garter_. His _Diary_ was published nearly a century
+after his death, but is by no means equal in value to those of Evelyn and
+Pepys.
+
+_John Aubrey_, 1627-1697: a man of curious mind, Aubrey investigated the
+supernatural topics of the day, and presented them to the world in his
+_Miscellanies_. Among these subjects it is interesting to notice "blows
+invisible," and "knockings," which have been resuscitated in the present
+day. He was a "perambulator," and, in the words of one of his critics,
+"picked up information on the highway, and scattered it everywhere as
+authentic." His most valuable contribution to history is found in his
+_Letters Written by Eminent Persons in the 17th and 18th Centuries, with
+Lives of Eminent Men_. The searcher for authentic material must carefully
+scrutinize Aubrey's _facts_; but, with much that is doubtful, valuable
+information may be obtained from his pages.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE DRAMA OF THE RESTORATION.
+
+
+   The License of the Age. Dryden. Wycherley. Congreve. Vanbrugh.
+   Farquhar. Etherege. Tragedy. Otway. Rowe. Lee. Southern.
+
+
+
+THE LICENSE OF THE AGE.
+
+
+There is no portion of the literature of this period which so fully
+represents and explains the social history of the age as the drama. With
+the restoration of Charles it returned to England, after a time in which
+the chief faults had been too great rigor in morals. The theatres had been
+closed, all amusements checked, and even poetry and the fine arts placed
+under a ban. In the reign of Charles I., Prynne had written his _Histrio
+Mastix_, or Scourge of the Stage, in which he not only denounced all stage
+plays, but music and dancing; and also declaimed against hunting, festival
+days, the celebration of Christmas, and Maypoles. For this he was indicted
+in the Star Chamber for libel, and was sentenced to stand in the pillory,
+to lose his ears, to pay the king a fine of £5000, and to be imprisoned
+for life. For his attack there was much excuse in the license of the
+former period; but when puritanism, in its turn, was brought under the
+three spears, the drama was to come back tenfold more injurious and more
+immoral than before.
+
+From the stern and gloomy morals of the Commonwealth we now turn to the
+debaucheries of the court,--from cropped heads and dark cloaks to plumes
+and velvet, gold lace and embroidery,--to the varied fashions of every
+kind for which Paris has always been renowned, and which Charles brought
+back with him from his exile;--from prudish morals to indiscriminate
+debauchery; from the exercisings of brewers' clerks, the expounding of
+tailors, the catechizing of watermen, to the stage, which was now loudly
+petitioned to supply amusement and novelty. Macaulay justly says: "The
+restraints of that gloomy time were such as would have been impatiently
+borne, if imposed by men who were universally believed to be saints; these
+restraints became altogether insupportable when they were known to be kept
+up for the profit of hypocrites! It is quite certain that if the royal
+family had never returned, there would have been a great relaxation of
+manners." It is equally certain, let us add, that morals would not have
+been correspondingly relaxed. The revulsion was terrible. In no period of
+English history was society ever so grossly immoral; and the drama, which
+we now come to consider, displays this immorality and license with a
+perfect delineation.
+
+The English people had always been fond of the drama in all its forms, and
+were ready to receive it even contaminated as it was by the licentious
+spirit of the time. An illiterate and ignorant people cannot think for
+themselves; they act upon the precepts and example of those above them in
+knowledge and social station: thus it is that a dissolute monarch and a
+subservient aristocracy corrupt the masses.
+
+
+DRYDEN'S PLAYS.--Although Dryden's reputation is based on his other poems,
+and although his dramas have conduced scarcely at all to his fame, he did
+play a principal part in this department of literary work. Dryden made
+haste to answer the call, and his venal muse wrote to please the town. The
+names of many of his plays and personages are foreign; but their vitality
+is purely English. Of his first play, _The Duke of Guise_, which was
+unsuccessful, he tells us: "I undertook this as the fairest way which the
+Act of Indemnity had left us, as setting forth the rise of the great
+rebellion, and of exposing the villanies of it upon the stage, to
+precaution posterity against the like errors;"--a rebellion the
+master-spirit of which he had eulogized upon his bier!
+
+His second play, _The Wild Gallant_, may be judged by the fact that it won
+for him the favor of Charles II. and of his mistress, the Duchess of
+Cleveland. Pepys saw it "well acted;" but says, "It hath little good in
+it." It is not our purpose to give a list of Dryden's plays; besides their
+occasional lewdness, they are very far inferior to his poems, and are now
+rarely read except by the historical student. They paid him in ready
+money, and he cannot ask payment from posterity in fame.
+
+On the 13th of January, 1667-8, (we are told by Pepys,) the ladies and the
+Duke of Monmouth acted _The Indian Emperour_ at court.
+
+The same chronicler says: _The Maiden Queene_ was "mightily commended for
+the regularity of it, and the strain and wit;" but of the _Ladys à la
+Mode_ he says it was "so mean a thing" that, when it was announced for the
+next night, the pit "fell a laughing, because the house was not a quarter
+full."
+
+But Dryden, as a playwright, does not enjoy the infamous honor of a high
+rank among his fellow-dramatists. The proper representations of the drama
+in that age were, in Comedy, Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar;
+and, in Tragedy, Otway, Rowe, and Lee.
+
+
+WYCHERLEY.--Of the comedists of this period, where all were evil, William
+Wycherley was the worst. In his four plays, _Love in a Wood_, _The
+Gentleman Dancing-Master_, _The Country Wife_, and _The Plain Dealer_, he
+outrages all decency, ridicules honesty and virtue, and makes vice always
+triumphant. As a young man, profligate with pen and in his life, he was a
+wicked old man; for, when sixty-four years of age, he published a
+miscellany of verses of which Macaulay says: "The style and versification
+are beneath criticism: the morals are those of Rochester." And yet it is
+sad to be obliged to say that his characters pleased the age, because such
+men and women really lived then, and acted just as he describes them. He
+depicted vice to applaud and not to punish it. Wycherley was born in 1640,
+and died in 1715.
+
+
+CONGREVE.--William Congreve, who is of the same school of morals, is far
+superior as a writer; indeed, were one name to be selected in illustration
+of our subject, it would be his. He was born in 1666, and, after being
+educated at Trinity College, Dublin, was a student at the Middle Temple.
+His first play, _The Old Bachelor_, produced in his twenty-first year, was
+a great success, and won for him the patronage of Lord Halifax. His next,
+_The Double Dealer_, caused Dryden to proclaim him the equal of
+Shakspeare! Perhaps his most famous comedy is _Love for Love_, which is
+besides an excellent index to the morality of the age. The author was
+quoted and caressed; Pope dedicated to him his Translation of the Iliad;
+and Voltaire considered him the most successful English writer of comedy.
+His merit consists in some degree of originality, and in the liveliness of
+his colloquies. His wit is brilliant and flashing, but, in the words of
+Thackeray, the world to him "seems to have had no moral at all."
+
+How much he owed to the French school, and especially to Molière, may be
+judged from the fact that a whole scene in _Love for Love_ is borrowed
+from the _Don Juan_ of Molière. It is that in which Trapland comes to
+collect his debt from Valentine Legend. Readers of Molière will recall the
+scene between Don Juan, Sganarelle and M. Dimanche, which is here, with
+change of names, taken almost word for word. His men are gallants neither
+from love or passion, but from the custom of the age, of which it is said,
+"it would break Mr. Tattle's heart to think anybody else should be
+beforehand with him;" and Mr. Tattle was the type of a thousand fine
+gentlemen in the best English society of that day.
+
+His only tragedy, _The Mourning Bride_, although far below those of
+Shakspeare, is the best of that age; and Dr. Johnson says he would go to
+it to find the most poetical paragraph in the range of English poetry.
+Congreve died in 1729, leaving his gains to the Duchess of Marlborough,
+who cherished his memory in a very original fashion. She had a statue of
+him in ivory, which went by clockwork, and was daily seated at her table;
+and another wax-doll imitation, whose feet she caused to be blistered and
+anointed by physicians, as the poet's gouty extremities had been.
+
+Congreve was not ashamed to vindicate the drama, licentious as it was. In
+the year 1698, Jeremy Collier, a distinguished nonjuring clergyman,
+published _A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English
+Stage_; a very vigorous and severe criticism, containing a great deal of
+wholesome but bitter truth. Congreve came to the defence of the stage, and
+his example was followed by his brother dramatists. But Collier was too
+strong for his enemies, and the defences were very weak. There yet existed
+in England that leaven of purity which has steadily since been making its
+influence felt.
+
+
+VANBRUGH.--Sir John Vanbrugh (born in 1666, died in 1726) was an architect
+as well as a dramatist, but not great in either rôle. His principal dramas
+are _The Provoked Wife_, _The City Wives' Confederacy_, and _The Journey
+to London_ (finished by Colley Cibber). His personages are vicious and
+lewd, but quite real; and his wit is constant and flowing. _The Provoked
+Wife_ is so licentious a play that it is supposed Vanbrugh afterwards
+conceived and began his _Provoked Husband_ to make some amends for it.
+This latter play, however, he did not complete: it was finished after his
+death by Cibber, who says in the Prologue:
+
+    This play took birth from principles of truth,
+    To make amends for errors past of youth.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Though vice is natural, 't was never meant
+    The stage should show it but for punishment.
+    Warm with such thoughts, his muse once more took flame,
+    Resolved to bring licentious life to shame.
+
+If Vanbrugh was not born in France, it is certain that he spent many years
+there, and there acquired the taste and handling of the comic drama, which
+then had its halcyon days under Molière. His dialogue is very spirited,
+and his humor is greater than that of Congreve, who, however, excelled him
+in wit.
+
+The principal architectural efforts of Vanbrugh were the design for Castle
+Howard, and the palace of Blenheim, built for Marlborough by the English
+nation, both of which are greater titles to enduring reputation than any
+of his plays.
+
+
+FARQUHAR.--George Farquhar was born in Londonderry, in 1678, and began his
+studies at Trinity College, Dublin, but was soon stage-struck, and became
+an actor. Not long after, he was commissioned in the army, and began to
+write plays in the style and moral tone of the age. Among his nine
+comedies, those which present that tone best are his _Love in a Bottle_,
+_The Constant Couple_, _The Recruiting Officer_, and _The Beaux'
+Stratagem_. All his productions were hastily written, but met with great
+success from their gayety and clever plots, especially the last two
+mentioned, which are not, besides, so immoral as the others, and which are
+yet acted upon the British stage.
+
+
+ETHEREGE.--Sir George Etherege, a coxcomb and a diplomatist, was born in
+1636, and died in 1694. His plays are, equally with the others mentioned,
+marked by the licentiousness of the age, which is rendered more insidious
+by their elegance. Among them are _The Comical Revenge, or Love in a
+Tub_, and _The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter_.
+
+
+
+TRAGEDY.
+
+
+The domain of tragedy, although perhaps not so attractive to the English
+people as comedy, was still sufficiently so to invite the attention of the
+literati. The excitement which is produced by exaggerated scenes of
+distress and death has always had a charm for the multitude; and although
+the principal tragedies of this period are based upon heroic stories, many
+of them of classic origin, the genius of the writer displayed itself in
+applying these to his own times, and in introducing that "touch of nature"
+which "makes the whole world kin." Human sympathy is based upon a
+community of suffering, and the sorrows of one age are similar to those of
+another. Besides, tragedy served, in the period of which we are speaking,
+to give variety and contrast to what would otherwise have been the gay
+monotony of the comic muse.
+
+
+OTWAY.--The first writer to be mentioned in this field, is Thomas Otway
+(born in 1651, died in 1685). He led an irregular and wretched life, and
+died, it is said, from being choked by a roll of bread which, after great
+want, he was eating too ravenously.
+
+His style is extravagant, his pathos too exacting, and his delineation of
+the passions sensational and overwrought. He produced in his earlier
+career _Alcibiades_ and _Don Carlos_, and, later, _The Orphan_, and _The
+Soldier's Fortune_. But the piece by which his fame was secured is _Venice
+Preserved_, which, based upon history, is fictional in its details. The
+original story is found in the Abbé de St. Real's _Histoire de la
+Conjuration du Marquis de Bedamar_, or the account of a Spanish conspiracy
+in which the marquis, who was ambassador, took part. It is still put upon
+the stage, with the omission, however, of the licentious comic portions
+found in the original play.
+
+
+NICHOLAS ROWE, who was born in 1673, a man of fortune and a government
+official, produced seven tragedies, of which _The Fair Penitent_, _Lady
+Jane Grey_, and _Jane Shore_ are the best. His description of the lover,
+in the first, has become a current phrase: "That haughty, gallant, gay
+Lothario,"--the prototype of false lovers since. The plots are too broad,
+but the moral of these tragedies is in most cases good.
+
+In _Jane Shore_, he has followed the history of the royal mistress, and
+has given a moral lesson of great efficacy.
+
+
+NATHANIEL LEE, 1657-1692: was a man of dissolute life, for some time
+insane, and met his death in a drunken brawl. Of his ten tragedies, the
+best are _The Rival Queens_, and _Theodosius, or The Force of Love_. The
+rival queens of Alexander the Great--Roxana and Statira--figure in the
+first, which is still presented upon the stage. It has been called, with
+just critical point, "A great and glorious flight of a bold but frenzied
+imagination, having as much absurdity as sublimity, and as much
+extravagance as passion; the poet, the genius, the scholar are everywhere
+visible."
+
+
+THOMAS SOUTHERN, 1659-1746: wrote _Isabella, or The Fatal Marriage_, and
+_Oronooko_. In the latter, although yielding to the corrupt taste of the
+time in his comic parts, he causes his captive Indian prince to teach that
+period a lesson by his pure and noble love for Imoinda. Oronooko is a
+prince taken by the English at Surinam and carried captive to England.
+
+These writers are the best representatives of those who in tragedy and
+comedy form the staple of that age. Their models were copied in succeeding
+years; but, with the expulsion of the Stuarts, morals were somewhat
+mended; and while light, gay, and witty productions for the stage were
+still in demand, the extreme licentiousness was repudiated by the public;
+and the plays of Cibber, Cumberland, Colman, and Sheridan, reflecting
+these better tastes, are free from much of the pollution to which we have
+referred.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+POPE, AND THE ARTIFICIAL SCHOOL.
+
+
+   Contemporary History. Birth and Early Life. Essay on Criticism. Rape of
+   the Lock. The Messiah. The Iliad. Value of the Translation. The
+   Odyssey. Essay on Man. The Artificial School. Estimate of Pope. Other
+   Writers.
+
+
+
+Alexander Pope is at once one of the greatest names in English literature
+and one of the most remarkable illustrations of the fact that the
+literature is the interpreter of English history. He was also a man of
+singular individuality, and may, in some respects, be considered a _lusus
+naturæ_ among the literary men of his day.
+
+
+CONTEMPORARY HISTORY.--He was born in London on the 21st of May, 1688, the
+year which witnessed the second and final expulsion of the Stuarts, in
+direct line, and the accession of a younger branch in the persons of Mary
+and her husband, William of Orange. Pope comes upon the literary scene
+with the new order of political affairs. A dynasty had been overthrown,
+and the power of the parliament had been established; new charters of
+right had secured the people from kingly oppression; but there was still a
+strong element of opposition and sedition in the Jacobite party, which had
+by no means abandoned the hope of restoring the former rule. They were
+kept in check, indeed, during the reign of William and Mary, but they
+became bolder upon the accession of Queen Anne. They hoped to find their
+efforts facilitated by the fact that she was childless; and they even
+asserted that upon her death-bed she had favored the succession of the
+pretender, whom they called James III.
+
+In 1715, the year after the accession of George I., the electoral prince
+of Hanover,--whose grandmother was the daughter of James I.,--they broke
+out into open rebellion. The pretender landed in Scotland, and made an
+abortive attempt to recover the throne. The nation was kept in a state of
+excitement and turmoil until the disaster of Culloden, and the final
+defeat of Charles Edward, the young pretender, in 1745, one year after the
+death of Pope.
+
+These historical facts had a direct influence upon English society: the
+country was divided into factions; and political conflicts sharpened the
+wits and gave vigor to the conduct of men in all ranks. Pope was an
+interpreter of his age, in politics, in general culture, and in social
+manners and morals. Thus he was a politician among the statesmen
+Bolingbroke, Buckingham, Oxford, Sunderland, Halifax, Harley, and
+Marlborough. His _Essay on Criticism_ presents to us the artificial taste
+and technical rules which were established as a standard in literature.
+His _Essay on Man_, his _Moral Epistles_, and his _Universal Prayer_ are
+an index to the semi-Christian, semi-Grecian ethics of an age too selfish
+to be orthodox, and too progressive to be intolerant. His _Rape of the
+Lock_ is a striking picture of social life, sketched by the hand of a
+gentle satire. His translations of Homer, and their great success, are
+significant of a more extended taste for scholarship; not attended,
+however, with many incentives to originality of production. The nobles
+were still the patrons of literature, and they fancied old things which
+were grand, in new and gaudy English dresses. The age was also marked by
+rapid and uniform progress in the English language. The sonorous, but
+cumbrous English of Milton had been greatly improved by Dryden; and we
+have seen, also, that the terse and somewhat crude diction of Dryden's
+earlier works had been polished and rendered more harmonious in his later
+poems.
+
+This harmony of language seemed to Pope and to his patrons the chief aim
+of the poet, and to make it still more tuneful and melodious was the
+purpose of his life.
+
+
+BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE.--Pope was the son of a respectable linen-draper, who
+had achieved a competency and retired to enjoy it. The mother of the poet
+must have been a good one, to have retained the ardent and eulogistic
+affection of her son to the close of her life, as she did. This attachment
+is a marked feature in his biography, and at last finds vent in her
+epitaph, in which he calls her "_mater optima, mulierum amantissima_."
+
+Pope was a sickly, dwarfed, precocious child. His early studies in Latin
+and Greek were conducted by priests of the Roman Catholic Church, to which
+his parents belonged; but he soon took his education into his own hands.
+Alone and unaided he pursued his classical studies, and made good progress
+in French and German.
+
+Of his early rhyming powers he says:
+
+    "I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came."
+
+At the age of twelve, he was taken to Will's Coffee-house, to see the
+great Dryden, upon whom, as a model, he had already determined to fashion
+himself.
+
+His first efforts were translations. He made English versions of the first
+book of the _Thebais_ of Statius; several of the stories of Chaucer, and
+one of Ovid's Epistles, all of which were produced before he was fifteen.
+
+
+ESSAY ON CRITICISM.--He was not quite twenty-one when he wrote his _Essay
+on Criticism_, in which he lays down the canons of just criticism, and the
+causes which prevent it. In illustration, he attacks the multitude of
+critics of that day, and is particularly harsh in his handling of a few
+among them. He gained a name by this excellent poem, but he made many
+enemies, and among them one John Dennis, whom he had satirized under the
+name of Appius. Dennis was his life-long foe.
+
+Perhaps there is no better proof of the lasting and deserved popularity of
+this Essay, than the numerous quotations from it, not only in works on
+rhetoric and literary criticism, but in our ordinary intercourse with men.
+Couplets and lines have become household words wherever the English
+language is spoken. How often do we hear the sciolist condemned in these
+words:
+
+    A little learning is a dangerous thing;
+    Drink deep, or touch not the Pierian spring?
+
+Irreverence and rash speculation are satirized thus:
+
+    Nay, fly to altars; there they'll talk you dead,
+    For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
+
+We may waive a special notice of his _Pastorals_, which, like those of
+Dryden, are but clever imitations of Theocritus and anachronisms of the
+Alexandrian period. Of their merits, we may judge from his own words. "If
+they have any merit, it is to be attributed to some good old authors,
+whose works as I had leisure to study, so I hope I have not wanted care to
+imitate."
+
+
+RAPE OF THE LOCK.--The poem which displays most originality of invention
+is the _Rape of the Lock_. It is, perhaps, the best and most charming
+specimen of the mock-heroic to be found in English; and it is specially
+deserving of attention, because it depicts the social life of the period
+in one of its principal phases. Miss Arabella Fermor, one of the reigning
+beauties of London society, while on a pleasure party on the Thames, had a
+lock of her hair surreptitiously cut off by Lord Petre. Although it was
+designed as a joke, the belle was very angry; and Pope, who was a friend
+of both persons, wrote this poem to assuage her wrath and to reconcile
+them. It has all the system and construction of an epic. The poet
+describes, with becoming delicacy, the toilet of the lady, at which she is
+attended by obsequious sylphs.
+
+The party embark upon the river, and the fair lady is described in the
+splendor of her charms:
+
+    This nymph, to the destruction of mankind,
+    Nourished two locks, which graceful hung behind
+    In equal curls, and well conspired to deck,
+    With shining ringlets, the smooth, ivory neck.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare.
+    And beauty draws us by a single hair.
+
+Surrounding sylphs protect the beauty; and one to whom the lock has been
+given in charge, flutters unfortunately too near, and is clipped in two by
+the scissors that cut the lock. It is a rather extravagant conclusion,
+even in a mock-heroic poem, that when the strife was greatest to restore
+the lock, it flew upward:
+
+    A sudden star, it shot through liquid air,
+    And drew behind a radiant trail of hair,
+
+and thus, and always, it
+
+    Adds new glory to the shining sphere.
+
+With these simple and meagre materials, Pope has constructed an harmonious
+poem in which the sylphs, gnomes, and other sprites of the Rosicrucian
+philosophy find appropriate place and service. It failed in its principal
+purpose of reconciliation, but it has given us the best mock-heroic poem
+in the language. As might have been expected, it called forth bitter
+criticisms from Dennis; and there were not wanting those who saw in it a
+political significance. Pope's pleasantry was aroused at this, and he
+published _A Key to the Lock_, in which he further mystifies these sage
+readers: Belinda becomes Great Britain; the Baron is the Earl of Oxford;
+and Thalestris is the Duchess of Marlborough.
+
+
+THE MESSIAH.--In 1712 there appeared in one of the numbers of _The
+Spectator_, his _Messiah, a Sacred Eclogue_, written with the purpose of
+harmonizing the prophecy of Isaiah and the singular oracles of the Pollio,
+or Fourth Eclogue of Virgil. Elevated in thought and grand in diction, the
+Messiah has kept its hold upon public favor ever since, and portions of it
+are used as hymns in general worship. Among these will be recognized that
+of which the opening lines are:
+
+    Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise;
+    Exalt thy towering head and lift thine eyes.
+
+In 1713 he published a poem on _Windsor Forest_, and an _Ode on St.
+Cecilia's Day_, in imitation of Dryden. He also furnished the beautiful
+prologue to Addison's Cato.
+
+
+TRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD.--He now proposed to himself a task which was to
+give him more reputation and far greater emolument than anything he had
+yet accomplished--a translation of the Iliad of Homer. This was a great
+desideratum, and men of all parties conspired to encourage and reward him.
+Chapman's Homer, excellent as it was, was not in a popular measure, and
+was known only to scholars.
+
+In the execution of this project, Pope labored for six years--writing by
+day and dreaming of his work at night; translating thirty or forty lines
+before rising in the morning, and jotting down portions even while on a
+journey. Pope's polished pentameters, when read, are very unlike the
+full-voiced hexameters of Homer; but the errors in the translation are
+comparatively few and unimportant, and his own poetry is in his best vein.
+The poem was published by subscription, and was a great pecuniary success.
+This was in part due to the blunt importunity of Dean Swift, who said:
+"The author shall not begin to print until I have a thousand guineas for
+him." Parnell, one of the most accomplished Greek scholars of the day,
+wrote a life of Homer, to be prefixed to the work; and many of the
+critical notes were written by Broome, who had translated the Iliad into
+English prose. Pope was not without poetical rivals. Tickell produced a
+translation of the first book of the Iliad, which was certainly revised,
+and many thought partly written, by Addison. A coolness already existing
+between Pope and Addison was increased by this circumstance, which soon
+led to an open rupture between them. The public, however, favored Pope's
+version, while a few of the _dilettanti_ joined Addison in preferring
+Tickell's.
+
+The pecuniary results of Pope's labors were particularly gratifying. The
+work was published in six quarto volumes, and had more than six hundred
+subscribers, at six guineas a copy: the amount realized by Pope on the
+first and subsequent issues was upwards of five thousand pounds--an
+unprecedented payment of bookseller to author in that day.
+
+
+VALUE OF THE TRANSLATION.--This work, in spite of the criticism of exact
+scholars, has retained its popularity to the present time. Chapman's Homer
+has been already referred to. Since the days of Pope numerous authors have
+tried their hands upon Homer, translating the whole or a part. Among these
+is a very fine poem by Cowper, in blank verse, which is praised by the
+critics, but little read. Lord Derby's translation is distinguished for
+its prosaic accuracy. The recent version of our venerable poet, Wm. C.
+Bryant, is acknowledged to be at once scholarly, accurate, and harmonious,
+and will be of permanent value and reputation. But the exquisite tinkling
+of Pope's lines, the pleasant refrain they leave in the memory, like the
+chiming of silver bells, will cause them to last, with undiminished favor,
+unaffected by more correct rivals, as long as the language itself. "A very
+pretty poem, Mr. Pope," said the great Bentley; "but pray do not call it
+Homer." Despite this criticism of the Greek scholar, the world has taken
+it for Homer, and knows Homer almost solely through this charming medium.
+
+The Iliad was issued in successive years, the last two volumes appearing
+in 1720. Of course it was savagely attacked by Dennis; but Pope had won
+more than he had hoped for, and might laugh at his enemies.
+
+With the means he had inherited, increased by the sale of his poem, Pope
+leased a villa on the Thames, at Twickenham, which he fitted up as a
+residence for life. He laid out the grounds, built a grotto, and made his
+villa a famous spot.
+
+Here he was smitten by the masculine charms of the gifted Lady Mary
+Wortley Montagu, who figures in many of his verses, and particularly in
+the closing lines of the _Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard_. It was a singular
+alliance, destined to a speedy rupture. On her return from Turkey, in
+1718, where her husband had been the English ambassador, she took a home
+near Pope's villa, and, at his request, sat for her portrait. When, later,
+they became estranged, she laughed at the poet, and his coldness turned
+into hatred.
+
+
+THE ODYSSEY.--The success of his version of the Iliad led to his
+translation of the Odyssey; but this he did with the collaboration of
+Fenton and Broome, the former writing four and the latter six books. The
+volumes appeared successively in 1725-6, and there was an appendix
+containing the _Batrachomiomachia_, or Battle of the Frogs and Mice,
+translated by Parnell. For this work Pope received the lion's share of
+profits, his co-laborers being paid only £800.
+
+Among his miscellaneous works must be mentioned portions of _Martinus
+Scriblerus_. One of these, _Peri Bathous_, or _Art of Sinking in Poetry_,
+was the germ of The Dunciad.
+
+Like Dryden, he was attacked by the _soi-disant_ poets of the day, and
+retorted in similar style and taste. In imitation of Dryden's
+_MacFlecknoe_, he wrote _The Dunciad_, or epic of the Dunces, in the first
+edition of which Theobald was promoted to the vacant throne. It roused a
+great storm. Authors besieged the publisher to hinder him from publishing
+it, while booksellers and agents were doing all in their power to procure
+it. In a later edition a new book was added, deposing Theobald and
+elevating Colley Cibber to the throne of Dulness. This was ill-advised, as
+the ridicule, which was justly applied to Theobald, is not applicable to
+Cibber.
+
+
+ESSAY ON MAN.--The intercourse of the poet with the gifted but sceptical
+Lord Bolingbroke is apparent in his _Essay on Man_, in which, with much
+that is orthodox and excellent, the principles and influence of his
+lordship are readily discerned. The first part appeared in 1732, and the
+second some years later. The opinion is no longer held that Bolingbroke
+wrote any part of the poem; he has only infected it. It is one of Pope's
+best poems in versification and diction, and abounds with pithy proverbial
+sayings, which the English world has been using ever since as current
+money in conversational barter. Among many that might be selected, the
+following are well known:
+
+    All are but parts of one stupendous whole
+    Whose body nature is, and God the soul.
+
+    Know thou thyself, presume not God to scan;
+    The proper study of mankind is man.
+
+    A wit's a feather, and a chief's a rod;
+    An honest man's the noblest work of God.
+
+Among the historical teachings of Pope's works and career, and also among
+the curiosities of literature, must be noticed the publication of Pope's
+letters, by Curll the bookseller, without the poet's permission. They were
+principally letters to Henry Cromwell, Wycherley, Congreve, Steele,
+Addison, and Swift. There were not wanting those who believed that it was
+a trick of the poet himself to increase his notoriety; but such an
+opinion is hardly warranted. These letters form a valuable chapter in the
+social and literary history of the period.
+
+
+POPE'S DEATH AND CHARACTER.--On the 30th of May, 1744, Pope passed away,
+after a long illness, during which he said he was "dying of a hundred good
+symptoms." Indeed, so frail and weak had he always been, that it was a
+wonder he lived so long. His weakness of body seems to have acted upon his
+strong mind, which must account for much that is satirical and splenetic
+in his writings. Very short, thin, and ill-shaped, his person wanted the
+compactness necessary to stand alone, until it was encased in stays. He
+needed a high chair at table, such as children use; but he was an epicure,
+and a fastidious one; and despite his infirmities, his bright,
+intellectual eye and his courtly manners caused him to be noted quite as
+much as his defects.
+
+
+THE ARTIFICIAL SCHOOL.--Pope has been set forth as the head of the
+_Artificial School_. This is, perhaps, rather a convenient than an exact
+designation. He had little of original genius, but was an apt imitator and
+reproducer--what in painting would be an excellent copyist. His greatest
+praise, however, is that he reduced to system what had gone before him;
+his poems present in themselves an art of poetry, with technical canons
+and illustrations, which were long after servilely obeyed, and the
+influence of which is still felt to-day.
+
+And this artificial school was in the main due to the artificial character
+of the age. Nature seemed to have lost her charms; pastorals were little
+more than private theatricals, enacted with straw hats and shepherd's
+crook in drawing-rooms or on close-clipped lawns. Culture was confined to
+court and town, and poets found little inducement to consult the heart or
+to woo nature, but wrote what would please the town or court. This taste
+gave character to the technical standards, to which Pope, more than any
+other writer, gave system and coherence. Most of the literati were men of
+the town; many were fine gentlemen with a political bias; and thus it is
+that the school of poets of which Pope is the unchallenged head, has been
+known as the Artificial School.
+
+In the passage of time, and with the increase of literature, the real
+merits of Pope were for some time neglected, or misrepresented. The world
+is beginning to discern and recognize these again. Learned, industrious,
+self-reliant, controversial, and, above all, harmonious, instead of giving
+vent to the highest fancies in simple language, he has treated the
+common-place--that which is of universal interest--in melodious and
+splendid diction. But, above all, he stands as the representative of his
+age: a wit among the comic dramatists who were going out and the essayists
+who were coming in; a man of the world with Lady Mary and the gay parties
+on the Thames; a polemic, who dealt keen thrusts and who liked to see them
+rankle, and who yet writhed in agony when the _riposte_ came; a Roman
+Catholic in faith and a latitudinarian in speech;--such was Pope as a type
+of that world in which he lived.
+
+A poet of the first rank he was not; he invented nothing; but he
+established the canons of poetry, attuned to exquisite harmony the rhymed
+couplet which Dryden had made so powerful an instrument, improved the
+language, discerned and reconnected the discordant parts of literature;
+and thus it is that he towers above all the poets of his age, and has sent
+his influence through those that followed, even to the present day.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE PERIOD.
+
+
+_Matthew Prior_, 1664-1721: in his early youth he was a waiter in his
+uncle's tap-room, but, surmounting all difficulties, he rose to be a
+distinguished poet and diplomatist. He was an envoy to France, where he
+was noted for his wit and ready repartee. His love songs are somewhat
+immoral, but exquisitely melodious. His chief poems are: _Alma_, a
+philosophic piece in the vein of Hudibras; _Solomon_, a Scripture poem;
+and, the best of all, _The City and Country Mouse_, a parody on Dryden's
+_Hind and Panther_, which he wrote in conjunction with Mr. Montague. He
+was imprisoned by the Whigs in 1715, and lost all his fortune. He was
+distinguished by having Dr. Johnson as his biographer, in the _Lives of
+the Poets_.
+
+_John Arbuthnot_, 1667-1735: born in Scotland. He was learned, witty, and
+amiable. Eminent in medicine, he was physician to the court of Queen Anne.
+He is chiefly known in literature as the companion of Pope and Swift, and
+as the writer with them of papers in the Martinus Scriblerus Club, which
+was founded in 1714, and of which Pope, Gay, Swift, Arbuthnot, Harvey,
+Atterbury, and others, were the principal members. Arbuthnot wrote a
+_History of John Bull_, which was designed to render the war then carried
+on by Marlborough unpopular, and certainly conduced to that end.
+
+_John Gay_, 1688-1732: he was of humble origin, but rose by his talents,
+and figured at court. He wrote several dramas in a mock-tragic vein. Among
+these are _What D'ye Call It?_ and _Three Hours after Marriage_; but that
+which gave him permanent reputation is his _Beggar's Opera_, of which the
+hero is a highwayman, and the characters are prostitutes and Newgate
+gentry. It is interspersed with gay and lyrical songs, and was rendered
+particularly effective by the fine acting of Miss Elizabeth Fenton, in the
+part of _Polly_. The _Shepherd's Week_, a pastoral, contains more real
+delineations of rural life than any other poem of the period. Another
+curious piece is entitled, _Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of
+London_.
+
+_Thomas Parnell_, 1679-1718: he was the author of numerous poems, among
+which the only one which has retained popular favor is _The Hermit_, a
+touching poem founded upon an older story. He wrote the life of Homer
+prefixed to Pope's translation; but it was very much altered by Pope.
+
+_Thomas Tickell_, 1686-1740: particularly known as the friend of Addison.
+He wrote a translation of the First Book of Homer's Iliad, which was
+corrected by Addison, and contributed several papers to _The Spectator_.
+But he is best known by his _Elegy_ upon Addison, which Dr. Johnson calls
+a very "elegant funeral poem."
+
+_Isaac Watts_, 1674-1765: this great writer of hymns was born at
+Southampton, and became one of the most eminent of the dissenting
+ministers of England. He is principally known by his metrical versions of
+the Psalms, and by a great number of original hymns, which have been
+generally used by all denominations of Christians since. He also produced
+many hymns for children, which have become familiar as household words. He
+had a lyrical ear, and an easy, flowing diction, but is sometimes careless
+in his versification and incorrect in his theology. During the greater
+part of his life the honored guest of Sir Thomas Abney, he devoted himself
+to literature. Besides many sermons, he produced a treatise on _The First
+Principles of Geology and Astronomy_; a work on _Logic, or the Right Use
+of the Reason in the Inquiry after Truth_; and _A Supplement on the
+Improvement of the Mind_. These latter have been superseded as text-books
+by later and more correct inquiry.
+
+_Edward Young_, 1681-1765: in his younger days he sought preferment at
+court, but being disappointed in his aspirations, he took orders in the
+Church, and led a retired life. He published a satire entitled, _The Love
+of Fame, the Universal Passion_, which was quite successful. But his chief
+work, which for a long time was classed with the highest poetic efforts,
+is the _Night Thoughts_, a series of meditations, during nine nights, on
+Life, Death, and Immortality. The style is somewhat pompous, the imagery
+striking, but frequently unnatural; the occasional descriptions majestic
+and vivid; and the effect of the whole is grand, gloomy, and peculiar. It
+is full of apothegms, which have been much quoted; and some of his lines
+and phrases are very familiar to all.
+
+He wrote papers on many topics, and among his tragedies the best known is
+that entitled _The Revenge_. Very popular in his own day, Young has been
+steadily declining in public favor, partly on account of the superior
+claims of modern writers, and partly because of the morbid and gloomy
+views he has taken of human nature. His solemn admonitions throng upon the
+reader like phantoms, and cause him to desire more cheerful company. A
+sketch of the life of Young may be found in Dr. Johnson's _Lives of the
+Poets_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+ADDISON, AND THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE.
+
+
+   The Character of the Age. Queen Anne. Whigs and Tories. George I.
+   Addison--The Campaign. Sir Roger de Coverley. The Club. Addison's
+   Hymns. Person and Literary Character.
+
+
+
+THE CHARACTER OF THE AGE.
+
+
+To cater further to the Artificial Age, the literary cravings of which far
+exceeded those of any former period, there sprang up a school of
+Essayists, most of whom were also poets, dramatists, and politicians.
+Among these Addison, Steele, and Swift stand pre-eminent. Each of them was
+a man of distinct and interesting personality. Two of them--Addison and
+Swift--presented such a remarkable contrast, that it has been usual for
+writers on this period of English Literature to bring them together as
+foils to each other. This has led to injustice towards Swift; they should
+be placed in juxtaposition because they are of the same period, and
+because of their joint efforts in the literary development of the age. The
+period is distinctly marked. We speak as currently of the wits and the
+essayists of Queen Anne's reign as we do of the authors of the Elizabethan
+age.
+
+A glance at contemporary history will give us an intelligent clue to our
+literary inquiries, and cause us to observe the historical character of
+the literature.
+
+To a casual observer, the reign of Queen Anne seems particularly
+untroubled and prosperous. English history calls it the time of "Good
+Queen Anne;" and it is referred to with great unction by the _laudator
+temporis acti_, in unjust comparison with the period which has since
+intervened, as well as with that which preceded it.
+
+
+QUEEN ANNE.--The queen was a Protestant, as opposed to the Romanists and
+Jacobites; a faithful wife, and a tender mother in her memory of several
+children who died young. She was merciful, pure, and gracious to her
+subjects. Her reign was tolerant. There was plenty at home; rebellion and
+civil war were at least latent. Abroad, England was greatly distinguished
+by the victories of Marlborough and Eugene. But to one who looks through
+this veil of prosperity, a curious history is unfolded. The fires of
+faction were scarcely smouldering. It was the transition period between
+the expiring dynasty of the direct line of Stuarts and the coming of the
+Hanoverian house. Women took part in politics; sermons like that of
+Sacheverell against the dissenters and the government were thundered from
+the pulpit. Volcanic fires were at work; the low rumblings of an
+earthquake were heard from time to time, and gave constant cause of
+concern to the queen and her statesmen. Men of rank conspired against each
+other; the moral license of former reigns seems to have been forgotten in
+political intrigue. When James II. had been driven out in 1688, the
+English conscience compromised on the score of the divine right of kings,
+by taking his daughter Mary and her husband as joint monarchs. To do this,
+they affected to call the king's son by his second wife, born in that
+year, a pretender. It was said that he was the child of another woman, and
+had been brought to the queen's bedside in a warming-pan, that James might
+be able to present, thus fraudulently, a Roman Catholic heir to the
+throne. In this they did the king injustice, and greater injustice to the
+queen, Maria de Modena, a pleasing and innocent woman, who had, by her
+virtues and personal popularity alone, kept the king on his throne, in
+spite of his pernicious measures.
+
+When the dynasty was overthrown, the parliament had presented to William
+and Mary _A Bill of Rights_, in which the people's grievances were set
+forth, and their rights enumerated and insisted upon; and this was
+accepted by the monarchs as a condition of their tenure.
+
+Mary died in 1695, and when William followed her, in 1702, Anne, the
+second daughter of James, ascended the throne. Had she refused the
+succession, there would have been a furious war between the Jacobites and
+the Hanoverians. In 1714, Anne died childless, but her reign had bridged
+the chasm between the experiment of William and Mary and the house of
+Hanover. In default of direct heirs to Queen Anne, the succession was in
+this Hanoverian house; represented in the person of the Electress Sophia,
+the granddaughter of James I., through his daughter, Elizabeth of Bohemia.
+But this lineage of blood had lost all English affinities and sympathies.
+
+Meanwhile, the child born to James II., in 1688, had grown to be a man,
+and stood ready, on the death of Queen Anne, to re-affirm his claim to the
+throne. It was said that, although, on account of the plottings of the
+Jacobites, a price had been put upon his head, the queen herself wished
+him to succeed, and had expressed scruples about her own right to reign.
+She greatly disliked the family of Hanover, and while she was on her
+death-bed, the pretender had been brought to England, in the hope that she
+would declare him her successor. The elements of discord asserted
+themselves still more strongly. Whigs and Tories in politics, Romanists
+and Protestants in creed, Jacobite and Hanoverian in loyalty, opposed each
+other, harassing the feeble queen, and keeping the realm in continual
+ferment.
+
+
+WHIGS AND TORIES.--The Whigs were those who declared that kingly power was
+solely for the good of the subject; that the reformed creed was the
+religion of the realm; that James had forfeited the throne, and that his
+son was a pretender; and that the power justly passed to the house of
+Hanover. The Tories asserted that monarchs ruled by _divine right_; and
+that if, when religion was at stake, the king might be deposed, this could
+not affect the succession.
+
+Anne escaped her troubles by dying, in 1714. Sophia, the Electress of
+Hanover, who had only wished to live, she said, long enough to have
+engraved upon her tombstone: "Here lies Sophia, Queen of England," died,
+in spite of this desire, only a few weeks before the queen; and the new
+heir to the throne was her son, George Louis of Brunswick-Luneburg,
+electoral prince of Hanover.
+
+He came cautiously and selfishly to the throne of England; he felt his
+way, and left a line of retreat open; he brought not a spice of honest
+English sentiment, but he introduced the filth of the electoral court. As
+gross in his conduct as Charles II., he had indeed a prosperous reign,
+because it was based upon a just and tolerant Constitution; because the
+English were in reality not governed by a king, but by well-enacted laws.
+
+The effect of all this political turmoil upon the leading men in England
+had been manifest; both parties had been expectant, and many of the
+statesmen had been upon the fence, ready to get down on one side or the
+other, according to circumstances. Marlborough left the Tories and joined
+the Whigs; Swift, who had been a Whig, joined the Tories. The queen's
+first ministry had consisted of Whigs and the more moderate Tories; but as
+she fell away from the Marlboroughs, she threw herself into the hands of
+the Tories, who had determined, and now achieved, the downfall of
+Marlborough.
+
+Such was the reign of good Queen Anne. With this brief sketch as a
+preliminary, we return to the literature, which, like her coin, bore her
+image and carried it into succeeding reigns. In literature, the age of
+Queen Anne extends far beyond her lifetime.
+
+
+ADDISON.--The principal name of this period is that of Joseph Addison. He
+was the son of the rector of Milston, in Wiltshire, and was born in 1672.
+Old enough in 1688 to appreciate the revolution, as early as he could
+wield his pen, he used it in the cause of the new monarchs. At the age of
+fifteen he was sent from the Charter-House to Oxford; and there he wrote
+some Latin verses, for which he was rewarded by a university scholarship.
+After pursuing his studies at Oxford, he began his literary career. In his
+twenty-second year he wrote a poetical address to Dryden; but he chiefly
+sought preferment through political poetry. In 1695 he wrote a poem to the
+king, which was well received; and in 1699 he received a pension of £300.
+In 1701 he went upon the Continent, and travelled principally in France
+and Italy. On his return, he published his travels, and a _Poetical
+Epistle from Italy_, which are interesting as delineating continental
+scenes and manners in that day. Of the travels, Dr. Johnson said, "they
+might have been written at home;" but he praised the poetical epistle as
+the finest of Addison's poetical works.
+
+Upon the accession of Queen Anne, he continued to pay his court in verse.
+When the great battle of Blenheim was fought, in 1704, he at once
+published an artificial poem called _The Campaign_, which has received the
+fitting name of the _Rhymed Despatch_. Eulogistic of Marlborough and
+descriptive of his army manoeuvres, its chief value is to be found in
+its historical character, and not in any poetic merit. It was a political
+paper, and he was rewarded for it by the appointment of Commissioner of
+Appeals, in which post he succeeded the philosopher Locke.
+
+The spirit of this poem is found in the following lines:
+
+    Fiction may deck the truth with spurious rays,
+    And round the hero cast a borrowed blaze;
+    Marlboro's exploits appear divinely bright,
+    And proudly shine in their own native light.
+
+If we look for a contrast to this poem, indicating with it the two
+political sides of the question, it may be found in Swift's tract on _The
+Conduct of the Allies_, which asserts that the war had been maintained to
+gratify the ambition and greed of Marlborough, and also for the benefit of
+the Allies. Addison was appointed, as a reward for his poem,
+Under-Secretary of State.
+
+To this extent Addison was the historian by purpose. A moderate partisan,
+he eulogized King William, Marlborough, Lord Somers, Lord Halifax, and
+others, and thus commended himself to the crown; and in several elegant
+articles in _The Spectator_, he sought to mitigate the fierce party spirit
+of the time.
+
+
+SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY.--But it is the unconscious historian with whom we
+are most charmed, and by whom we are best instructed. It is in this
+character that Addison presents himself in his numerous contributions to
+_The Spectator_, _The Tatler_, and _The Guardian_. Amid much that is now
+considered pedantic and artificial, and which, in those faults, marks the
+age, are to be found as striking and truthful delineations of English life
+and society in that day as Chaucer has given us of an earlier period.
+
+Those who no longer read _The Spectator_ as a model of style and learning,
+must continue to prize it for these rare historic teachings. The men and
+women walk before us as in some antique representation in a social
+festival, when grandmothers' brocades are taken out, when curious fashions
+are displayed, when Honoria and Flavia, Fidelia and Gloriana dress and
+speak and ogle and flirt just as Addison saw and photographed them. We
+have their subjects of interest, their forms of gossip, the existing
+abuses of the day, their taste in letters, their opinions upon the works
+of literature, in all their freshness.
+
+The fullest and most systematic of these social delineations is found in
+the sketch of _The Club_ and _Sir Roger de Coverley_. The creation of
+character is excellent. Each member, individual and distinct, is also the
+type of a class.
+
+
+THE CLUB.--There is Will Honeycomb, the old beau, "a gentleman who,
+according to his years, should be in the decline of his life, but having
+ever been careful of his person, and always had an easy fortune, time has
+made but very little impression, either by wrinkles on his forehead or
+traces on his brain." He knew from what French woman this manner of
+curling the hair came, who invented hoops, and whose vanity to show her
+foot brought in short dresses. He is a woman-killer, sceptical about
+marriage; and at length he gives the fair sex ample satisfaction for his
+cruelty and egotism by marrying, unknown to his friends, a farmer's
+daughter, whose face and virtues are her only fortune.
+
+Captain Sentry, the nephew of Sir Roger, is, it may be supposed, the
+essayist's ideal of what an English officer should be--a courageous
+soldier and a modest gentleman.
+
+Sir Andrew Freeport is the retired merchant, drawn to the life. He is
+moderate in politics, as expediency in that age would suggest. Thoroughly
+satisfied of the naval supremacy of England, he calls the sea, "the
+British Common." He is the founder of his own fortune, and is satisfied to
+transmit to posterity an unsullied name, a goodly store of wealth, and the
+title he has so honorably won.
+
+In _The Templar_, we have a satire upon a certain class of lawyers. It is
+indicative of that classical age, that he understands Aristotle and
+Longinus better than Littleton and Coke, and is happy in anything but
+law--a briefless barrister, but a gentleman of consideration.
+
+But the most charming, the most living portrait is that of Sir Roger de
+Coverley, an English country gentleman, as he ought to be, and as not a
+few really were. What a generous humanity for all wells forth from his
+simple and loving heart! He has such a mirthful cast in his behavior that
+he is rather loved than esteemed. Repulsed by a fair widow, several years
+before, he keeps his sentiment alive by wearing a coat and doublet of the
+same cut that was in fashion at the time, which, he tells us, has been out
+and in twelve times since he first wore it. All the young women profess to
+love him, and all the young men are glad of his company.
+
+Last of all is the clergyman, whose piety is all reverence, and who talks
+and acts "as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and
+conceives hope from his decays and infirmities."
+
+It is said that Addison, warned by the fate of Cervantes,--whose noble
+hero, Don Quixote, was killed by another pen,--determined to conduct Sir
+Roger to the tomb himself; and the knight makes a fitting end. He
+congratulates his nephew, Captain Sentry, upon his succession to the
+inheritance; he is thoughtful of old friends and old servants. In a word,
+so excellent was his life, and so touching the story of his death, that we
+feel like mourners at a real grave. Indeed he did live, and still
+lives,--one type of the English country gentleman one hundred and fifty
+years ago. Other types there were, not so pleasant to contemplate; but
+Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley and Fielding's Squire Allworthy vindicate
+their class in that age.
+
+
+ADDISON'S HYMNS.--Addison appears to us also as the writer of beautiful
+hymns, and has paraphrased some of the Psalms. In this, like Watts, he
+catered to a decided religious craving of that day. In a Protestant realm,
+and by reason of religious controversy, the fine old hymns of the Latin
+church, which are now renewing their youth in an English dress, had fallen
+into disrepute: hymnody had, to some extent, superseded the plain chant.
+Hymns were in demand. Poets like Addison and Watts provided for this new
+want; and from the beauty of his few contributions, our great regret is
+that Addison wrote so few. Every one he did write is a gem in many
+collections. Among them we have that admirable paraphrase of the
+_Twenty-third Psalm_:
+
+    The Lord my pasture shall prepare,
+    And feed me with a shepherd's care;
+
+and the hymn
+
+    When all Thy mercies, O my God,
+      My rising soul surveys.
+
+None, however, is so beautiful, stately, and polished as the Divine Ode,
+so pleasant to all people, little and large,--
+
+    The spacious firmament on high.
+
+
+HIS PERSON AND CHARACTER.--In closing this brief sketch of Addison, a few
+words are necessary as to his personality, and an estimate of his powers.
+In 1716 he married the Countess-Dowager of Warwick, and parted with
+independence to live with a coronet. His married life was not happy. The
+lady was cold and exacting; and, it must be confessed, the poet loved a
+bottle at the club-room or tavern better than the luxuries of Holland
+House; and not infrequently this conviviality led him to excess. He died
+in 1719, in his forty-eighth year, and made a truly pious end. He wished,
+he said, to atone for any injuries he had done to others, and sent for his
+sceptical and dissolute step-son, Lord Warwick, to show him how a
+Christian could die. A monument has been erected to his memory in the
+Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey, and the closing words of the
+inscription upon it calls him "the honor and delight of the English
+nation."
+
+As a man, he was grave and retiring: he had a high opinion of his own
+powers; in company he was extremely diffident; in the main, he was moral,
+just, and consistent. His intemperance was in part the custom of the age
+and in part a physical failing, and it must have been excessive to be
+distinguished in that age. In the Latin-English of Dr. Johnson, "It is not
+unlikely that Addison was first seduced to excess by the manumission which
+he obtained from the servile timidity of his sober hours." This failing
+must be regarded as a blot on his fame.
+
+He was the most accomplished writer of his own age, and in elegance of
+style superior to all who had gone before him.
+
+In the words of his epitaph, his prose papers "encouraged the good and
+reformed the improvident, tamed the wicked, and in some degree made them
+in love with virtue." His poetry is chiefly of historical value, in that
+it represents so distinctly the Artificial School; but it is now very
+little read. His drama entitled _Cato_ was modelled upon the French drama
+of the classical school, with its singular preservation of the unities.
+But his contributions to _The Spectator_ and other periodicals are
+historically of great value. Here he abandons the artificial school;
+nothing in his delineations of character is simply statuesque or
+pictorial. He has done for us what the historians have left undone. They
+present processions of automata moving to the sound of trumpet and drum,
+ushered by Black Rod or Garter King-at-arms; but in Addison we find that
+Promethean heat which relumes their life; the galvanic motion becomes a
+living stride; the puppet eyes emit fire; the automata are men. Thus it
+is, that, although _The Spectator_, once read as a model of taste and
+style, has become antiquated and has been superseded, it must still be
+resorted to for its life-like portraiture of men and women, manners and
+customs, and will be found truer and more valuable for these than history
+itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+STEELE AND SWIFT.
+
+
+   Sir Richard Steele. Periodicals. The Crisis. His Last Days. Jonathan
+   Swift--Poems. The Tale of a Tub. Battle of the Books. Pamphlets. M. B.
+   Drapier. Gulliver's Travels. Stella and Vanessa. His Character and
+   Death.
+
+
+
+Contemporary with Addison, and forming with him a literary fraternity,
+Steele and Swift were besides men of distinct prominence, and clearly
+represent the age in which they lived.
+
+
+SIR RICHARD STEELE.--If Addison were chosen as the principal literary
+figure of the period, a sketch of his life would be incomplete without a
+large mention of his lifelong friend and collaborator, Steele. If to Bacon
+belongs the honor of being the first writer and the namer of the English
+_essay_, Steele may claim that of being the first periodical essayist.
+
+He was born in Dublin, in 1671, of English parents; his father being at
+the time secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He received his
+early education at the Charter-House school, in London, an institution
+which has numbered among its pupils many who have gained distinguished
+names in literature. Here he met and formed a permanent friendship with
+Addison. He was afterwards entered as a student at Merton College, Oxford;
+but he led there a wild and reckless life, and leaving without a degree,
+he enlisted as a private in the Horse Guards. Through the influence of his
+friends, he was made a cornet, and afterwards a captain, in the
+Fusileers; but this only gave him opportunity for continued dissipation.
+His principles were better than his conduct; and, haunted by conscience,
+he made an effort to reform himself by writing a devotional work called
+_The Christian Hero_; but there was such a contrast between his precepts
+and his life, that he was laughed at by the town. Between 1701 and 1704 he
+produced his three comedies. _The Funeral, or Grief à la Mode_; _The
+Tender Husband_, and _The Lying Lover_. The first two were successful upon
+the stage, but the last was a complete failure. Disgusted for the time
+with the drama, he was led to find his true place as the writer of those
+light, brilliant, periodical essays which form a prominent literary
+feature of the reign of Queen Anne. These _Essays_ were comments,
+suggestions, strictures, and satires upon the age. They were of immediate
+and local interest then, and have now a value which the writers did not
+foresee: they are unconscious history.
+
+
+PERIODICALS.--The first of these periodicals was _The Tatler_, a penny
+sheet, issued tri-weekly, on post-days. The first number appeared on the
+12th of April, 1709, and asserted the very laudable purpose "to expose the
+deceits, sins, and vanities of the former age, and to make virtue,
+simplicity, and plain-dealing the law of social life." "For this purpose,"
+in the words of Dr. Johnson,[34] "nothing is so proper as the frequent
+publication of short papers, which we read not as study, but amusement. If
+the subject be slight, the treatise is short. The busy may find time, and
+the idle may find patience." One _nom de plume_ of Steele was _Isaac
+Bickerstaff_, which he borrowed from Swift, who had issued party-pamphlets
+under that name.
+
+_The Tatler_ was a success. The fluent pen of Addison gave it valuable
+assistance; and in January, 1711, it was merged into, rather than
+superseded by, _The Spectator_, which was issued six days in the week.
+
+In this new periodical, Steele wrote the paper containing the original
+sketch of Sir Roger de Coverley and The Club; but, as has been already
+said, Addison adopted, elaborated, and finished this in several later
+papers. Steele had been by far the larger contributor to _The Tatler_. Of
+all the articles in _The Spectator_, Steele wrote two hundred and forty,
+and Addison two hundred and seventy-four; the rest were by various hands.
+In March, 1713, when _The Spectator_ was commencing its seventh volume,
+_The Guardian_ made its appearance. For the first volume of _The
+Guardian_, Addison wrote but one paper; but for the second he wrote more
+than Steele. Of the one hundred and seventy-six numbers of that
+periodical, eighty-two of the papers were by Steele and fifty-three by
+Addison. If the writings of Addison were more scholarly and elegant, those
+of Steele were more vivacious and brilliant; and together they have
+produced a series of essays which have not been surpassed in later times,
+and which are vividly delineative of their own.
+
+
+THE CRISIS.--The career of Steele was varied and erratic. He held several
+public offices, was a justice of the peace, and a member of parliament. He
+wrote numerous political tracts, which are not without historical value.
+For one pamphlet of a political character, entitled _The Crisis_, he was
+expelled from parliament for libel; but upon the death of Queen Anne, he
+again found himself in favor. He was knighted in 1715, and received
+several lucrative appointments.
+
+He was an eloquent orator, and as a writer rapid and brilliant, but not
+profound. Even thus, however, he catered to an age at once artificial and
+superficial. Very observant of what he saw, he rushed to his closet and
+jotted down his views in electrical words, which made themselves
+immediately and distinctly felt.
+
+
+HIS LAST DAYS.--Near the close of his life he produced a very successful
+comedy, entitled _The Conscious Lover_, which would have been of pecuniary
+value to him, were it not that he was already overwhelmed with debt. His
+end was a sad one; but he reaped what his extravagance and recklessness
+had sown. Shattered in health and ruined in fortune, he retreated from the
+great world into homely retirement in Wales, where he lived, poor and
+hidden, in a humble cottage at Llangunnor. His end was heralded by an
+attack of paralysis, and he died in 1729.
+
+After his death, his letters were published; and in the private history
+which they unfold, he appears, notwithstanding all his follies, in the
+light of a tender husband and of an amiable and unselfish man. He had
+principle, but he lacked resolution; and the wild, vacillating character
+of his life is mirrored in his writings, where _The Christian Hero_ stands
+in singular contrast to the comic personages of his dramas. He was a
+genial critic. His exuberant wit and humor reproved without wounding; he
+was not severe enough to be a public censor, nor pedantic enough to be the
+pedagogue of an age which often needed the lash rather than the gentle
+reproof, and upon which a merciful clemency lost its end if not its
+praises. He deserves credit for an attempt, however feeble, to reward
+virtue upon the stage, after the wholesale rewards which vice had reaped
+in the age of Charles II.
+
+Steele has been overshadowed, in his connection with Addison, by the more
+dignified and consistent career, the greater social respectability, and
+the more elegant and scholarly style of his friend; and yet in much that
+they jointly accomplished, the merit of Steele is really as great, and
+conduces much to the reputation of Addison. The one husbanded and
+cherished his fame; the other flung it away or lavished it upon his
+colleagues. As contributors to history, they claim an equal share of our
+gratitude and praise.
+
+
+JONATHAN SWIFT.--The grandfather of Swift was vicar of Goodrich, in
+Herefordshire. His father and mother were both English, but he was born in
+Dublin, in the year 1667. A posthumous child, he came into the world seven
+months after his father's death. From his earliest youth, he deplored the
+circumstances among which his lot had been cast. He was dependent upon his
+uncle, Godwin Swift, himself a poor man; but was not grateful for his
+assistance, always saying that his uncle had given him the education of a
+dog. At the University of Dublin, where he was entered, he did not bear a
+good character: he was frequently absent from his duties and negligent of
+his studies; and although he read history and poetry, he was considered
+stupid as well as idle. He was more than once admonished and suspended,
+but at length received his degree, _Speciali gratia_; which special act of
+grace implied that he had not fairly earned it. Piqued by this, he set to
+work in real earnest, and is said to have studied eight hours a day for
+eight years. Thus, from an idle and unsuccessful collegian, he became a
+man of considerable learning and a powerful writer.
+
+He was a distant connection of Sir William Temple, through Lady Temple;
+and he went, by his mother's advice, to live with that distinguished man
+at his seat, Shene, in Moor Park, as private secretary.
+
+In this position Swift seems to have led an uncomfortable life, ranking
+somewhere between the family and the upper servants. Sir William Temple
+was disposed to be kind, but found it difficult to converse with him on
+account of his moroseness and other peculiarities. At Shene he met King
+William III., who talked with him, and offered him a captaincy in the
+army. This Swift declined, knowing his unfitness for the post, and
+doubtless feeling the promptings of a higher ambition. It was also at
+Shene that he met a young girl, whose history was thenceforth to be
+mingled with his in sadness and sorrow, during their lives. This was
+Esther Johnson, the daughter of Temple's housekeeper, and surmised, at a
+later day, to be the natural daughter of Temple himself. When the young
+secretary first met her, she was fourteen years of age, very clever and
+beautiful; and they fell in love with each other.
+
+We cannot dwell at length upon the events of his life. His versatile pen
+was prolific of poetry, sentimental and satirical; of political allegories
+of great potency, of fiction erected of impossible materials, and yet so
+creating and peopling a world of fancy as to illude the reader into
+temporary belief in its truth.
+
+
+POEMS.--His poems are rather sententious than harmonious. His power,
+however, was great; he managed verse as an engine, and had an entire
+mastery over rhyme, which masters so many would-be poets. His _Odes_ are
+classically constructed, but massive and cumbrous. His satirical poems are
+eminently historical, ranging over and attacking almost every topic,
+political, religious, and social. Among the most characteristic of his
+miscellaneous verses are _Epigrams and Epistles, Clever Tom Pinch Going to
+be Hanged, Advice to Grub Street Writers, Helter-Skelter, The Puppet
+Show_, and similar odd pieces, frequently scurrilous, bitter, and lewd in
+expression. The writer of English history consults these as he does the
+penny ballads, lampoons, and caricatures of the day,--to discern the
+_animus_ of parties and the methods of hostile factions.
+
+But it is in his inimitable prose writings that Swift is of most value to
+the historical student. Against all comers he stood the Goliath of
+pamphleteers in the reign of Queen Anne, and there arose no David who
+could slay him.
+
+
+THE TALE OF A TUB.--While an unappreciated student at the university, he
+had sketched a satirical piece, which he finished and published in 1704,
+under the title of _The Tale of a Tub_. As a tub is thrown overboard at
+sea to divert a whale, so this is supposed to be a sop cast out to the
+_Leviathan_ of Hobbes, to prevent it from injuring the vessel of state.
+The story is a satire aimed against the Roman Catholics on the one hand,
+and the Presbyterians on the other, in order that he may exalt the Church
+of England as, in his judgment, free from the errors of both, and a just
+and happy medium between the two extremes. His own opinion of its merits
+is well known: in one of his later years, when his hand had lost its
+cunning, he is said to have exclaimed, as he picked it up, "What a genius
+I had when I wrote that book!" The characters of the story are _Peter_
+(representing St. Peter, or the Roman Catholic Church), _Martin_ (Luther,
+or the Church of England), and _Jack_ (John Calvin, or the Presbyterians).
+By their father's will each had been left a suit of clothes, made in the
+fashion of his day. To this Peter added laces and fringes; Martin took off
+some of the ornaments of doubtful taste; but Jack ripped and tore off the
+trimmings of his dress to such an extent that he was in clanger of
+exposing his nakedness. It is said that the invective was so strong and
+the satire so bitter, that they presented a bar to that preferment which
+Swift might otherwise have obtained. He appears at this time to have cared
+little for public opinion, except that it should fear his trenchant wit
+and do homage to his genius.
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS.--In the same year, 1704, he also published _The
+Battle of the Books_, the idea of which was taken from a French work of
+Courtraye, entitled "_Histoire de la guerre nouvellement déclarée entre
+les Anciens et les Modernes_." Swift's work was written in furtherance of
+the views of his patron, Temple, who had some time before engaged in the
+controversy as to the relative merits of ancient and modern learning, and
+who, in the words of Macaulay, "was so absurd as to set up his own
+authority against that of Bentley on questions of Greek history and
+philology."
+
+_The Battle of the Books_ is of present value, as it affords information
+upon the opinions then held on a question which, in various forms, has
+been agitating the literary world ever since. In it Swift compares Dryden,
+Wotten, and Bentley with the old authors in St. James's Library, where the
+battle of the books is said to have taken place.
+
+Upon the death of Sir William Temple, in 1699, Swift had gone to London.
+He was ambitious of power and money, and when he found little chance of
+preferment among the Whigs, he became a Tory. It must be said, in
+explanation of this change, that, although he had called himself a Whig,
+he had disliked many of their opinions, and had never heartily espoused
+their cause. Like others already referred to, he watched the political
+horizon, and was ready for a change when circumstances should warrant it.
+This change and its causes are set forth in his _Bickerstaff's Ridicule of
+Astrology_ and _Sacramental Test_.
+
+The Whigs tried hard to retain him; the Tories were rejoiced to receive
+him, and modes of preferment for him were openly canvassed. One of these
+was to make him Bishop of Virginia, with metropolitan powers in America;
+but it failed. He was also recommended for the See of Hereford; but
+persons near the queen advised her "to be sure that the man she was going
+to make a bishop was a Christian." Thus far he had only been made rector
+of Agher and vicar of Laracor and Rathbeggin.
+
+
+VARIOUS PAMPHLETS.--His _Argument Against the Abolition of Christianity_,
+Dr. Johnson calls "a very happy and judicious irony." In 1710 he wrote a
+paper, at the request of the Irish primate, petitioning the queen to remit
+the first-fruits and twentieth parts to the Irish clergy. In 1712, ten
+days before the meeting of parliament, he published his _Conduct of the
+Allies_, which, exposing the greed of Marlborough, persuaded the nation to
+make peace. A supplement to this is found in _Reflections on the Barrier
+Treaty_, in which he shows how little English interests had been consulted
+in that negotiation.
+
+His pamphlet on _The Public Spirit of the Whigs_, in answer to Steele's
+_Crisis_, was so terrible a bomb-shell thrown into the camp of his former
+friends, and so insulting to the Scotch, that £300 were offered by the
+queen, at the instance of the Scotch lords, for the discovery of the
+author; but without success.
+
+At last his versatile and powerful pen obtained some measure of reward: in
+1713 he was made Dean of St. Patrick's, in Dublin, with a stipend of £700
+per annum. This was his greatest and last preferment.
+
+On the accession of George I., in the following year, he paid his court,
+but was received with something more than coldness. He withdrew to his
+deanery in Dublin, and, in the words of Johnson, "commenced Irishman for
+life, and was to contrive how he might be best accommodated in a country
+where he considered himself as in a state of exile." After some
+misunderstanding between himself and his Irish fellow-citizens, he
+espoused their cause so warmly that he became the most popular man in
+Ireland. In 1721 he could write to Pope, "I neither know the names nor the
+number of the family which now reigneth, further than the prayer-book
+informeth me." His letters, signed _M. B. Drapier_, on Irish manufactures,
+and especially those in opposition to Wood's monopoly of copper coinage,
+in 1724, wrought upon the people, producing such a spirit of resistance
+that the project of a debased coinage failed; and so influential did Swift
+become, that he was able to say to the Archbishop of Dublin, "Had I raised
+my finger, the mob would have torn you to pieces." This popularity was
+increased by the fact that a reward of £300 was offered by Lord Carteret
+and the privy council for the discovery of the authorship of the fourth
+letter; but although it was commonly known that Swift was the author,
+proof could not be obtained. Carteret, the Lord Lieutenant, afterwards
+said, "When people ask me how I governed Ireland, I said that I pleased
+Doctor Swift."
+
+Thus far Swift's literary labors are manifest history: we come now to
+consider that great work, _Gulliver's Travels_,--the most successful of
+its kind ever written,--in which, with all the charm of fiction in plot,
+incident, and description, he pictures the great men and the political
+parties of the day.
+
+
+GULLIVER'S TRAVELS.--Lemuel Gulliver, a surgeon's mate, finds himself
+shipwrecked on the shore of the country of Lilliput, the people of which
+are only six inches in height. His adventures are so vividly described
+that our charmed fancy places us among them as we read, and we, for a
+time, abandon ourselves to a belief in their reality. It was, however,
+begun as a political satire; in the insignificance of the court of
+pigmies, he attacks the feebleness and folly of the new reign. _Flimnap_,
+the prime minister of Lilliput, is a caricature of Walpole; the _Big
+Indians_ and _Little Indians_ represent the Protestants and Roman
+Catholics; the _High Heels_ and _Low Heels_ stand for the Whigs and
+Tories; and the heir-apparent, who wears one heel high and the other low,
+is the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II., who favored both parties in
+order to gain both to his purpose.
+
+In his second voyage, that to Brobdignag, his satirical imagination took a
+wider range--European politics as they appear to a superior intelligence,
+illustrated by a man of _sixty_ feet in comparison with one of _six_. As
+Gulliver had looked with curious contempt upon the united efforts of the
+Lilliputians, he now found himself in great jeopardy and fear when in the
+hands of a giant of Brobdignag. As the pigmy metropolis, five hundred
+yards square, was to London, so were London and other European capitals to
+the giants' city, two thousand miles in circumference. And what are the
+armies of Europe, when compared with that magnificent cavalry
+manoeuvring on a parade-ground twenty miles square, each mounted
+trooper ninety feet high, and all, as they draw their swords at command,
+representing ten thousand flashes of lightning?
+
+The third part contains the voyage of Gulliver--no less improbable than
+the former ones--to _Laputa_, the flying island of projectors and
+visionaries. This is a varied satire upon the Royal Society, the
+eccentricities of the savans, empirics of all kinds, mathematical magic,
+and the like. In this, political schemes to restore the pretender are
+aimed at. The Mississippi Scheme and the South Sea bubble are denounced.
+Here, too, in his journey to Luggnagg, he introduces the sad and revolting
+picture of the Struldbrugs, those human beings who live on, losing all
+their power and becoming hideously old.
+
+In his last voyage--to the land of the _Houyhnhnms_--his misanthropy is
+painfully manifest. This is the country where horses are masters, and men
+a servile and degraded race; and he has painted the men so brutish and
+filthy that the satire loses its point. The power of satire lies in
+contrast; we must compare the evil in men with the good: when the whole
+race is included in one sweeping condemnation, and an inferior being
+exalted, in opposition to all possibility, the standard is absurd, and the
+satirist loses his pains.
+
+The horses are the _Houyhnhnms_, (the name is an attempt to imitate a
+neigh,) a noble race, who are amazed and disgusted at the Yahoos,--the
+degraded men,--upon whom Swift, in his sweeping misanthropy, has exhausted
+his bitterness and his filth.
+
+
+STELLA AND VANESSA.--While Swift's mysterious associations with Stella and
+Vanessa have but little to do with the course of English Literature, they
+largely affect his personality, and no sketch of him would be complete
+without introducing them to the reader. We cannot conjure up the tall,
+burly form, the heavy-browed, scowling, contemptuous face, the sharp blue
+eye, and the bushy black hair of the dean, without seeing on one side and
+the other the two pale, meek-eyed, devoted women, who watch his every
+look, shrink from his sudden bursts of wrath, receive for their
+infatuation a few fair words without sentiment, and earnestly crave a
+little love as a return for their whole hearts. It is a wonderful,
+touching, baffling story.
+
+Stella he had known and taught in her young maidenhood at Sir William
+Temple's. As has been said, she was called the daughter of his steward and
+housekeeper, but conjectures are rife that she was Sir William's own
+child. When Swift removed to Ireland, she came, at Swift's request, with a
+matron friend, Mrs. Dingley, to live near him. Why he did not at once
+marry her, and why, at last, he married her secretly, in 1716, are
+questions over which curious readers have puzzled themselves in vain, and
+upon which, in default of evidence, some perhaps uncharitable conclusions
+have been reached. The story of their association may be found in the
+_Journal to Stella_.
+
+With Miss Hester Vanhomrigh (Vanessa) he became acquainted in London, in
+1712: he was also her instructor; and when with her he seems to have
+forgotten his allegiance to Stella. Cadenus, as he calls himself, was too
+tender and fond: Vanessa became infatuated; and when she heard of Swift's
+private marriage with Stella, she died of chagrin or of a broken heart.
+She had cancelled the will which she had made in Swift's favor, and left
+it in charge to her executors to publish their correspondence. Both sides
+of the history of this connection are fully displayed in the poem of
+_Cadenus and Vanessa_, and in the _Correspondence of Swift and Vanessa_.
+
+
+CHARACTER AND DEATH.--Pride overbearing and uncontrollable, misanthropy,
+excessive dogmatism, a singular pleasure in giving others pain, were among
+his personal faults or misfortunes. He abused his companions and servants;
+he never forgave his sister for marrying a tradesman; he could attract
+with winning words and repel with furious invective; and he was always
+anxiously desiring the day of his death, and cursing that of his birth.
+His common farewell was "Good-bye; I hope we may never meet again." There
+is a painful levity in his verses _On the Death of Doctor Swift_, in which
+he gives an epitome of his life:
+
+    From Dublin soon to London spread,
+    'Tis told at court the dean is dead!
+    And Lady Suffolk, in the spleen,
+    Runs laughing up to tell the queen:
+    The queen, so gracious, mild, and good,
+    Cries, "Is he gone? it's time he should."
+
+At last the end came. While a young man, he had suffered from a painful
+attack of vertigo, brought on by a surfeit of fruit; "eating," he says, in
+a letter to Mrs. Howard, "an hundred golden pippins at a time." This had
+occasioned a deafness; and both giddiness and deafness had recurred at
+intervals, and at last manifestly affected his mind. Once, when walking
+with some friends, he had pointed to an elm-tree, blasted by lightning,
+and had said, "I shall be like that tree: I shall die first at the top."
+And thus at last the doom fell. Struck on the brain, he lingered for nine
+years in that valley of spectral horrors, of whose only gates idiocy and
+madness are the hideous wardens. From this bondage he was released by
+death on the 19th of October, 1745.
+
+Many have called it a fearful retribution for his sins, and especially for
+his treatment of Stella and Vanessa. A far more reasonable and charitable
+verdict is that the evil in his conduct through life had its origin in
+congenital disorder; and in his days of apparent sanity, the character of
+his eccentric actions is to be palliated, if not entirely excused, on the
+plea of insanity. Additional force is given to this judgment by the fact
+that, when he died, it was found that he had left his money to found a
+hospital for the insane, illustrating the line,--
+
+    A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind.
+
+In that day of great classical scholars, Swift will hardly rank among the
+most profound; but he possessed a creative power, a ready and versatile
+fancy, a clear and pleasing but plain style. He has been unjustly accused
+by Lady Montagu of having stolen plot and humor from Cervantes and
+Rabelais: he drew from the same source as they; and those suggestions
+which came to him from them owe all their merit to his application of
+them. As a critic, he was heartless and rude; but as a polemic and a
+delineator of his age, he stands prominently forth as an historian, whose
+works alone would make us familiar with the period.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE AGE.
+
+
+_Sir William Temple_, 1628-1698: he was a statesman and a political
+writer; rather a man of mark in his own day than of special interest to
+the present time. After having been engaged in several important
+diplomatic affairs, he retired to his seat of Moor Park, and employed
+himself in study and with his pen. His _Essays and Observations on
+Government_ are valuable as a clue to the history. In his controversy with
+Bentley on the _Epistles of Phalaris_, and the relative merits of ancient
+and modern authors, he was overmatched in scholarship. In a literary point
+of view, Temple deserves praise for the ease and beauty of his style. Dr.
+Johnson says he "was the first writer who gave cadence to English prose."
+"What can be more pleasant," says Charles Lamb, "than the way in which the
+retired statesman peeps out in his essays, penned in his delightful
+retreat at Shene?" He is perhaps better known in literary history as the
+early patron of Swift, than for his own works.
+
+
+_Sir Isaac Newton_, 1642-1727: the chief glory of Newton is not connected
+with literary effort: he ranks among the most profound and original
+philosophers, and was one of the purest and most unselfish of men. The
+son of a farmer, he was born at Woolsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, after his
+father's death,--a feeble, sickly child. The year of his birth was that in
+which Galileo died. At the age of fifteen he was employed on his mother's
+farm, but had already displayed such an ardor for learning that he was
+sent first to school and then to Cambridge, where he was soon conspicuous
+for his talents and his genius. In due time he was made a professor. His
+discoveries in astronomy, mechanics, and optics are of world-wide renown.
+The law of gravitation was established by him, and set forth in his paper
+_De Motu Corporum_. His treatise on _Fluxions_ prepared the way for that
+wonderful mathematical, labor-saving instrument--the differential
+calculus. In 1687 he published his _Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia
+Mathematica_, in which all his mathematical theories are propounded. In
+1696 he was made Warden of the Mint, and in 1699 Master of the Mint. Long
+a member of the Royal Society, he was its president for the last
+twenty-four years of his life. In 1688 he was elected member of parliament
+for the university of Cambridge. Of purely literary works he left two,
+entitled respectively, _Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the
+Apocalypse of St. John_, and a _Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended_;
+both of which are of little present value except as the curious remains of
+so great a man.
+
+
+_Viscount Bolingbroke_ (Henry St. John), 1678-1751: as an erratic
+statesman, a notorious free-thinker, a dissipated lord, a clever political
+writer, and an eloquent speaker, Lord Bolingbroke was a centre of
+attraction in his day, and demands observation in literary history. During
+the reign of Queen Anne he was a plotter in favor of the pretender, and
+when she died, he fled the realm to avoid impeachment for treason. In
+France he joined the pretender as Secretary of State, but was dismissed
+for intrigue; and on being pardoned by the English king, he returned to
+England. His writings are brilliant but specious. His influence was felt
+in the literary society he drew around him,--Swift, Pope, and
+others,--and, as has been already said, his opinions are to be found in
+that _Essay on Man_ which Pope dedicated to him. In his meteoric political
+career he represents and typifies one phase of the time in which he lived.
+
+
+_George Berkeley_, 1684-1753: he was educated at Trinity College, Dublin,
+and soon engaged in metaphysical controversy. In 1724 he was made Dean of
+Derry, and in 1734, Bishop of Cloyne. A man of great philanthropy, he set
+forth a scheme for the founding of the _Bermudas College_, to train
+missionaries for the colonies and to labor among the North American
+Indians. As a metaphysician, he was an _absolute idealist_. This is no
+place to discuss his theory. In the words of Dr. Reid, "He maintains ...
+that there is no such thing as matter in the universe; that the sun and
+moon, earth and sea, our own bodies and those of our friends, are nothing
+but ideas in the minds of those who think of them, and that they have no
+existence when they are not objects of thought; that all that is in the
+universe may be reduced to two categories, to wit, _minds_ and _ideas in
+the mind_." The reader is referred, for a full discussion of this
+question, to Sir William Hamilton's _Metaphysics_. Berkeley's chief
+writings are: _New Theory of Vision, Treatise Concerning the Principles of
+Human Knowledge_, and _Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous_. His name
+and memory are especially dear to the American people; for, although his
+scheme of the training-college failed, he lived for two years and a half
+in Newport, where his house still stands, and where one of his children is
+buried. He presented to Yale College his library and his estate in Rhode
+Island, and he wrote that beautiful poem with its kindly prophecy:
+
+    Westward the course of empire takes its way:
+      The four first acts already past,
+    A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
+      Time's noblest offspring is the last.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF MODERN FICTION.
+
+
+   The New Age. Daniel Defoe. Robinson Crusoe. Richardson. Pamela, and
+   Other Novels. Fielding. Joseph Andrews. Tom Jones. Its Moral. Smollett.
+   Roderick Random. Peregrine Pickle.
+
+
+
+THE NEW AGE.
+
+
+We have now reached a new topic in the course of English
+Literature--contemporaneous, indeed, with the subjects just named, but
+marked by new and distinct development. It was a period when numerous and
+distinctive forms appeared; when genius began to segregate into schools
+and divisions; when the progress of letters and the demands of popular
+curiosity gave rise to works which would have been impossible, because
+uncalled for, in any former period. English enterprise was extending
+commerce and scattering useful arts in all quarters of the globe, and thus
+giving new and rich materials to English letters. Clive was making himself
+a lord in India; Braddock was losing his army and his life in America.
+This spirit of English enterprise in foreign lands was evoking literary
+activity at home: there was no exploit of English valor, no extension of
+English dominion and influence, which did not find its literary
+reproduction. Thus, while it was an age of historical research, it was
+also that of actual delineations of curious novelties at home and abroad.
+
+Poetry was in a transition state; it was taking its leave of the unhealthy
+satire and the technical wit of Queen Anne's reign, and attempting, on
+the one hand, the impostures of Macpherson and Chatterton,--to which we
+shall hereafter refer,--and, on the other, the restoration of the pastoral
+from the theatrical to the real, in Thomson's song of the Rolling Year,
+and Cowper's pleasant Task, so full of life and nature. Swallow-like,
+English poetry had hung about the eaves or skimmed the surface of town and
+court; but now, like the lark, it soared into freer air--
+
+    Coetusque vulgares et udam
+    Spernit humum fugiente penna.
+
+In short, it was a day of general awakening. The intestine troubles
+excited by the Jacobites were brought to an end by the disaster of
+Culloden, in 1745. The German campaigns culminating at Minden, in 1759,
+opened a door to the study of German literature, and of the Teutonic
+dialects as elements of the English language.
+
+It is, therefore, not astonishing that in this period Literature should
+begin to arrange itself into its present great divisions. As in an earlier
+age the drama had been born to cater to a popular taste, so in this, to
+satisfy the public demand, arose English _prose fiction_ in its peculiar
+and enduring form. There had been grand and desultory works preceding
+this, such as _Robinson Crusoe, The Pilgrim's Progress_, and Swift's
+inimitable story of _Gulliver_; but the modern novel, unlike these, owes
+its origin to a general desire for delineations of private life and
+manners. "Show us ourselves!" was the cry.
+
+A novel may be defined as a fictitious story of modern life describing the
+management and mastery of the human passions, and especially the universal
+passion of love. Its power consists in the creation of ideal characters,
+which leave a real impress upon the reader's mind; it must be a prose
+_epic_ in that there is always a hero, or, at least, a heroine, generally
+both, and a _drama_ in its presentation of scenes and supplementary
+personages. Thackeray calls his _Vanity Fair_ a novel without a hero: it
+is impossible to conceive a novel without a heroine. There must also be a
+_dénouement_, or consummation; in short, it must have, in the words of
+Aristotle, a beginning, middle, and ending, in logical connection and
+consecutive interest.
+
+
+DANIEL DEFOE.--Before, however, proceeding to consider the modern novel,
+we must make mention of one author, distinctly of his own age as a
+political pamphleteer, but who, in his chief and inimitable work, stands
+alone, without antecedent or consequent. _Robinson Crusoe_ has had a host
+of imitators, but no rival.
+
+Daniel Foe, or, as he afterwards called himself, De Foe, was born in
+London, in the year 1661. He was the son of a butcher, but such was his
+early aptitude, for learning, that he was educated to become a dissenting
+minister. His own views, however, were different: he became instead a
+political author, and wrote with great force against the government of
+James II. and the Established Church, and in favor of the dissenters. When
+the Duke of Monmouth landed to make his fatal campaign, Defoe joined his
+standard; but does not seem to have suffered with the greater number of
+the duke's adherents.
+
+He was a warm supporter of William III.; and his famous poem, _The
+True-Born Englishman_, was written in answer to an attack upon the king
+and the Dutch, called _The Foreigners_. Of his own poem he says, in the
+preface, "When I see the town full of lampoons and invectives against the
+Dutch, only because they are foreigners, and the king reproached and
+insulted by insolent pedants and ballad-making poets for employing
+foreigners and being a foreigner himself, I confess myself moved by it to
+remind our nation of their own original, thereby to let them see what a
+banter they put upon themselves, since--speaking of Englishmen _ab
+origine_--we are really all foreigners ourselves:"
+
+    The Pict and painted Briton, treach'rous Scot,
+    By hunger, theft, and rapine hither brought;
+    Norwegian pirates, buccaneering Danes,
+    Whose red-haired offspring everywhere remains;
+    Who, joined with Norman-French, compound the breed
+    From whence your true-born Englishmen proceed.
+
+In 1702, just after the death of King William, Defoe published his
+severely ironical pamphlet, _The Shortest Way with the Dissenters_.
+Assuming the character of a High Churchman, he says: "'Tis vain to trifle
+in the matter. The light, foolish handling of them by fines is their glory
+and advantage. If the gallows instead of the compter, and the galleys
+instead of the fines, were the reward of going to a conventicle, there
+would not be so many sufferers." His irony was at first misunderstood: the
+High Churchmen hailed him as a champion, and the Dissenters hated him as
+an enemy. But when his true meaning became apparent, a reward of £50 was
+offered by the government for his discovery. His so-called "scandalous and
+seditious pamphlet" was burnt by the common hangman: he was tried, and
+sentenced to pay two hundred marks, to stand three times in the pillory,
+and to be imprisoned during the queen's pleasure. He bore his sentence
+bravely, and during his two years' residence in prison he published a
+periodical called _The Review_. In 1709 he wrote a _History of the Union_
+between England and Scotland.
+
+
+ROBINSON CRUSOE.--But none of these things, nor all combined, would have
+given to Defoe that immortality which is his as the author of _Robinson
+Crusoe_. Of the groundwork of the story not much need be said.
+
+Alexander Selkirk, the sailing-master of an English privateer, was set
+ashore, in 1704, at his own request, on the uninhabited island Juan
+Fernandez, which lies several hundred miles from the coast of Chili, in
+the Pacific Ocean. He was supplied with clothing and arms, and remained
+there alone for four years and four months. It is supposed that his
+adventures suggested the work. It is also likely that Defoe had read the
+journal of Peter Serrano, who, in the sixteenth century, had been
+_marooned_ in like manner on a desolate island lying off the mouth of the
+Oroonoque (Orinoco). The latter locality was adopted by Defoe. But it is
+not the fact or the adventures which give power to _Robinson Crusoe_. It
+is the manner of treating what might occur to any fancy, even the dullest.
+The charm consists in the simplicity and the verisimilitude of the
+narrative, the rare adaptation of the common man to his circumstances, his
+projects and failures, the birth of religion in his soul, his conflicting
+hopes and fears, his occasional despair. We see in him a brother, and a
+suffering one. We live his life on the island; we share his terrible fear
+at the discovery of the footprint, his courage in destroying the cannibal
+savages and rescuing the victim. Where is there in fiction another man
+Friday? From the beginning of his misfortunes until he is again sailing
+for England, after nearly thirty years of captivity, he holds us
+spellbound by the reality, the simplicity, and the pathos of his
+narrative; but, far beyond the temporary illusion of the modern novel,
+everything remains real: the shipwrecked mariner spins his yarns in sailor
+fashion, and we believe and feel every word he says. The book, although
+wonderfully good throughout, is unequal: the prime interest only lasts
+until he is rescued, and ends with his embarkation for England. The
+remainder of his travels becomes, as a narrative, comparatively tiresome
+and tame; and we feel, besides, that, after his unrivalled experience, he
+should have remained in England, "the observed of all observers." Yet it
+must be said that we are indebted to his later journey in Spain and
+France, his adventures in the Eastern Seas, his caravan ride overland from
+China to Europe, for much which illustrates the manners and customs of
+navigation and travel in that day.
+
+_Robinson Crusoe_ stands alone among English books, a perennial fountain
+of instruction and pleasure. It aids in educating each new generation:
+children read it for its incident; men to renew their youth; literary
+scholars to discover what it teaches of its time and of its author's
+genius. Its influence continues unabated; it incites boys to maritime
+adventure, and shows them how to use in emergency whatever they find at
+hand. It does more: it tends to reclaim the erring by its simple homilies;
+it illustrates the ruder navigation of its day; shows us the habits and
+morals of the merchant marine, and the need and means of reforming what
+was so very bad.
+
+Defoe's style is clear, simple, and natural. He wrote several other works,
+of which few are now read. Among these are the _Account of the Plague, The
+Life and Piracies of Captain Singleton_, and _The Fortunes and Misfortunes
+of Moll Flanders_. He died on the 24th of April, 1731.
+
+
+RICHARDSON.--Samuel Richardson, who, notwithstanding the peculiar merits
+of Defoe, must be called the _Father of Modern Prose Fiction_, was born in
+Derbyshire, in 1689. The personal events of his life are few and
+uninteresting. A carpenter's son, he had but little schooling, and owed
+everything to his own exertions. Apprenticed to a printer in London, at
+the age of fifteen, he labored assiduously at his trade, and it rewarded
+him with fortune: he became, in turn, printer of the Journals of the House
+of Commons, Master of the Stationers' Company, and Printer to the King.
+While young, he had been the confidant of three young women, and had
+written or corrected their love-letters for them. He seems to have had
+great fluency in letter-writing; and being solicited by a publisher to
+write a series of familiar letters on the principal concerns of life,
+which might be used as models,--a sort of "Easy Letter-Writer,"--he began
+the task, but, changing his plan, he wrote a story in a series of letters.
+The first volume was published in 1741, and was no less a work than
+_Pamela_. The author was then fifty years old; and he presents in this
+work a matured judgment concerning the people and customs of the day,--the
+printer's notions of the social condition of England,--shrewd, clever, and
+defective.
+
+Wearied as the world had been by what Sir Walter Scott calls the "huge
+folios of inanity" which had preceded him, the work was hailed with
+delight. There was a little affectation; but the sentiment was moral and
+natural. Ladies carried _Pamela_ about in their rides and walks. Pope,
+near his end, said it was a better moral teacher than sermons: Sherlock
+recommended it from the pulpit.
+
+
+PAMELA, AND OTHER NOVELS.--_Pamela_ is represented as a poor servant-maid,
+but beautiful and chaste, whose honor resists the attack of her dissolute
+master, and whose modesty and virtue overcome his evil nature. Subdued and
+reclaimed by her chastity and her charms, he reforms, and marries her.
+Some pictures which are rather warmly colored and indelicate in our day
+were quite in keeping with the taste of that time, and gave greater effect
+to the moral lesson assigned to be taught.
+
+In his next work, _Clarissa Harlowe_, which appeared in 1749, he has drawn
+the picture of a perfect woman preserving her purity amid seductive
+gayeties, and suffering sorrows to which those of the Virgin Martyr are
+light. We have, too, an excellent portraiture of a bold and wicked, but
+clever and gifted man--Lovelace.
+
+His third and last novel, _Sir Charles Grandison_, appeared in 1753. The
+hero, _Sir Charles_, is the model of a Christian gentleman; but is,
+perhaps, too faultless for popular appreciation.
+
+In his delineations of humbler natures,--country girls like
+_Pamela_,--Richardson is happiest: in his descriptions of high life he has
+failed from ignorance. He was not acquainted with the best society, and
+all his grandees are stilted, artificial, and affected; but even in this
+fault he is of value, for he shows us how men of his class at that time
+regarded the society of those above them.
+
+These works, which, notwithstanding their length, were devoured eagerly as
+soon as they appeared, are little read at present, and exist rather as
+historical interpreters of an age that is past, than as present light
+literature: they have been driven from our shelves by Scott, Dickens,
+Thackeray, and a host of charming novelists since his day.
+
+Richardson lived the admired of a circle of ladies,--to whose sex he had
+paid so noble a tribute,--the hero of tea-drinkings at his house on
+Parson's Green; his books gave him fame, but his shop--in the back office
+of which he wrote his novels, when not pressed by business--gave him money
+and its comforts. He died at the age of seventy-two, on the 4th of July,
+1761.
+
+He was an unconscious actor in a great movement which had begun in France.
+The brilliant theories of Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and
+Dalembert--containing much truth and many heresies--were felt in England,
+and had given a new impetus to English intellect; indeed, it is not
+strange, when we come to consider, that while Richardson's works were
+praised in English pulpits, Voltaire and the French atheists declared that
+they saw in them an advance towards human perfectibility and
+self-redemption, of which, if true, Richardson himself was unconscious.
+From the amours of men and women of fashion, aided by intriguing
+maid-servants and lying valets, Richardson turned away to do honor to
+untitled merit, to exalt the humble, and to defy gilded vice. Whatever
+were the charms of rank, he has elevated our humanity; thus far, and thus
+far only, has he sympathized with the Frenchmen who attacked the
+corruptions of the age, but who assaulted also its faith and its
+reverence.
+
+
+HENRY FIELDING.--The path of prose fiction, so handsomely opened by
+Richardson, was immediately entered and pursued by a genius of higher
+order, and as unlike him as it was possible to be. Richardson still clung
+to romantic sentiment, Fielding eschewed it; Richardson was a teacher of
+morality, Fielding shielded immorality; Richardson described artificial
+manners in a society which he did not frequent, Fielding, in the words of
+Coleridge, "was like an open lawn on a breezy day in May;" Richardson was
+a plebeian, a carpenter's son, a successful printer; Fielding was a
+gentleman, the son of General Fielding, and grandson of the Earl of
+Denbigh; Richardson steadily rose, by his honest exertions, to independent
+fortune, Fielding passed from the high estate of his ancestors into
+poverty and loose company; the one has given us mistaken views of high
+life, the other has been enabled, by his sad experience, to give us
+truthful pictures of every grade of English society in his day from the
+lord, the squire, and the fop to the thief-taker, the prostitute, and the
+thief.
+
+Henry Fielding was born on the 22d of April, 1707, at Sharpham Park,
+Somersetshire. While yet a young man, he had read _Pamela_; and to
+ridicule what he considered its prudery and over-righteousness, he hastily
+commenced his novel of _Joseph Andrews_. This Joseph is represented as the
+brother of Pamela,--a simple country lad, who comes to town and finds a
+place as Lady Booby's footman. As Pamela had resisted her master's
+seductions, he is called upon to oppose the vile attempts of his mistress
+upon his virtue.
+
+In that novel, as well as in its successors, _Tom Jones_ and _Amelia_,
+Fielding has given us rare pictures of English life, and satires upon
+English institutions, which present the social history of England a
+century ago: in this view our sympathies are not lost upon purely ideal
+creations.
+
+In him, too, the French _illuminati_ claimed a co-laborer; and their
+influence is more distinctly seen than in Richardson's works: great
+social problems are discussed almost in the manner of a Greek chorus;
+mechanical forms of religion are denounced. The French philosophers
+attacked errors so intertwined with truth, that the violent stabs at the
+former have cut the latter almost to death; Richardson attacked the errors
+without injuring the truth: he is the champion of purity. If _Joseph
+Andrews_ was to rival _Pamela_ in chastity, _Tom Jones_ was to be
+contrasted with both in the same particular.
+
+
+TOM JONES.--Fielding has received the highest commendations from literary
+men. Byron calls him the "prose Homer of human nature;" and Gibbon, in
+noticing that the Lords of Denbigh were descended, like Charles V., from
+Rudolph of Hapsburg, says: "The successors of Charles V. may despise their
+brethren of England, but the romance of _Tom Jones_--that exquisite
+picture of human manners--will outlive the Palace of the Escurial and the
+Imperial Eagle of Austria." We cannot go so far; we quote the praise but
+doubt the prophecy. The work is historically valuable, but technically
+imperfect and unequal. The plot is rambling, without method: most of the
+scenes lie in the country or in obscure English towns; the meetings are as
+theatrical as stage encounters; the episodes are awkwardly introduced, and
+disfigure the unity; the classical introductions and invocations are
+absurd. His heroes are men of generous impulses but dissolute lives, and
+his women are either vile, or the puppets of circumstance.
+
+
+ITS TRUE VALUE.--What can redeem his works from such a category of
+condemnation? Their rare portraiture of character and their real glimpses
+of nature: they form an album of photographs of life as it was--odd,
+grotesque, but true. They have no mysterious Gothic castles like that of
+Otranto, nor enchanted forests like that of Mrs. Radcliffe. They present
+homely English life and people,--_Partridge_, barber, schoolmaster, and
+coward; _Mrs. Honor_, the type of maid-servants, devoted to her mistress,
+and yet artful; _Squire Western_, the foul and drunken country gentleman;
+_Squire Allworthy_, a noble specimen of human nature; _Parson Adams_, who
+is regarded by the critics as the best portrait among all his characters.
+
+And even if we can neither commend nor recommend heroes like _Tom Jones_,
+such young men really existed, and the likeness is speakingly drawn: we
+bear with his faults because of his reality. Perhaps our verdict may be
+best given in the words of Thackeray. "I am angry," he says, "with Jones.
+Too much of the plum-cake and the rewards of life fall to that boisterous,
+swaggering young scapegrace. Sophia actually surrenders without a proper
+sense of decorum; the fond, foolish, palpitating little creature. 'Indeed,
+Mr. Jones,' she says, 'it rests with you to name the day.' ... And yet
+many a young fellow, no better than Mr. Thomas Jones, has carried by a
+_coup-de-main_ the heart of many a kind girl who was a great deal too good
+for him."
+
+When _Joseph Andrews_ appeared, and Richardson found that so profane a
+person as Fielding had dared to burlesque his _Pamela_, he was angry; and
+his little tea-drinking coterie was warm in his defence; but Fielding's
+party was then, and has remained, the stronger.
+
+In his novel of _Amelia_, we have a general autobiography of Fielding.
+Amelia, his wife, is lovely, chaste, and constant. Captain Booth--Fielding
+himself--is errant, guilty, generous, and repentant. We have besides in it
+many varieties of English life,--lords, clergymen, officers; Vauxhall and
+the masquerade; the sponging-house and its inmates, debtors and
+criminals,--all as Fielding saw and knew them.
+
+The condition of the clergy is more clearly set forth in Fielding's novels
+than in the pages of Echard, Oldham, Wood, Macaulay, or Churchill
+Babington. So changed was their estate since the Reformation, that few
+high-born youths, except the weak or lame, took holy orders. Many
+clergymen worked during the week. One, says South, was a cobbler on
+weekdays, and preached on Sundays. Wilmot says: "We are struck by the
+phenomenon of a learned man sitting down to prove, with the help of logic,
+that a priest or a chaplain in a family is not a servant,"--Jeremy
+Collier: _Essays on Pride and the Office of a Chaplain_.
+
+Fielding drew them and their condition from the life. Parson Adams is the
+most excellent of men. His cassock is ten years old; over it he dons a
+coarse white overcoat, and travels on foot to London to sell nine volumes
+of sermons, wherewithal to buy food for his family. He engages the
+innkeeper in serious talk; he does desperate battle to defend a young
+woman who has fallen into the hands of ruffians on the highway; and when
+he is arrested, his manuscript Eschylus is mistaken for a book of ciphers
+unfolding a dreadful plot against the government. This is a hit against
+the ignorance and want of education among the people; for it is some time
+before some one in the company thinks he saw such characters many years
+ago when he was young, and that it may be Greek. The incident of Parson
+Trulliber mistaking his fellow-priest for a pork-merchant, on account of
+his coarse garments, is excellent, but will not bear abbreviation. Adams
+is splattered by the huge, overfed swine, and ejaculates, "_Nil habeo cum
+porcis_; I am a clergyman, sir, and am not come to buy hogs!" The
+condition of a curate and the theology of the publican are set forth in
+the conversation between Parson Adams and the innkeeper.
+
+The works of Fielding may be justly accused of describing immoral scenes
+and using lewd language; but even in this they are delineative of the
+manners and conversation of an age in which such men lived, such scenes
+occurred, such language was used. I liken the great realm of English prose
+fiction to some famous museum of art. The instructor of the young may
+carefully select what pictures to show them; but the student of English
+literature moves through the rooms and galleries, gazing, judging,
+approving, condemning, comparing. Genius may have soiled its canvas with
+what is prurient and vile; lascivious groups may stand side by side with
+pictures of saints and madonnas. To leave the figure, it is wise counsel
+to read on principle, and, armed with principle, to accept and imitate the
+good, and to reject the evil. Conscience gives the rule, and for every
+bane will give the antidote.
+
+Of this school and period, Fielding is the greatest figure. One word as to
+his career. Passing through all social conditions,--first a country
+gentleman, living on or rather squandering his first wife's little fortune
+in following the hounds and entertaining the county; then a playwright,
+vegetating very seedily on the proceeds of his comedies; justice of the
+peace, and encountering, in his vocation, such characters as _Jonathan
+Wild_; drunken, licentious, unfaithful to his wife, but always--strange
+paradox of poor human nature--generous as the day; mourning with bitter
+tears the loss of his first wife, and then marrying her faithful
+maid-servant, that they may mourn for her together,--he seems to have been
+a rare mechanism without a _governor_. "Poor Harry Fielding!" And yet to
+this irregular, sinful character, we owe the inimitable portraitures of
+English life as it was, in _Joseph Andrews_, _Tom Jones_, and _Amelia_.
+
+Fielding's habits, acting upon a naturally weak constitution, wore him
+out. He left England, and wandered to the English factory at Lisbon, where
+he died, in 1754, in the forty-eighth year of his age.
+
+
+TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT.--Smollett, the third in order and in rank of the
+novelists of his age, was born at Cardross, Dumbartonshire, in 1721, of a
+good family; but he had small means. After some schooling at Dumbarton and
+a university career at Glasgow, he was, from necessity, apprenticed to a
+surgeon. But as his grandfather, Sir James Smollett, on whom he depended,
+died, he left his master, at the age of eighteen, and, taking in his
+pocket a manuscript play he had thus early written,--_The Regicides_,--he
+made his way to London, the El Dorado of all youths with literary
+aspirations. The play was not accepted; but, through the knowledge
+obtained in the surgery, he received an appointment as surgeon's mate, and
+went out with Admiral Vernon's fated expedition to Carthagena in that
+capacity, and thus acquired a knowledge of the sea and of sailors which he
+was to use with great effect in his later writings. For a time he remained
+in the West Indies, where he fell in love with Miss Anne Lascelles, whom
+he afterwards married. In 1746 he returned to London, and, after an
+unsuccessful attempt to practise medicine, he threw himself with great
+vigor into the field of literature. He was a man of strange and
+antagonistic features, just and generous in theory, quarrelsome and
+overbearing in practice. From the year 1746 his pen seems to have been
+always busy. He first tried his hand on some satires, which gained for him
+numerous enemies; and in 1748 he produced his first novel, _Roderick
+Random_, which, in spite of its indecency, the world at once acknowledged
+to be a work of genius: the verisimilitude was perfect; every one
+recognized in the hero the type of many a young North countryman going out
+to seek his fortune. The variety is great, the scenes are more varied and
+real than those in Richardson and Fielding, the characters are numerous
+and vividly painted, and the keen sense of ridicule pervading the book
+makes it a broad jest from beginning to end. Historically, his
+delineations are valuable; for he describes a period in the annals of the
+British marine which has happily passed away,--a hard life in little
+stifling holds or forecastles, with hard fare,--a base life, for the
+sailor, oppressed on shipboard, was the prey of vile women and land-sharks
+when on shore. What pictures of prostitution and indecency! what obscenity
+of language! what drunken infernal orgies! We may shun the book as we
+would shun the company, and yet the one is the exact portraiture of the
+other.
+
+Roderick Random was followed, in 1751, by _Peregrine Pickle_, a book in
+similar taste, but the characters in which are even more striking. The
+forms of Commodore Trunnion, Lieutenant Hatchway, Pipes the boatswain, and
+Ap Morgan the choleric Welsh surgeon, are as familiar to us now as at the
+first.
+
+Smollett had now retired to Chelsea, where his facile pen was still hard
+at work. In 1753 appeared his _Ferdinand Count Fathom_, the portraiture of
+a complete villain, corresponding in character with Fielding's _Jonathan
+Wild_, but with a better moral.
+
+About this time he translated _Don Quixote_; and although his version is
+still published, it is by no means true to the idiom of the language, nor
+to the higher purpose of Cervantes.
+
+Passing by his _Complete History of Authentic and Entertaining Voyages_,
+we come to his _History of England from the Descent of Julius Cæsar to the
+Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748_. It is not a profound work; but it is
+so currently written, that, in lieu of better, the latter portion was
+taken to supplement Hume; as a work of less merit than either, that of
+Bissett was added in the later editions to supplement Smollett and Hume.
+For this history he is said to have received £2000.
+
+In 1762 he issued _The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves_, who, with his
+attendant, _Captain Crowe_, goes forth, in the style of Don Quixote and
+Sancho, to _do_ the world. Smollett's forte was in the broadly humorous,
+and this is all that redeems this work from utter absurdity.
+
+
+HUMPHREY CLINKER.--His last work of any importance, and perhaps his best,
+is _The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker_, described in a series of letters
+descriptive of this amusing imaginative journey. Mrs. Winifred, Tabitha,
+and, best of all, Lismahago, are rare characters, and in all respects,
+except its vulgarity, it was the prototype of Hood's exquisite _Up the
+Rhine_.
+
+From the year 1756, Smollett edited, at intervals, various periodicals,
+and wrote what he thought very good poetry, now forgotten,--an _Ode to
+Independence_, after the Greek manner of strophe and antistrophe, not
+wanting in a noble spirit; and _The Tears of Scotland_, written on the
+occasion of the Duke of Cumberland's barbarities, in 1746, after the
+battle of Culloden:
+
+    Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn
+    Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn!
+    Thy sons, for valor long renowned,
+    Lie slaughtered on thy native ground.
+
+Smollett died abroad on the 21st of October, 1771. His health entirely
+broken, he had gone to Italy, and taken a cottage near Leghorn: a slight
+resuscitation was the consequence, and he had something in prospect to
+live for: he was the heir-at-law to the estate of Bonhill, worth £1000 per
+annum; but the remorseless archer would not wait for his fortune.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+STERNE, GOLDSMITH, AND MACKENZIE.
+
+
+   The Subjective School. Sterne--Sermons. Tristram Shandy. Sentimental
+   Journey. Oliver Goldsmith. Poems--The Vicar. Histories, and Other
+   Works. Mackenzie. The Man of Feeling.
+
+
+
+THE SUBJECTIVE SCHOOL.
+
+
+In the same age, and inspired by similar influences, there sprang up a
+widely-different school of novelists, which has been variously named as
+the Sentimental and the Subjective School. Richardson and Fielding
+depicted what they saw around them objectively, rather than the
+impressions made upon their individual sensitiveness. Both Sterne and
+Goldsmith were eminently subjective. They stand as a transparent medium
+between their works and the reader. The medium through which we see
+_Tristram Shandy_ is a double lens,--one part of which is the distorted
+mind of the author, and the other the nondescript philosophy which he
+pilfered from Rabelais and Burton. The glass through which the _Vicar of
+Wakefield_ is shown us is the good-nature and loving heart of Goldsmith,
+which brighten and gladden every creation of his pen. Thus it is that two
+men, otherwise essentially unlike, appear together as representatives of a
+school which was at once sentimental and subjective.
+
+
+STERNE.--Lawrence Sterne was the son of an officer in the British army,
+and was born, in 1713, at Clonmel, in Ireland, where his father was
+stationed.
+
+His father died not long afterwards, at Gibraltar, from the effect of a
+wound which he had received in a duel; and it is indicative of the _code
+of honor_ in that day, that the duel was about a goose at the mess-table!
+What little Lawrence learned in his brief military experience was put to
+good use afterwards in his army reminiscences and portraitures in
+_Tristram Shandy_. No doubt My Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim are sketches
+from his early recollections. Aided by his mother's relations, he studied
+at Cambridge, and afterwards, without an inward call, but in accordance
+with the custom of the day, he entered into holy orders, and was presented
+to a living, of which he stood very much in need.
+
+
+HIS SERMONS.--With no spirit for parochial work, it must be said that he
+published very forcible and devout sermons, and set before his people and
+the English world a pious standard of life, by which, however, he did not
+choose to measure his own: he preached, but did not practise. In a letter
+to Mr. Foley, he says: "I have made a good campaign in the field of the
+literati: ... two volumes of sermons which I shall print very soon will
+bring me a considerable sum.... 'Tis but a crown for sixteen sermons--dog
+cheap; but I am in quest of honor, not money."
+
+These discourses abound in excellent instruction and in pithy expressions;
+but it is painful to see how often his pointed rebukes are undesignedly
+aimed at his own conduct. In one of them he says: "When such a man tells
+you that a thing goes against his conscience, always believe he means
+exactly the same thing as when he tells you it goes against his stomach--a
+present want of appetite being generally the true cause of both." In his
+discourse on _The Forgiveness of Injuries_, we have the following striking
+sentiment: "The brave only know how to forgive: it is the most refined and
+generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at. Cowards have done
+good and kind actions; cowards have even fought, nay, sometimes even
+conquered; but a coward never forgave." All readers of _Tristram Shandy_
+will recall his sermon on the text, "For we trust we have a good
+conscience," so affecting to Corporal Trim and so overwhelming to Dr.
+Slop.
+
+But if his sermons are so pious and good, we look in vain into his
+entertaining _Letters_ for a corresponding piety in his life. They are
+witty, jolly, occasionally licentious. They touch and adorn every topic
+except religion; and so it may be feared that all his religion was
+written, printed, bound, and sold by subscription, in those famous
+sermons, sixteen for a crown--"dog cheap!"
+
+
+TRISTRAM SHANDY.--In 1759 appeared the first part of _Tristram Shandy_--a
+strange, desultory work, in which many of the curious bits of philosophy
+are taken from Montaigne, Burton, Rabelais, and others; but which has,
+besides, great originality in the handling and in the portraiture of
+characters. Much of what Sterne borrowed from these writers passed for his
+own in that day, when there were comparatively few readers of the authors
+mentioned. As to the charge of plagiarism, we may say that Sterne's hero
+is like the _Gargantua_ of Rabelais in many particulars; but he is a man
+instead of a monster; while the chapter on _Hobby-Horses_ is a
+reproduction, in a new form of crystallization, of _Gargantua's wooden
+horses_.
+
+So, too, the entire theological cast of _Tristram Shandy_ is that of the
+sixteenth century;--questions before the Sorbonne, the use of
+excommunication, and the like. Dr. Slop, the Roman Catholic surgeon of the
+family, is but a weak mouthpiece of his Church in the polemics of the
+story; for Sterne was a violent opponent of the Church of Rome in story as
+well as in sermon; and Obadiah, the stupid man-servant, is the lay figure
+who receives the curses which Dr. Slop reads,--"cursed in house and
+stable, garden and field and highway, in path or in wood, in the water or
+in the church." Whether the doctor was in earnest or not, Obadiah paid
+him fully by upsetting him and his pony with the coach-horse.
+
+But in spite of the resemblance to Rabelais and a former age, it must be
+allowed that _Tristram Shandy_ contains many of the richest pictures and
+fairest characters of the age in which it was written. Rural England is
+truthfully presented, and the political cast of the day is shown in his
+references to the war in Flanders. Among the sterling original portraits
+are those of Mr. Shandy, the country gentleman, controversial and
+consequential; Mrs. Shandy, the nonentity,--the Amelia Osborne and Mrs.
+Nickleby of her day; Yorick, the lukewarm, time-serving priest--Sterne
+himself: and these are only supplementary characters.
+
+The sieges of towns in the Low Countries, then going on, are pleasantly
+connected with that most exquisite of characters, _my Uncle Toby_, who has
+a fortification in his garden,--sentry-box, cannon, and all,--and who
+follows the great movement on this petty scale from day to day, as the
+bulletins come in from the seat of war.
+
+The _Widow Wadman_, with her artless wiles, and the "something in her
+eye," makes my Uncle Toby--who protests he can see nothing in the
+white--look, not without peril, "with might and main into the pupil." Ah,
+that sentry-box and the widow's tactics might have conquered many a more
+wary man than my Uncle Toby! and yet my Uncle Toby escaped.
+
+Now, all these are real English characters, sketched from life by the hand
+of genius, and they become our friends and acquaintances forever. It seems
+as though Sterne, after a long and close study of Rabelais and Burton, had
+fancied that, with their aid, he might write a money-making book; but his
+own genius, rising superior to the plagiarism, took the project out of his
+venal hands; and from the antique learning and the incongruities which he
+had heaped together, bright and beautiful forms sprang forth like genii
+from the mine, to subsidize the tears and laughter of all future time.
+What an exquisite creation is my Uncle Toby!--a soldier in the van of
+battle, a man of honor and high tone in every-day life, a kind brother, a
+good master to Corporal Trim, simple as a child, benevolent as an angel.
+"Go, poor devil," quoth he to the fly which buzzed about his nose all
+dinner-time, "get thee gone; why should I hurt thee? This world is surely
+wide enough to hold both thee and me!"
+
+And as for Corporal Trim, he is a host in himself. There is in the English
+literary portrait-gallery no other Uncle Toby, there is no other Corporal
+Trim. Hazlitt has not exaggerated in saying that the _Story of Le Fevre_
+is perhaps the finest in the English language. My Uncle Toby's conduct to
+the dying officer is the perfection of loving-kindness and charity.
+
+
+THE SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY.--Sterne's _Sentimental Journey_, although
+charmingly written,--and this is said in spite of the preference of such a
+critic as Horace Walpole,--will not compare with _Tristram Shandy_: it is
+left unfinished, and is constantly suggestive of licentiousness.
+
+Sterne's English is excellent and idiomatic, and has commended his works
+to the ordinary reader, who shrinks from the hyperlatinism of the time
+represented so strongly by Dr. Johnson and his followers. His wit, if
+sometimes artificial, is always acute; his sentiment is entirely
+artificial; "he is always protruding his sensibility, trying to play upon
+you as upon an instrument; more concerned that you should acknowledge his
+power than have any depth of feeling." Thackeray, whose opinion is just
+quoted, calls him "a great jester, not a great humorist." He had lived a
+careless, self-indulgent life, and was no honor to his profession. His
+death was like a retribution. In a mean lodging, with no friends but his
+bookseller, he died suddenly from hemorrhage. His funeral was hasty, and
+only attended by two persons; his burial was in an obscure graveyard; and
+his body was taken up by corpse-snatchers for the dissecting-room of the
+professor of anatomy at Cambridge,--alas, poor Yorick!
+
+
+OLIVER GOLDSMITH.--We have placed Goldsmith in immediate connection with
+Sterne as, like him, of the Subjective School, in his story of the _Vicar
+of Wakefield_ and his numerous biographical and prose sketches; but he
+belongs to more than one literary school of his period. He was a poet, an
+essayist, a dramatist, and an historian; a writer who, in the words of his
+epitaph,--written by Dr. Johnson, and with no extravagant
+eulogium,--touched all subjects, and touched none that he did not
+adorn,--_nullum quod tetigit non ornavit_. His life was a strange
+melodrama, so varied with laughter and tears, so checkered with fame and
+misfortune, so resounding with songs pathetic and comic, that, were he an
+unknown hero, his adventures would be read with pleasure by all persons of
+sensibility. There is no better illustration of the _subjective_ in
+literature. It is the man who is presented to us in his works, and who can
+no more be disjoined from them than the light from the vase, the beauties
+of which it discloses. As an essayist, he was of the school of Addison and
+Steele; but he has more ease of style and more humor than his teachers. As
+a dramatist, he had many and superior competitors in his own vein; and yet
+his plays still occupy the stage. As an historian, he was fluent but
+superficial; and yet the charm of his style and the easy flow of his
+narrative, have given his books currency as manuals of instruction. And
+although as a writer of fiction, or of truth gracefully veiled in the
+garments of fiction, he stands unrivalled in his beautiful and touching
+story of the incorruptible _Vicar_, yet this is his only complete story,
+and presents but one side of his literary character. Considering him first
+as a poet, we shall find that he is one of the Transition School, but that
+he has a beautiful originality: his poems appeal not to the initiated
+alone, but to human nature in all its conditions and guises; they are
+elevated and harmonious enough for the most fastidious taste, and simple
+and artless enough to please the rustic and the child. To say that he is
+the most popular writer in the whole course of English Literature thus
+far, is hardly to overstate his claims; and the principal reason is that,
+with a blundering and improvident nature, a want of dignity, a lack of
+coherence, he had a great heart, alive to human suffering; he was generous
+to a fault, true to the right, and ever seeking, if constantly failing, to
+direct and improve his own life, and these good characteristics are
+everywhere manifest in his works. A brief recital of the principal events
+in his career will throw light upon his works, and will do the best
+justice to his peculiar character.
+
+Oliver Goldsmith was born at the little village of Pallas, in Ireland,
+where his father was a poor curate, on the 10th of November, 1728. There
+were nine children, of whom he was the fifth. His father afterwards moved
+to Lissoy, which the poet described, in his _Deserted Village_, as
+
+    Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,
+    Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain.
+
+As his father was entirely unable to educate so numerous a family,
+Goldsmith owed his education partly to his uncle, the Rev. Thomas
+Contarini, and in part to his brother, the Rev. Henry Goldsmith, whom he
+cherished with the sincerest affection. An attack of the small-pox while
+he was a boy marked his face, and he was to most persons an
+unprepossessing child. He was ill-treated at school by larger boys, and
+afterwards at Trinity College, Dublin, which he entered as a sizar, by his
+tutor. He was idle, careless, and improvident: he left college without
+permission, but was taken back by his brother, and was finally graduated
+with a bachelor's degree, in 1749. His later professional studies were
+spasmodic and desultory: he tried law and medicine, and more than once
+gained a scanty support by teaching. Seized with a rambling spirit, he
+went to the Continent, and visited Holland, France, Germany, Switzerland,
+and Italy; sometimes gaining a scanty livelihood by teaching English, and
+sometimes wandering without money, depending upon his flute to win a
+supper and bed from the rustics who lived on the highway. He obtained, it
+is said, the degree of Doctor of Medicine at Padua; and on his return to
+England, he went before a board of examiners to obtain the position of
+surgeon's mate in the army or navy. He was at this time so poor that he
+was obliged to borrow a suit of clothes to make a proper appearance before
+the examiners. He failed in his examination, and then, in despair, he
+pawned the borrowed clothes, to the great anger of the publisher who had
+lent them. This failure in his medical examination, unfortunate as it then
+seemed, secured him to literature. From that time his pen was constantly
+busy for the reviews and magazines. His first work was _An Inquiry into
+the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe_, which, at least, prepared
+the way for his future efforts. This appeared in 1759, and is
+characterized by general knowledge and polish of style.
+
+
+HIS POEMS.--In 1764 he published _The Traveller_, a moralizing poem upon
+the condition of the people under the European governments. It was at once
+and entirely successful; philosophical, elegant, and harmonious, it is
+pitched in a key suited to the capacity of the world at large; and as, in
+the general comparison of nations, he found abundant reason for lauding
+England, it was esteemed patriotic, and was on that account popular. Many
+of its lines have been constantly quoted since.
+
+In 1770 appeared his _Deserted Village_, which was even more popular than
+_The Traveller_; nor has this popularity flagged from that time down to
+the present day. It is full of exquisite pictures of rural life and
+manners. It is what it claims to be,--not an attempt at high art or epic,
+but a gallery of cabinet pictures of rare finish and detail, painted by
+the poet's heart and appealing to the sensibility of every reader. The
+world knows it by heart,--the portraiture of the village schoolmaster and
+his school; the beautiful picture of the country parson:
+
+    A man he was to all the country dear,
+    And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
+
+This latter is a worthy companion-piece to Chaucer's "poor persoune," and
+is, besides, a filial tribute to Goldsmith's father. So real are the
+characters and scenes, that the poem has been a popular subject for the
+artist. If in _The Traveller_ he has been philosophical and didactic, in
+the _Deserted Village_ he is only descriptive and tender. In no work is
+there a finer spirit of true charity, the love of man for God's
+sake,--like God himself, "no respecter of persons."
+
+While in form and versification he is like Pope and the Artificial School,
+he has the sensibility to nature of Thomson, and the simplicity of feeling
+and thought of Wordsworth; and thus he stands between the two great poetic
+periods, partaking of the better nature of both.
+
+
+THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.--Between the appearance of these two poems, in
+1766, came forth that nonpareil of charming stories, _The Vicar of
+Wakefield_. It is so well known that we need not enter into an analysis of
+it. It is the story of a good vicar, of like passions with ourselves; not
+wanting in vanity and impetuosity, but shining in his Christian virtue
+like a star in the midst of accumulating misfortunes,--a man of immaculate
+honor and undying faith, preaching to his fellow-prisoners in the jail,
+surveying death without fear, and at last, like Job, restored to
+happiness, and yet maintaining his humility. It does not seem to have been
+constructed according to artificial rules, but rather to have been told
+extemporaneously, without effort and without ambition; and while this very
+fact has been the cause of some artistic faults and some improbabilities,
+it has also given it a peculiar charm, by contrast with such purely
+artificial constructions as the _Rasselas_ of Johnson.
+
+So doubtful was the publisher, who had bought the manuscript for £60, that
+he held it back for two years, until the name of the author had become
+known through _The Traveller_, and was thus a guarantee for its success.
+The _Vicar of Wakefield_ has also an additional value in its delineation
+of manners, persons, and conditions in that day, and in its strictures
+upon the English penal law, in such terms and with such suggestions as
+seem a prophecy of the changes which have since taken place.
+
+
+HISTORIES, AND OTHER WORKS.--Of Goldsmith's various histories it may be
+said that they are of value for the clear, if superficial, presentation of
+facts, and for their charm of style.
+
+The best is, without doubt, _The History of England_; but the _Histories
+of Greece and Rome_, re-edited, are still used as text-books in many
+schools. The _Vicar_ has been translated into most of the modern
+languages, and imitated by many writers since.
+
+As an essayist, Goldsmith has been a great enricher of English history.
+His Chinese letters--for the idea of which he was indebted to the _Lettres
+Persanes_ of Montesquieu--describe England in his day with the same
+_vraisemblance_ which we have noticed in _The Spectator_. These were
+afterwards collected and published in a volume entitled _The Citizen of
+the World_. And besides the pleasure of biography, and the humor of the
+presentment, his _Life of Beau Nash_ introduces us to Bath and its
+frequenters with historical power. The life at the Spring is one and a
+very valuable phase of English society.
+
+As a dramatist, he was more than equalled by Sheridan; but his two plays,
+_The Good-Natured Man_ and _She Stoops to Conquer_, are still favorites
+upon the stage.
+
+The irregularities of Goldsmith's private life seem to have been rather
+defects in his character than intentional wrong-doings. Generous to a
+fault, squandering without thought what was due to his creditors, losing
+at play, he lived in continual pecuniary embarrassment, and died unhappy,
+with a debt of £1000, the existence of which led Johnson to ejaculate,
+"Was ever poet so trusted before?" He lived a bachelor; and the conclusion
+seems forced upon us that had he married a woman who could have controlled
+him, he, would have been a happier and more respectable man, but perhaps
+have done less for literature than he did.
+
+While Goldsmith was a type and presenter of his age, and while he took no
+high flights in the intellectual realms, he so handled what the age
+presented that he must be allowed the claim of originality, both in his
+poems and in the _Vicar_; and he has had, even to the present day, hosts
+of imitators. Poems on college gala-days were for a long time faint
+reflections of his _Traveller_, and simple, causal stories of quiet life
+are the teeming progeny of the _Vicar_, in spite of the Whistonian
+controversy, and the epitaph of his living wife.
+
+A few of his ballads and songs display great lyric power, but the most of
+his poetry is not lyric; it is rather a blending of the pastoral and epic
+with rare success. His minor poems are few, but favorites. Among these is
+the beautiful ballad entitled _Edwin and Angelina_, or _The Hermit_, which
+first appeared in _The Vicar of Wakefield_, but which has since been
+printed separately among his poems. Of its kind and class it has no
+superior. _Retaliation_ is a humorous epitaph upon his friends and
+co-literati, hitting off their characteristics with truth and point; and
+_The Haunch of Venison_--upon which he did not dine--is an amusing
+incident which might have happened to any Londoner like himself, but which
+no one could have related so well as he.
+
+He died in 1774, at the age of forty-five; but his fame--his better
+life--is more vigorous than ever. Washington Irving, whose writings are
+similar in style to those of Goldsmith, has extended and perpetuated his
+reputation in America by writing his Biography; a charming work, many
+touches of which seem almost autobiographical, as displaying the
+resemblance between the writer and his subject.
+
+
+MACKENZIE.--From Sterne and Goldsmith we pass to Mackenzie, who, if not a
+conscious imitator of the former, is, at least, unconsciously formed upon
+the model of Sterne, without his genius, but also without his coarseness:
+in the management of his narrative, he is a medium between Sterne and
+Walter Scott; indeed, from his long life, he saw the period of both these
+authors, and his writings partake of the characteristics of both.
+
+Henry Mackenzie was born at Edinburgh, in August, 1745, and lived until
+1831, to the ripe age of eighty-six. He was educated at the University of
+Edinburgh, and afterwards studied law. He wrote some strong political
+pamphlets in favor of the Pitt government, for which he was rewarded with
+the office of comptroller of the taxes, which he held to the day of his
+death.
+
+
+THE MAN OF FEELING.--In 1771 the world was equally astonished and
+delighted by the appearance of his first novel, _The Man of Feeling_. In
+this there are manifest tokens of his debt to Sterne's _Sentimental
+Journey_, in the journey of Harley, in the story of the beggar and his
+dog, and in somewhat of the same forced sensibility in the account of
+Harley's death.
+
+In 1773 appeared his _Man of the World_ which was in some sort a sequel to
+the _Man of Feeling_, but which wearies by the monotony of the plot.
+
+In 1777 he published _Julia de Roubigné_, which, in the opinion of many,
+shares the palm with his first novel: the plot is more varied than that of
+the second, and the language is exceedingly harmonious--elegiac prose. The
+story is plaintive and painful: virtue is extolled, but made to suffer, in
+a domestic tragedy, which all readers would be glad to see ending
+differently.
+
+At different times Mackenzie edited _The Mirror_ and _The Lounger_, and he
+has been called the restorer of the Essay. His story of the venerable _La
+Roche_, contributed to _The Mirror_, is perhaps the best specimen of his
+powers as a sentimentalist: it portrays the influence of Christianity, as
+exhibited in the very face of infidelity, to support the soul in the
+sorest of trials--the death of an only and peerless daughter.
+
+His contributions to the above-named periodicals were very numerous and
+popular.
+
+The name of his first novel was applied to himself as a man. He was known
+as the _man of feeling_ to the whole community. This was a misnomer: he
+was kind and affable; his evening parties were delightful; but he had
+nothing of the pathetic or sentimental about him. On the contrary, he was
+humorous, practical, and worldly-wise; very fond of field sports and
+athletic exercises. His sentiment--which has been variously criticized, by
+some as the perfection of moral pathos, and by others as lackadaisical and
+canting--may be said to have sprung rather from his observations of life
+and manners than to have welled spontaneously from any source within his
+own heart.
+
+Sterne and Goldsmith will be read as long as the English language lasts,
+and their representative characters will be quoted as models and standards
+everywhere: Mackenzie is fast falling into an oblivion from which he will
+only be resuscitated by the historian of English Literature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE HISTORICAL TRIAD IN THE SCEPTICAL AGE.
+
+
+   The Sceptical Age. David Hume. History of England. Metaphysics. Essay
+   on Miracles. Robertson. Histories. Gibbon. The Decline and Fall.
+
+
+
+THE SCEPTICAL AGE.
+
+
+History presents itself to the student in two forms: The first is
+_chronicle_, or a simple relation of facts and statistics; and the second,
+_philosophical history_, in which we use these facts and statistics in the
+consideration of cause and effect, and endeavor to extract a moral from
+the actions and events recorded. From pregnant causes the philosophic
+historian traces, at long distances, the important results; or,
+conversely, from the present condition of things--the good and evil around
+him--he runs back, sometimes remotely, to the causes from which they have
+sprung. Chronicle is very pleasing to read, and the reader may be, to some
+extent, his own philosopher; but the importance of history as a study is
+found in its philosophy.
+
+As far down as the eighteenth century, almost everything in history
+partakes of the nature of chronicle. In that century, in obedience to the
+law of human progress, there sprang up in England and on the Continent the
+men who first made chronicle material for philosophy, and used philosophy
+to teach by example what to imitate and what to shun.
+
+What were the circumstances which led, in the eighteenth century, to the
+simultaneous appearance of Hume, Gibbon, and Robertson, as the originators
+of a new school of history? Some of them have been already mentioned in
+treating of the antiquarian age. We have endeavored to show how the
+English literati--novelists, essayists, and poets--have been in part
+unconscious historians. It will also appear that the professed historians
+themselves have been, in a great measure, the creatures of English
+history. The _fifteenth_ century was the period when the revival of
+letters took place, and a great spur was given to mental activity; but the
+world, like a child, was again learning rudiments, and finding out what it
+was, and what it possessed at that present time: it received the new
+classical culture presented to it at the fall of the lower empire, and was
+content to learn the existing, without endeavoring to create the new, or
+even to recompose the scattered fragments of the past. The _eighteenth_
+century saw a new revival: the world had become a man; great progress was
+reported in arts, in inventions, and in discoveries; science began to
+labor at the arduous but important task of classification; new theories of
+government and laws were propounded; the past was consulted that its
+experience might be applied; the partisan chronicles needed to be united
+and compared that truth might be elicited; the philosophic historian was
+required, and the people were ready to learn, and to criticize, what he
+produced.
+
+I have ventured to call this the Sceptical Age. It had other
+characteristics: this was one. We use the word sceptical in its
+etymological sense: it was an age of inquiry, of doubt to be resolved.
+Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, D'Alembert, and Diderot had founded a new
+school of universal inquiry, and from their bold investigations and
+startling theories sprang the society of the _illuminati_, and the race of
+thinkers. They went too far: they stabbed the truth as it lay in the grasp
+of error. From thinkers they became free-thinkers: from philosophers they
+became infidels, and some of them atheists. This was the age which
+produced "the triumvirate of British historians who," in the words of
+Montgomery, "exemplified in their very dissimilar styles the triple
+contrast of simplicity, elegance, and splendor."
+
+Imbued with this spirit of the time, Hume undertook to write a _History of
+England_, which, with all its errors and faults, still ranks among the
+best efforts of English historians. Like the French philosophers, Hume was
+an infidel, and his scepticism appears in his writings; but, unlike
+them--for they were stanch reformers in government as well as infidels in
+faith--he who was an infidel was also an aristocrat in sentiment, and a
+consistent Tory his life long. In his history, with all the artifices of a
+philosopher, he takes the Jacobite side in the civil war.
+
+
+HUME.--David Hume was born in Edinburgh on the 26th of April (O.S.), 1711.
+His life was without many vicissitudes of interest, but his efforts to
+achieve an enduring reputation on the most solid grounds, mark him as a
+notable example of patient industry, study, and economy. He led a
+studious, systematic, and consistent life.
+
+Although of good family,--being a descendant of the Earl of Home,--he was
+in poor circumstances, and after some study of the law, and some
+unsuccessful literary ventures, he was obliged to seek employment as a
+means of livelihood. Thus he became tutor or keeper to the young Marquis
+of Annandale, who was insane. Abandoning this position in disgust, he was
+appointed secretary to General St. Clair in various embassies,--to Paris,
+Vienna, and Turin; everywhere hoarding his pay, until he became
+independent, "though," he says, "most of my friends were inclined to smile
+when I said so; in short, I was master of a thousand pounds."
+
+His earliest work was a _Treatise on Human Nature_, published in 1738,
+which met with no success. Nothing discouraged thereat, in 1741 he issued
+a volume of _Essays Moral and Political_, the success of which emboldened
+him to publish, in 1748, his _Inquiry Concerning the Human Understanding_.
+These and other works were preparing his pen for its greater task, the
+material for which he was soon to find.
+
+In 1752 he was appointed librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, not for
+the emolument, but with the real purpose of having entire control of the
+books and material in the library; and then he determined to write the
+_History of England_.
+
+
+HISTORY OF ENGLAND.--He began with the accession of the Stuarts, in 1603,
+the period when the popular element, so long kept tranquil by the power
+and sex of Queen Elizabeth, was ready first to break out into open
+assertion. Hume's self-deception must have been rudely discovered to him;
+for he tells us, in an autobiography fortunately preserved, that he
+expected so dispassionately to steer clear of all existent parties, or,
+rather, to be so just to all, that he should gain universal approbation.
+"Miserable," he adds, "was my disappointment. I was assailed by one cry of
+reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation. English, Scotch, Irish,
+Whig and Tory, churchman and sectary, free-thinker and religionist,
+patriot and courtier, united, in their rage, against the man who had
+presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl
+of Strafford." How far, too, this was ignorant invective, may be judged
+from the fact that in twelve months only forty-five copies of his work
+were sold.
+
+However, he patiently continued his labor. The first volume, containing
+the reigns of James I. and Charles I, had been issued in 1754; his second,
+published in 1756, and containing the later history of the Commonwealth,
+of Charles II., and James II., and concluding with the revolution of 1688,
+was received with more favor, and "helped to buoy up its unfortunate
+brother." Then he worked backward: in 1759 he produced the reigns of the
+house of Tudor; and in 1761, the earlier history, completing his work,
+from the earliest times to 1688. The tide had now turned in his favor; the
+sales were large, and his pecuniary rewards greater than any historian had
+yet received.
+
+The Tory character of his work is very decided: he not only sheds a
+generous tear for the fate of Charles I., but conceals or glosses the
+villanies of Stuarts far worse than Charles. The liberties of England
+consist, in his eyes, of wise concessions made by the sovereign, rather
+than as the inalienable birthright of the English man.
+
+He has also been charged with want of industry and honesty in the use of
+his materials--taking things at second-hand, without consulting original
+authorities which were within his reach, and thus falling into many
+mistakes, while placing in his marginal notes the names of the original
+authors. This charge is particularly just with reference to the
+Anglo-Saxon period, since so picturesquely described by Sharon Turner.
+
+The first in order of the philosophical historians, he is rather a
+collector of facts than a skilful diviner with them. His style is sonorous
+and fluent, but not idiomatic. Dr. Johnson said, "His style is not
+English; the structure of his sentences is French,"--an opinion concurred
+in by the eminent critic, Lord Jeffrey.
+
+But whatever the criticism, the _History_ of Hume is a great work. He did
+what was never done before. For a long time his work stood alone; and even
+now it has the charm of a clear, connected narrative, which is still
+largely consulted by many who are forewarned of its errors and faults. And
+however unidiomatic his style, it is very graceful and flowing, and lends
+a peculiar charm to his narrative.
+
+
+METAPHYSICS.--Of Hume as a philosopher, we need not here say much. He was
+acute, intelligent, and subtle; he was, in metaphysical language, "a
+sceptical nihilist." And here a distinction must be made between his
+religious tenets and his philosophical views,--a distinction so happily
+stated by Sir William Hamilton, that we present it in his words: "Though
+decidedly opposed to one and all of Hume's theological conclusions, I have
+no hesitation in asserting of his philosophical scepticism, that this was
+not only beneficial in its results, but, in the circumstances of the
+period, even a necessary step in the progress of Philosophy towards
+Truth." And again he says, "To Hume we owe the philosophy of Kant, and
+therefore also, in general, the later philosophy of Germany." "To Hume, in
+like manner, we owe the philosophy of Reid, and, consequently, what is now
+distinctively known in Europe as the Philosophy of the Scottish School."
+Great praise this from one of the greatest Christian philosophers of this
+century, and it shows Hume to have been more original as a philosopher
+than as an historian.
+
+He is also greatly commended by Lord Brougham as a political economist.
+"His _Political Discourses_," says his lordship, "combine almost every
+excellence which can belong to such a performance.... Their great merit is
+their originality, and the new system of politics and political economy
+which they unfold."
+
+
+MIRACLES.--The work in which is most fairly set forth his religious
+scepticism is his _Essay on Miracles_. In it he adopts the position of
+Locke, who had declared "that men should not believe any proposition that
+is contrary to reason, on the authority either of inspiration or of
+miracle; for the reality of the inspiration or of the miracle can only be
+established by reason." Before Hume, assaults on the miracles recorded in
+Scripture were numerous and varied. Spinoza and the Pantheistic School had
+started the question, "Are miracles possible?" and had taken the negative.
+Hume's question is, "Are miracles credible?" And as they are contrary to
+human experience, his answer is essentially that it must be always more
+probable that a miracle is false than that it is true; since it is not
+contrary to experience that witnesses are false or deceived. With him it
+is, therefore, a question of the preponderance of evidence, which he
+declares to be always against the miracle. This is not the place to
+discuss these topics. Archbishop Whately has practically illustrated the
+fallacy of Hume's reasoning, in a little book called _Historic Doubts,
+relative to Napoleon Bonaparte_, in which, with Hume's logic, he has
+proved, that the great emperor never lived; and Whately's successor in the
+archbishopric of Dublin, Dr. Trench, has given us some thoughtful words on
+the subject: "So long as we abide in the region of nature, miraculous and
+improbable, miraculous and incredible may be allowed to remain convertible
+terms; but once lift up the whole discussion into a higher region, once
+acknowledge aught higher than nature--_a kingdom of God_, and men the
+intended denizens of it--and the whole argument loses its strength and the
+force of its conclusions."
+
+Hume's death occurred on the 25th of August, 1776. His scepticism, or
+philosophy as he called it, remained with him to the end. He even diverted
+himself with the prospect of the excuses he would make to Charon as he
+reached the fatal river, and is among the few doubters who have calmly
+approached the grave without that concern which the Christian's hope alone
+is generally able to dispel.
+
+
+WILLIAM ROBERTSON.--the second of the great historians of the eighteenth
+century, although very different from the others in his personal life and
+in his creed,--was, like them, a representative and creature of the age.
+They form, indeed, a trio in literary character as well as in period; and
+we have letters from each to the others on the appearance of their works,
+showing that they form also what in the present day is called a "Mutual
+Admiration Society." They were above common envy: they recognized each
+other's excellence, and forbore to speak of each other's faults. As a
+philosopher, Hume was the greatest of the three; as an historian, the palm
+must be awarded to Gibbon. But Robertson surprises us most from the fact
+that a quiet Scotch pastor, who never travelled, should have attempted,
+and so gracefully treated, subjects of such general interest as those he
+handled.
+
+William Robertson was the son of a Scottish minister, and was born at
+Borthwick, in Scotland, on September 19th, in the year 1721. He was a
+precocious child, and, after attending school at Dalkeith, he entered the
+University of Edinburgh at the age of twelve. At the age of twenty he was
+licensed to preach. He published, in 1755, a sermon on _The Situation of
+the World at the Time of Christ's Appearance_, which attracted attention;
+but he astonished the world by issuing, in 1759, his _History of Scotland
+During the Reigns of Queen Mary, and of James VI. until his Accession to
+the Crown of England_. This is undoubtedly his best work, but not of such
+general interest as his others. His materials were scanty, and he did not
+consult such as were in his reach with much assiduity. The invaluable
+records of the archives of Simancas were not then opened to the world, but
+he lived among the scenes of his narrative, and had the advantage of
+knowing all the traditions and of hearing all the vehement opinions _pro_
+and _con_ upon the subjects of which he treated. The character of Queen
+Mary is drawn with a just but sympathetic hand, and his verdict is not so
+utterly denunciatory as that of Mr. Froude. Such was the popularity of
+this work, that in 1764 its author was appointed to the honorable office
+of Historiographer to His Majesty for Scotland. In 1769 he published his
+_History of Charles V._ Here was a new surprise. Whatever its faults, as
+afterwards discerned by the critics, it opened a new and brilliant page to
+the uninitiated reader, and increased his reputation very greatly. The
+history is preceded by a _View of the Progress of Society in Europe from
+the Subversion of the Roman Empire to the Beginning of the Sixteenth
+Century_. The best praise that can be given to this _View_ is, that
+students have since used it as the most excellent summary of that kind
+existing. Of the history itself it may be said that, while it is greatly
+wanting in historic material in the interest of the narrative and the
+splendor of the pageantry of the imperial court, it marked a new era in
+historical delineations.
+
+
+HISTORY OF AMERICA.--In 1777 appeared the first eight books of his
+_History of America_, to which, in 1778, he appended additions and
+corrections. The concluding books, the ninth and tenth, did not appear
+until 1796, when, three years after his death, they were issued by his
+son. As a connected narrative of so great an event in the world's history
+as the discovery of America, it stood quite alone. If, since that time,
+far better and fuller histories have appeared, we should not withhold our
+meed of praise from this excellent forerunner of them all. One great
+defect of this and the preceding work was his want of knowledge of the
+German and Spanish historians, and of the original papers then locked up
+in the archives of Simancas; later access to which has given such great
+value to the researches of Irving and Prescott and Sterling. Besides,
+Robertson lacked the life-giving power which is the property of true
+genius. His characters are automata gorgeously arrayed, but without
+breath; his style is fluent and sometimes sparkling, but in all respects
+he has been superseded, and his works remain only as curious
+representatives of the age to the literary student. One other work remains
+to be mentioned, and that is his _Historical Disquisition Concerning the
+Knowledge which the Ancients had of India, and the Progress of Trade with
+that Country Prior to the Discovery of the Passage to it by the Cape of
+Good Hope_. This is chiefly of value as it indicates the interest felt in
+England at the rise of the English Empire in India; but for real facts it
+has no value at all.
+
+
+GIBBON.--Last in order of time, though far superior as an historian to
+Hume and Robertson, stands Edward Gibbon, the greatest historian England
+has produced, whether we regard the dignity of his style--antithetic and
+sonorous; the range of his subject--the history of a thousand years; the
+astonishing fidelity of his research in every department which contains
+historic materials; or the symmetry and completeness of his colossal work.
+
+Like Hume, he has left us a sketch of his own life and labors, simple and
+dispassionate, from which it appears that he was born in London on the
+27th of April, 1737; and, being of a good family, he had every advantage
+of education. Passing a short time at the University of Oxford, he stands
+in a small minority of those who can find no good in their _Alma Mater_.
+"To the University of Oxford," he says, "I acknowledge no obligation, and
+she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son as I am willing to disclaim
+her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College. They proved
+to be fourteen of the most idle and unprofitable months of my whole life."
+This singular experience may be contrasted with that of hundreds, but may
+be most fittingly illustrated by stating that of Dr. Lowth, a venerable
+contemporary of the historian. He speaks enthusiastically of the place
+where the student is able "to breathe the same atmosphere that had been
+breathed by Hooker and Chillingworth and Locke; to revel in its grand and
+well-ordered libraries; to form part of that academic society where
+emulation without envy, ambition without jealousy, contention without
+animosity, incited industry and awakened genius."
+
+Gibbon, while still in his boyhood, had read with avidity ancient and
+modern history, and had written a juvenile paper on _The Age of
+Sesostris_, which was, at least, suggested by Voltaire's _Siècle de Louis
+XIV_.
+
+Early interested, too, in the history of Christianity, his studies led him
+to become a Roman Catholic; but his belief was by no means stable. Sent by
+his father to Lausanne, in Switzerland, to be under the religious training
+of a Protestant minister, he changed his opinions, and became again a
+Protestant. His convictions, however, were once more shaken, and, at the
+last, he became a man of no creed, a sceptic of the school of Voltaire, a
+creature of the age of illumination. Many passages of his history display
+a sneering unbelief, which moves some persons more powerfully than the
+subtlest argument. This modern Platonist, beginning with sensation,
+evolves his philosophy from within,--from the finite mind; whereas human
+history can only be explained in the light of revelation, which gives to
+humanity faith, but which educes all science from the infinite--the mind
+of God.
+
+The history written by Gibbon, called _The Decline and Fall of the Roman
+Empire_, begins with that empire in its best days, under Hadrian, and
+extends to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, under Mohammed II.,
+in 1453.
+
+And this marvellous scope he has treated with a wonderful equality of
+research and power;--the world-absorbing empire, the origin and movements
+of the northern tribes and the Scythian marauders, the fall of the Western
+Empire, the history of the civil law, the establishment of the Gothic
+monarchies, the rise and spread of Mohammedanism, the obscurity of the
+middle age deepening into gloom, the crusades, the dawning of letters, and
+the inauguration of the modern era after the fall of Constantinople,--the
+detailed history of a thousand years. It is difficult to conceive that any
+one should suggest such a task to himself; it is astonishing to think
+that, with a dignified, self-reliant tenacity of purpose, it should have
+been completely achieved. It was an historic period, in which, in the
+words of Corneille, "_Un grand destin commence un grand destin s'achève_."
+In many respects Gibbon's work stands alone; the general student must
+refer to Gibbon, because there is no other work to which he can refer. It
+was translated by Guizot into French, the first volume by Wenck into
+German (he died before completing it); and it was edited by Dean Milman in
+England.
+
+The style of Gibbon is elegant and powerful; at first it is singularly
+pleasing, but as one reads it becomes too sonorous, and fatigues, as the
+crashing notes of a grand march tire the ear. His periods are antithetic;
+each contains a surprise and a witty point. His first two volumes have
+less of this stately magnificence, but in his later ones, in seeking to
+vindicate popular applause, he aims to shine, and perpetually labors for
+effect. Although not such a philosopher as Hume, his work is quite as
+philosophical as Hume's history, and he has been more faithful in the use
+of his materials. Guizot, while pointing out his errors, says he was
+struck, after "a second and attentive perusal," with "the immensity of his
+researches, the variety of his knowledge, and, above all, with that truly
+philosophical discrimination which judges the past as it would judge the
+present."
+
+The danger to the unwary reader is from the sceptical bias of the author,
+which, while he states every important fact, leads him, by its manner of
+presentation, to warp it, or put it in a false light. Thus, for example,
+he has praise for paganism, and easy absolution for its sins; Mohammed
+walks the stage with a stately stride; Alaric overruns Europe to a grand
+quickstep; but Christianity awakens no enthusiasm, and receives no
+eulogium, although he describes its early struggles, its martyrdoms, its
+triumphs under Constantine, its gentle radiance during the dark ages, and
+its powerful awakening. Because he cannot believe, he cannot even be just.
+
+In his special chapter on the rise and spread of Christianity, he gives a
+valuable summary of its history, and of the claims of the papacy, with
+perhaps a leaning towards the Latin Church. Gibbon finished his work at
+Lausanne on the 27th of June, 1787.
+
+Its conception had come to his mind as he sat one evening amid the ruins
+of the Capitol at Rome, and heard the barefooted friars singing vespers in
+the Temple of Jupiter. He had then thought of writing the decline and fall
+of the city of Rome, but soon expanded his view to the empire. This was in
+1764. Nearly thirteen years afterwards, he wrote the last line of the last
+page in his garden-house at Lausanne, and reflected joyfully upon his
+recovered freedom and his permanent fame. His second thought, however,
+will fitly close this notice with a moral from his own lips: "My pride was
+soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea
+that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion,
+and that whatever might be the future fate of my history, the life of the
+historian must be short and precarious."
+
+
+
+OTHER CONTRIBUTORS TO HISTORY.
+
+
+_James Boswell_, 1740-1795: he was the son of a Scottish judge called Lord
+Auchinleck, from his estate. He studied law, and travelled, publishing, on
+his return, _Journal of a Tour in Corsica_. He appears to us a
+simple-hearted and amiable man, inquisitive, and exact in details. He
+became acquainted with Dr. Johnson in 1763, and conceived an immense
+admiration for him. In numerous visits to London, and in their tour to the
+Hebrides together, he noted Johnson's speech and actions, and, in 1791,
+published his life, which has already been characterized as the greatest
+biography ever written. Its value is manifold; not only is it a faithful
+portrait of the great writer, but, in the detailed record of his life, we
+have the wit, dogmatism, and learning of his hero, as expressing and
+illustrating the history of the age, quite as fully as the published works
+of Johnson. In return for this most valuable contribution to history and
+literature, the critics, one and all, have taxed their ingenuity to find
+strong words of ridicule and contempt for Boswell, and have done him great
+injustice. Because he bowed before the genius of Johnson, he was not a
+toady, nor a fool; at the worst, he was a fanatic, and a not always wise
+champion. Johnson was his king, and his loyalty was unqualified.
+
+
+_Horace Walpole_, the Right Honorable, and afterwards Earl of Orford,
+1717-1797: he was a wit, a satirist, and a most accomplished writer, who,
+notwithstanding, affected to despise literary fame. His paternity was
+doubted; but he enjoyed wealth and honors, and, by the possession of three
+sinecures, he lived a life of elegant leisure. He transformed a small
+house on the bank of the Thames, at Twickenham, into a miniature castle,
+called _Strawberry Hill_, which he filled with curiosities. He held a very
+versatile pen, and wrote much on many subjects. Among his desultory works
+are: _Anecdotes of Painting in England_, and _Ædes Walpoliana_, a
+description of the pictures at Houghton Hall, the seat of Sir Robert
+Walpole. He also ranks among the novelists, as the author of _The Castle
+of Otranto_, in which he deviates from the path of preceding writers of
+fiction--a sort of individual reaction from their portraitures of existing
+society to the marvellous and sensational. This work has been variously
+criticized; by some it has been considered a great flight of the
+imagination, but by most it is regarded as unnatural and full of
+"pasteboard machinery." He had immediate followers in this vein, among
+whom are Mrs. Aphra Behn, in her _Old English Baron_; and Ann Radcliffe,
+in _The Romance of the Forest_, and _The Mysteries of Udolpho_. Walpole
+also wrote a work entitled _Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of
+Richard III_. But his great value as a writer is to be found in his
+_Memoirs_ and varied _Correspondence_, in which he presents photographs of
+the society in which he lives. Scott calls him "the best letter-writer in
+the language." Among the series of his letters, those of the greatest
+historical importance are those addressed to Sir Horace Mann, between 1760
+and 1785. Of this series, Macaulay, who is his severest critic, says: "It
+forms a connected whole--a regular journal of what appeared to Walpole the
+most important transactions of the last twenty years of George II.'s
+reign. It contains much new information concerning the history of that
+time, the portion of English history of which common readers know the
+least."
+
+
+_John Lord Hervey_, 1696-1743: he is known for his attempts in poetry, and
+for a large correspondence, since published; but his chief title to rank
+among the contributors to history is found in his _Memoirs of the Court of
+George II. and Queen Caroline_, which were not published until 1848. They
+give an unrivalled view of the court and of the royal household; and the
+variety of the topics, combined with the excellence of description, render
+them admirable as aids to understanding the history.
+
+
+_Sir William Blackstone_, 1723-1780: a distinguished lawyer, he was an
+unwearied student of the history of the English statute law, and was on
+that account made Professor of Law in the University of Oxford. Some time
+a member of Parliament, he was afterwards appointed a judge. He edited
+_Magna Charta_ and _The Forest Charter_ of King John and Henry III. But
+his great work, one that has made his name famous, is _The Commentaries on
+the Laws of England_. Notwithstanding much envious criticism, it has
+maintained its place as a standard work. It has been again and again
+edited, and perhaps never better than by the Hon. George Sharswood, one of
+the Judges of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
+
+
+_Adam Smith_, 1723-1790: this distinguished writer on political economy,
+the intelligent precursor of a system based upon the modern usage of
+nations, was educated at Glasgow and Oxford, and became in turn Professor
+of Logic and of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow. His lecture
+courses in Moral Science contain the germs of his two principal works: 1.
+_The Theory of Moral Sentiments_, and 2. _An Enquiry into the Nature and
+Causes of the Wealth of Nations_. The theory of the first has been
+superseded by the sounder views of later writers; but the second has
+conferred upon him enduring honor. In it he establishes as a principle
+that _labor_ is the source of national wealth, and displays the value of
+division of labor. This work--written in clear, simple language, with
+copious illustrations--has had a wonderful influence upon the legislation
+and the commercial system of all civilized states since its issue, and has
+greatly conduced to the happiness of the human race. He wrote it in
+retirement, during a period of ten years. He astonished and instructed his
+period by presenting it with a new and necessary science.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+SAMUEL JOHNSON AND HIS TIMES.
+
+
+   Early Life and Career. London. Rambler and Idler. The Dictionary. Other
+   Works. Lives of the Poets. Person and Character. Style. Junius.
+
+
+
+EARLY LIFE AND CAREER.
+
+
+Doctor Samuel Johnson was poet, dramatist, essayist, lexicographer,
+dogmatist, and critic, and, in this array of professional characters,
+played so distinguished a part in his day that he was long regarded as a
+prodigy in English literature. His influence has waned since his
+personality has grown dim, and his learning been superseded or
+overshadowed; but he still remains, and must always remain, the most
+prominent literary figure of his age; and this is in no small measure due
+to his good fortune in having such a champion and biographer as James
+Boswell. Johnson's Life by Boswell is without a rival among biographies:
+in the words of Macaulay: "Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic
+poets; Shakspeare is not more decidedly the first of dramatists;
+Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of orators, than Boswell is
+the first of biographers;" and Burke has said that Johnson appears far
+greater in Boswell's book than in his own. We thus know everything about
+Johnson, as we do not know about any other literary man, and this
+knowledge, due to his biographer, is at least one of the elements of
+Johnson's immense reputation.
+
+He was born at Lichfield on the 18th of September, 1709. His father was a
+bookseller; and after having had a certain amount of knowledge "well
+beaten into him" by Mr. Hunter, young Johnson was for two years an
+assistant in his father's shop. But such was his aptitude for learning,
+that he was sent in 1728 to Pembroke College, Oxford. His youth was not a
+happy one: he was afflicted with scrofula, "which disfigured a countenance
+naturally well formed, and hurt his visual nerves so much that he did not
+see at all with one of his eyes." He had a morbid melancholy,--fits of
+dejection which made his life miserable. He was poor; and when, in 1731,
+his father died insolvent, he was obliged to leave the university without
+a degree. After fruitless attempts to establish a school, he married, in
+1736, Mrs. Porter, a widow, who had £800. Rude and unprepossessing to
+others, she was sincerely loved by her husband, and deeply lamented when
+she died. In 1737 Johnson went to London in company with young Garrick,
+who had been one of his few pupils, and who was soon to fill the English
+world with his theatrical fame.
+
+
+LONDON.--Johnson soon began to write for Cave's _Gentleman's Magazine_,
+and in 1738 he astonished Pope and the artificial poets by producing, in
+their best vein, his imitation of the third Satire of Juvenal, which he
+called _London_. This was his usher into the realm of literature. But he
+did not become prominent until he had reached his fiftieth year; he
+continued to struggle with gloom and poverty, too proud to seek patronage
+in an age when popular remuneration had not taken its place. In 1740 he
+was a reporter of the debates in parliament for Cave; and it is said that
+many of the indifferent speakers were astonished to read the next day the
+fine things which the reporter had placed in their mouths, which they had
+never uttered.
+
+In 1749 he published his _Vanity of Human Wishes_, an imitation of the
+tenth Satire of Juvenal, which was as heartily welcomed as _London_ had
+been. It is Juvenal applied to English and European history. It contains
+many lines familiar to us all; among them are the following:
+
+    Let observation with extended view
+    Survey mankind from China to Peru.
+
+In speaking of Charles XII., he says:
+
+    His fall was destined to a barren strand,
+    A petty fortress and a dubious hand;
+    He left a name at which the world grew pale,
+    To point a moral or adorn a tale.
+
+    From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow,
+    And Swift expires a driveller and a show.
+
+In the same year he published his tragedy of _Irene_, which,
+notwithstanding the friendly efforts of Garrick, who was now manager of
+Drury Lane Theatre, was not successful. As a poet, Johnson was the
+perfection of the artificial school; and this very technical perfection
+was one of the causes of the reaction which was already beginning to sweep
+it away.
+
+
+RAMBLER AND IDLER.--In 1750 he commenced _The Rambler_, a periodical like
+_The Spectator_, of which he wrote nearly all the articles, and which
+lived for two years. Solemn, didactic, and sonorous, it lacked the variety
+and genial humor which had characterized Addison and Steele. In 1758 he
+started _The Idler_, in the same vein, which also ran its respectable
+course for two years. In 1759 his mother died, and, in order to defray the
+expenses of her funeral, he wrote his story of _Rasselas_ in the evenings
+of one week, for two editions of which he received £125. Full of moral
+aphorisms and instruction, this "Abyssinian tale" is entirely English in
+philosophy and fancy, and has not even the slight illusion of other
+Eastern tales in French and English, which were written about the same
+time, and which are very similar in form and matter. Of _Rasselas_,
+Hazlitt says: "It is the most melancholy and debilitating moral
+speculation that was ever put forth."
+
+
+THE DICTIONARY.--As early as 1747 he had begun to write his English
+Dictionary, which, after eight years of incessant and unassisted labor,
+appeared in 1755. It was a noble thought, and produced a noble work--a
+work which filled an original vacancy. In France, a National Academy had
+undertaken a similar work; but this English giant had accomplished his
+labors alone. The amount of reading necessary to fix and illustrate his
+definitions was enormous, and the book is especially valuable from the apt
+and varied quotations from English authors. He established the language,
+as he found it, on a firm basis in signification and orthography. He laid
+the foundation upon which future lexicographers were to build; but he was
+ignorant of the Teutonic languages, from which so much of the structure
+and words of the English are taken, and thus is signally wanting in the
+scientific treatment of his subject. This is not to his discredit, for the
+science of language has had its origin in a later and modern time.
+
+Perhaps nothing displays more fully the proud, sturdy, and self-reliant
+character of the man, than the eight years of incessant and unassisted
+labor upon this work.
+
+His letter to Lord Chesterfield, declining his tardy patronage, after
+experiencing his earlier neglect, is a model of severe and yet respectful
+rebuke, and is to be regarded as one of the most significant events in his
+history. In it he says: "The notice you have been pleased to take of my
+labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I
+am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart
+it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical
+asperity not to confess obligation when no benefit has been received, or
+to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a
+patron which Providence has enabled me to do for myself." Living as he did
+in an age when the patronage of the great was wearing out, and public
+appreciation beginning to reward an author's toils, this manly letter gave
+another stab to the former, and hastened the progress of the latter.
+
+
+OTHER WORKS.--The fame of Johnson was now fully established, and his
+labors were rewarded, in 1762, by the receipt of a pension of £300 from
+the government, which made him quite independent. It was then, in the very
+heyday of his reputation, that, in 1763, he became acquainted with James
+Boswell, to whom he at once became a Grand Lama; who took down the words
+as they dropped from his lips, and embalmed his fame.
+
+In 1764 he issued his edition of Shakspeare, in eight octavo volumes, of
+which the best that can be said is, that it is not valuable as a
+commentary. A commentator must have something in common with his author;
+there was nothing congenial between Shakspeare and Johnson.
+
+It was in 1773, that, urged by Boswell, he made his famous _Journey to the
+Hebrides_, or Western Islands of Scotland, of which he gave delightful
+descriptions in a series of letters to his friend Mrs. Thrale, which he
+afterwards wrote out in more pompous style for publication. The letters
+are current, witty, and simple; the published work is stilted and
+grandiloquent.
+
+It is well known that he had no sympathy with the American colonies in
+their struggle against British oppression. When, in 1775, the Congress
+published their _Resolutions_ and _Address_, he answered them in a
+prejudiced and illogical paper entitled _Taxation no Tyranny_.
+Notwithstanding its want of argument, it had the weight of his name and of
+a large party; but history has construed it by the _animus_ of the writer,
+who had not long before declared of the colonists that they were "a race
+of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of
+hanging."
+
+As early as 1744 he had published a Life of the gifted but unhappy
+Savage, whom in his days of penury he had known, and with whom he had
+sympathized; but in 1781 appeared his _Lives of the English Poets, with
+Critical Observations on their Works_, and _Lives of Sundry Eminent
+Persons_.
+
+
+LIVES OF THE POETS.--These comprise fifty-two poets, most of them little
+known at the present day, and thirteen _eminent persons_. Of historical
+value, as showing us the estimate of an age in which Johnson was an usher
+to the temple of Fame, they are now of little other value; those of his
+own school and coterie he could understand and eulogize. To Milton he
+accorded carefully measured praise, but could not do him full justice,
+from entire want of sympathy; the majesty of blank verse pentameters he
+could not appreciate, and from Milton's puritanism he recoiled with
+disgust.
+
+Johnson died on the 13th of December, 1784, and was buried in Westminster
+Abbey; a flat stone with an inscription was placed over his grave: it was
+also designed to erect his monument there, but St. Paul's Cathedral was
+afterwards chosen as the place. There, a colossal figure represents the
+distinguished author, and a Latin epitaph, written by Dr. Parr, records
+his virtues and his achievements in literature.
+
+
+PERSON AND CHARACTER.--A few words must suffice to give a summary of his
+character, and will exhibit some singular contrarieties. He had varied but
+not very profound learning; was earnest, self-satisfied, overbearing in
+argument, or, as Sir Walter Scott styles it, _despotic_. As distinguished
+for his powers of conversation as for his writings, he always talked _ex
+cathedra_, and was exceedingly impatient of opposition. Brutal in his word
+attacks, he concealed by tone and manner a generous heart. Grandiloquent
+in ordinary matters, he "made little fishes talk like whales."
+
+Always swayed by religious influences, he was intolerant of the sects
+around him; habitually pious, he was not without superstition; he was not
+an unbeliever in ghostly apparitions, and had a great fear of death; he
+also had the touching mania--touching every post as he walked along the
+street, thereby to avoid some unknown evil.
+
+Although of rural origin, he became a thorough London cockney, and his
+hatred of Scotchmen and dissenters is at once pitiful and ludicrous. His
+manners and gestures were uncouth and disagreeable. He devoured rather
+than eat his food, and was a remarkable tea-drinker; on one occasion,
+perhaps for bravado, taking twenty-five cups at a sitting.
+
+Massive in figure, seamed with scrofulous scars and marks, seeing with but
+one eye, he had convulsive motions and twitches, and his slovenly dress
+added to the uncouthness and oddity of his appearance. In all respects he
+was an original, and even his defects and peculiarities seemed to conduce
+to make him famous.
+
+Considered the first among the critics of his own day, later judgments
+have reversed his decisions; many of those whom he praised have sunk into
+obscurity, and those whom he failed to appreciate have been elevated to
+the highest pedestals in the literary House of Fame.
+
+
+STYLE.--His style is full-sounding and antithetic, his periods are
+carefully balanced, his manner eminently respectable and good; but his
+words, very many of them of Latin derivation, constitute what the later
+critics have named _Johnsonese_, which is certainly capable of translation
+into plainer Saxon English, with good results. Thus, in speaking of
+Addison's style, he says: "It is pure without scrupulosity, and exact
+without apparent elaboration; ... he seeks no ambitious ornaments, and
+tries no hazardous innovations; his page is always luminous, but never
+blazes in unexpected splendor." Very numerous examples might be given of
+sentences most of the words in which might be replaced by simpler
+expressions with great advantage to the sound and to the sense.
+
+As a critic, his word was law: his opinion was clearly and often severely
+expressed on literary men and literary subjects, and no great writer of
+his own or a past age escaped either his praise or his censure. Authors
+wrote with the fear of his criticism before their eyes; and his pompous
+diction was long imitated by men who, without this influence, would have
+written far better English. But, on the other hand, his honesty, his
+scholarship, his piety, and his championship of what was good and true, as
+depicted in his writings, made him a blessing to his time, and an honored
+and notable character in the noble line of English authors.
+
+
+JUNIUS.--Among the most significant and instructive writings to the
+student of English history, in the earlier part of the reign of George
+III., is a series of letters written by a person, or by several persons in
+combination, whose _nom de plume_ was Junius. These letters specified the
+errors and abuses of the government, were exceedingly bold in denunciation
+and bitter in invective. The letters of Junius were forty-four in number,
+and were addressed to Mr. Woodfall, the proprietor of _The Public
+Advertiser_, a London newspaper, in which they were published. Fifteen
+others in the same vein were signed Philo-Junius; and there are besides
+sixty-two notes addressed by Junius to his publisher.
+
+The principal letters signed Junius were addressed to ministers directly,
+and the first, on the _State of the Nation_, was a manifesto of the
+grounds of his writing and his purpose. It was evident that a bold censor
+had sprung forth; one acquainted with the secret movements of the
+government, and with the foibles and faults of the principal statesmen:
+they writhed under his lash. Some of the more gifted attempted to answer
+him, and, as in the case of Sir William Draper, met with signal
+discomfiture. Vigorous efforts were made to discover the offender, but
+without success; and as to his first patriotic intentions he soon added
+personal spite, the writer found that his life would not be safe if his
+secret were discovered. The rage of parties has long since died away, and
+the writer or writers have long been in their graves, but the curious
+secret still remains, and has puzzled the brains of students to the
+present day. Allibone gives a list of forty-two persons to whom the
+letters were in whole or in part ascribed, among whom are Colonel Barré,
+Burke, Lord Chatham, General Charles Lee, Horne Tooke, Wilkes, Horace
+Walpole, Lord Lyttleton, Lord George Sackville, and Sir Philip Francis.
+Pamphlets and books have been written by hundreds upon this question of
+authorship, and it is not yet by any means definitely settled. The
+concurrence of the most intelligent investigators is in favor of Sir
+Philip Francis, because of the handwriting being like his, but slightly
+disguised; because he and Junius were alike intimate with the government
+workings in the state department and in the war department, and took notes
+of speeches in the House of Lords; because the letters came to an end just
+before Francis was sent to India; and because, indecisive as these claims
+are, they are stronger than those of any other suspected author. Macaulay
+adds to these: "One of the strongest reasons for believing that Francis
+was Junius is the _moral_ resemblance between the two men."
+
+It is interesting to notice that the ministry engaged Dr. Johnson to
+answer the _forty-second_ letter, in which the king is especially
+arraigned. Johnson's answer, published in 1771, is entitled _Thoughts on
+the Late Transactions respecting Falkland's Islands_. Of Junius he says:
+"He cries havoc without reserve, and endeavors to let slip the dogs of
+foreign and civil war, ignorant whither they are going, and careless what
+maybe their prey." "It is not hard to be sarcastic in a mask; while he
+walks like Jack the giant-killer, in a coat of darkness, he may do much
+mischief with little strength." "Junius is an unusual phenomenon, on which
+some have gazed with wonder and some with terror; but wonder and terror
+are transitory passions. He will soon be more closely viewed, or more
+attentively examined, and what folly has taken for a comet, that from its
+flaming hair shook pestilence and war, inquiry will find to be only a
+meteor formed by the vapors of putrefying democracy, and kindled into
+flame by the effervescence of interest struggling with conviction, which,
+after having plunged its followers into a bog, will leave us inquiring why
+we regarded it."
+
+Whatever the moral effect of the writings of Junius, as exhibited by
+silent influence in the lapse of years, the schemes he proposed and the
+party he championed alike failed of success. His farewell letter to
+Woodfall bears date the 19th of January, 1773. In that letter he declared
+that "he must be an idiot to write again; that he had meant well by the
+cause and the public; that both were given up; that there were not ten men
+who would act steadily together on any question."[35] But one thing is
+sure: he has enriched the literature with public letters of rare sagacity,
+extreme elegance of rhetoric and great logical force, and has presented a
+problem always curious and interesting for future students,--not yet
+solved, in spite of Mr. Chabot's recent book,[36] and every day becoming
+more difficult of solution,--_Who was Junius_?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THE LITERARY FORGERS IN THE ANTIQUARIAN AGE.
+
+
+   The Eighteenth Century. James Macpherson. Ossian. Thomas Chatterton.
+   His Poems. The Verdict. Suicide. The Cause.
+
+
+
+THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+
+The middle of the eighteenth century is marked as a period in which, while
+other forms of literature flourished, there arose a taste for historic
+research. Not content with the _actual_ in poetry and essay and pamphlet,
+there was a looking back to gather up a record of what England had done
+and had been in the past, and to connect, in logical relation, her former
+with her latter glory. It was, as we have seen, the era of her great
+historians, Hume, Gibbon, and Robertson, who, upon the chronicles, and the
+abundant but scattered material, endeavored to construct philosophic
+history; it was the day of her greatest moralists, Adam Smith, Tucker, and
+Paley, and of research in metaphysics and political economy. In this
+period Bishop Percy collected the ancient English ballads, and also
+historic poems from the Chinese and the Runic; in it Warton wrote his
+history of poetry. Dr. Johnson, self-reliant and laborious, was producing
+his dictionary, and giving limits and coherence to the language. Mind was
+on the alert, not only subsidizing the present, but looking curiously into
+the past. I have ventured to call it the antiquarian age. In 1751, the
+Antiquarian Society of London was firmly established; men began to collect
+armor and relics: in this period grew up such an antiquary as Mr. Oldbuck,
+who curiously sought out every relic of the Roman times,--armor, fosses,
+and _prætoria_,--and found, with much that was real, many a fraud or
+delusion. It was an age which, in the words of old Walter Charleton,
+"despised the present as an innovation, and slighted the future, like the
+madman who fell in love with Cleopatra."
+
+There was manifestly a great temptation to adventurous men--with
+sufficient learning, and with no high notion of honor--to creep into the
+distant past; to enact, in mask and domino, its literary parts, and
+endeavor to deceive an age already enthusiastic for antiquity.
+
+Thus, in the third century, if we may believe the Scotch and Irish
+traditions, there existed in Scotland a great chieftain named Fion na
+Gael--modernized into Fingal--who fought with Cuthullin and the Irish
+warriors, and whose exploits were, as late as the time of which we have
+been speaking, the theme of rude ballads among the highlands and islands
+of Scotland. To find and translate these ballads was charming and
+legitimate work for the antiquarian; to counterfeit them, and call them by
+the name of a bard of that period, was the great temptation to the
+literary forger. Of such a bard, too, there was a tradition. As brave as
+were the deeds of Fingal, their fame was not so great as that of his son
+Ossian, who struck a lofty harp as he recounted his father's glory. Could
+the real poems be found, they would verify the lines:
+
+    From the barred visor of antiquity
+    Reflected shines the eternal light of Truth
+    As from a mirror.
+
+And if they could not be found, they might be counterfeited. This was
+undertaken by Doctor James Macpherson. Catering to the spirit of the age,
+he reproduced the songs of Ossian and the lofty deeds of Fingal.
+
+Again, we have referred, in an early part of this work, to the almost
+barren expanse in the highway of English literature from the death of
+Chaucer to the middle of the sixteenth century; this barrenness was due,
+as we saw, to the turbulence of those years--civil war, misgovernment, a
+time of bloody action rather than peaceful authorship. Here, too, was a
+great temptation for some gifted but oblique mind to supply a partial
+literature for that bare period; a literature which, entirely fabricated,
+should yet bear all the characteristics of the history, language, customs,
+manners, and religion of that time.
+
+This attempt was made by Thomas Chatterton, an obscure, ill-educated lad,
+without means or friends, but who had a master-mind, and would have
+accomplished some great feat in letters, had he not died, while still very
+young, by his own hand.
+
+Let us examine these frauds in succession: we shall find them of double
+historic value, as literary efforts in one age designed to represent the
+literature of a former age.
+
+
+JAMES MACPHERSON.--James Macpherson was born at Ruthven, a village in
+Inverness-shire, in 1738. Being intended for the ministry, he received a
+good preliminary education, and became early interested in the ancient
+Gaelic ballads and poetic fragments still floating about the Highlands of
+Scotland. By the aid of Mr. John Home, the author of _Douglas_, and his
+friends Blair and Ferguson, he published, in 1760, a small volume of sixty
+pages entitled, _Fragments of Ancient Poetry translated from the Gaelic or
+Erse Language_. They were heroic and harmonious, and were very well
+received: he had catered to the very spirit of the age. At first, there
+seemed to be no doubt as to their genuineness. It was known to tradition
+that this northern Fingal had fought with Severus and Caracalla, on the
+banks of the Carun, and that blind Ossian had poured forth a flood of song
+after the fight, and made the deeds immortal. And now these songs and
+deeds were echoing in English ears,--the thrumming of the harp which told
+of "the stream of those olden years, where they have so long hid, in their
+mist, their many-colored sides." (_Cathloda_, Duan III.)
+
+So enthusiastically were these poems received, that a subscription was
+raised to enable Macpherson to travel in the Highlands, and collect more
+of this lingering and beautiful poetry.
+
+Gray the poet, writing to William Mason, in 1760, says: "These poems are
+in everybody's mouth in the Highlands; have been handed down from father
+to son. We have therefore set on foot a subscription of a guinea or two
+apiece, in order to enable Mr. Macpherson to recover this poem (Fingal),
+and other fragments of antiquity."
+
+
+FINGAL.--On his return, in 1762, he published _Fingal_, and, in the same
+volume, some smaller poems. This Fingal, which he calls "an ancient epic
+poem" in six duans or books, recounts the deliverance of Erin from the
+King of Lochlin. The next year, 1763, he published _Temora_. Among the
+earlier poems, in all which Fingal is the hero, are passages of great
+beauty and touching pathos. Such, too, are found in _Carricthura and
+Carthon, the War of Inis-thona_, and the _Songs of Selma_. After reading
+these, we are pleasantly haunted with dim but beautiful pictures of that
+Northern coast where "the blue waters rolled in light," "when morning rose
+In the east;" and again with ghostly moonlit scenes, when "night came down
+on the sea, and Rotha's Bay received the ship." "The wan, cold moon rose
+in the east; sleep descended upon the youths; their blue helmets glitter
+to the beam; the fading fire decays; but sleep did not rest on the king;
+he rode in the midst of his arms, and slowly ascended the hill to behold
+the flame of Sarno's tower. The flame was dim and distant; the moon hid
+her red face in the east. A blast came from the mountain; on its wings was
+the spirit of Loda." In _Carthon_ occurs that beautiful address to the
+Sun, which we are fortunate in knowing, from other sources than
+Macpherson, is a tolerably correct translation of a real original. If we
+had that alone, it would be a revelation of the power of Ossian, and of
+the aptitudes of a people who could enjoy it. It is not within our scope
+to quote from the veritable Ossian, or to expose the bombast and fustian,
+tumid diction and swelling sound of Macpherson, of which the poems contain
+so much.
+
+As soon as a stir was made touching the authenticity of the poems, a
+number of champions sprang up on both sides: among those who favored
+Macpherson, was Dr. Hugh Blair, who wrote the critical dissertation
+usually prefixed to the editions of Ossian, and who compares him favorably
+to Homer. First among the incredulous, as might be expected, was Dr.
+Samuel Johnson, who, in his _Journey to the Hebrides_, lashes Macpherson
+for his imposture, and his insolence in refusing to show the original.
+Johnson was threatened by Macpherson with a beating, and he answered: "I
+hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat by the
+menaces of a ruffian ... I thought your book an imposture; I think it an
+imposture still ... Your rage I defy ... You may print this if you will."
+
+Proofs of the imposture were little by little discovered by the critics.
+There were some real fragments in his first volume; but even these he had
+altered, and made symmetrical, so as to disguise their original character.
+Ossian would not have known them. As for Fingal, in its six duans, with
+captional arguments, it was made up from a few fragments, and no such poem
+ever existed. It was Macpherson's from beginning to end.
+
+The final establishment of the forgery was not simply by recourse to
+scholars versed in the Celtic tongues, but the Highland Society appointed
+a committee in 1767, whose duty it was to send to the Highland pastors a
+circular, inquiring whether they had heard in the original the poems of
+Ossian, said to be translated by Macpherson; if so, where and by whom they
+had been written out or repeated: whether similar fragments still existed,
+and whether there were persons living who could repeat them; whether, to
+their knowledge, Macpherson had obtained such poems in the Highlands; and
+for any information concerning the personality of Fingal and Ossian.
+
+
+CRITICISM.--The result was as follows: Certain Ossianic poems did exist,
+and some manuscripts of ancient ballads and bardic songs. A few of these
+had formed the foundation of Macpherson's so-called translations of the
+earlier pieces; but he had altered and added to them, and joined them with
+his own fancies in an arbitrary manner.
+
+_Fingal_ and _Temora_ were also made out of a few fragments; but in their
+epic and connected form not only did not exist, but lack the bardic
+character and construction entirely.
+
+Now that the critics had the direction of the chase made known, they
+discovered that Macpherson had taken his imagery from the Bible, of which
+Ossian was ignorant; from classic authors, of whom he had never heard; and
+from modern sources down to his own day.
+
+Then Macpherson's Ossian--which had been read with avidity and translated
+into many languages, while it was considered an antique gem only reset in
+English--fell into disrepute, and was unduly despised when known to be a
+forgery.
+
+It is difficult to conceive why he did not produce the work as his own,
+with a true story of its foundation: it is not so difficult to understand
+why, when he was detected, he persisted in the falsehood. For what it
+really is, it must be partially praised; and it will remain not only as a
+literary curiosity, but as a work of unequal but real merit. It was
+greatly admired by Napoleon and Madame de Staël, and, in endeavoring to
+consign it to oblivion, the critics are greatly in the wrong.
+
+Macpherson resented any allusion to the forgery, and any leading question
+concerning it. He refused, at first, to produce the originals; and when he
+did say where they might be found, the world had decided so strongly
+against him, that there was no curiosity to examine them. He at last
+maintained a sullen silence; and, dying suddenly, in 1796, left no papers
+which throw light upon the controversy. The subject is, however, still
+agitated. Later writers have endeavored to reverse the decision of his
+age, without, however, any decided success. For much information
+concerning the Highland poetry, the reader is referred to _A Summer in
+Skye_, by Alexander Smith.
+
+
+OTHER WORKS.--His other principal work was a _Translation of the Iliad of
+Homer_ in the Ossianic style, which was received with execration and
+contempt. He also wrote _A History of Great Britain from the Restoration
+to the Accession of the House of Hanover_, which Fox--who was, however,
+prejudiced--declared to be full of impudent falsehoods.
+
+Of his career little more need be said: he was too shrewd a man to need
+sympathy; he took care of himself. He was successful in his pecuniary
+schemes; as agent of the Nabob of Arcot, he had a seat in parliament for
+ten years, and was quite unconcerned what the world thought of his
+literary performances. He had achieved notoriety, and enjoyed it.
+
+But, unfortunately, his forgery did fatal injury by its example; it
+inspired Chatterton, the precocious boy, to make another attempt on public
+credulity. It opened a seductive path for one who, inspired by the
+adventure and warned by the causes of exposure, might make a better
+forgery, escape detection, and gain great praise in the antiquarian world.
+
+
+THOMAS CHATTERTON.--With this name, we accost the most wonderful story of
+its kind in any literature; so strange, indeed, that we never take it up
+without trying to discover some new meaning in it. We hope, against hope,
+that the forgery is not proved.
+
+Chatterton was born in Bristol, on the Avon, in 1752, of poor parents, but
+early gave signs of remarkable genius, combined with a prurient ambition.
+A friend who wished to present him with an earthen-ware cup, asked him
+what device he would have upon it. "Paint me," he answered, "an angel with
+wings and a trumpet, to trumpet my name over the world." He learned his
+alphabet from an old music-book; at eight years of age he was sent to a
+charity-school, and he spent his little pocket-money at a circulating
+library, the books of which he literally devoured.
+
+At the early age of eleven he wrote a piece of poetry, and published it in
+the _Bristol Journal_ of January 8, 1763; it was entitled _On the last
+Epiphany, or Christ coming to Judgment_, and the next year, probably, a
+_Hymn to Christmas-day_, of which the following lines will give an idea:
+
+    How shall we celebrate his name,
+    Who groaned beneath a life of shame,
+      In all afflictions tried?
+    The soul is raptured to conceive
+    A truth which being must believe;
+      The God eternal died.
+
+    My soul, exert thy powers, adore;
+    Upon Devotion's plumage soar
+      To celebrate the day.
+    The God from whom creation sprung
+    Shall animate my grateful tongue,
+      From Him I'll catch the lay.
+
+Some member of the Chatterton family had, for one hundred and fifty years,
+held the post of sexton in the church of St. Mary Redcliffe at Bristol;
+and at the time of which we write his uncle was sexton. In the
+muniment-room of the church were several coffers, containing old papers
+and parchments in black letter, some of which were supposed to be of
+value. The chests were examined by order of the vestry; the valuable
+papers were removed, and of the rest, as perquisites of the sexton, some
+fell into the hands of Chatterton's father. The boy, who had been, upon
+leaving school, articled to an attorney, and had thus become familiar with
+the old English text, caught sight of these, and seemed then to have first
+formed the plan of turning them to account, as _The Rowlie papers_.
+
+
+OLD MANUSCRIPTS.--If he could be believed, he found a variety of material
+in this old collection. To a credulous and weak acquaintance, Mr. Burgum,
+he went, beaming with joy, to present the pedigree and illuminated arms of
+the de Bergham family--tracing the honest mechanic's descent to a noble
+house which crossed the Channel with William the Conqueror. The delighted
+Burgum gave him a crown, and Chatterton, pocketing the money, lampooned
+his credulity thus:
+
+    Gods! what would Burgum give to get a name,
+    And snatch his blundering dialect from shame?
+    What would he give to hand his memory down
+    To time's remotest boundary? a crown!
+    Would you ask more, his swelling face looks blue--
+    Futurity he rates at two pound two!
+
+In September, 1768, the inauguration or opening of the new bridge across
+the Avon took place; and, taking advantage of the temporary interest it
+excited, Chatterton, then sixteen, produced in the _Bristol Journal_ a
+full description of the opening of the old bridge two hundred years
+before, which he said he found among the old papers: "A description of the
+Fryers first passing over the old bridge, taken from an ancient
+manuscript," with details of the procession, and the Latin sermon preached
+on the occasion by Ralph de Blundeville; ending with the dinner, the
+sports, and the illumination on Kynwulph Hill.
+
+This paper, which attracted general interest, was traced to Chatterton,
+and when he was asked to show the original, it was soon manifest that
+there was none, but that the whole was a creation of his fancy. The
+question arises,--How did the statements made by Chatterton compare with
+the known facts of local history?
+
+There was in the olden time in Bristol a great merchant named William
+Canynge, who was remembered for his philanthropy; he had altered and
+improved the church of St. Mary, and had built the muniment-room: the
+reputed poems, some of which were said to have been written by himself,
+and others by the monk Rowlie, Chatterton declared he had found in the
+coffers. Thomas Rowlie, "the gode preeste," appears as a holy and learned
+man, poet, artist, and architect. Canynge and Rowlie were strong friends,
+and the latter was supposed to have addressed many of the poems to the
+former, who was his good patron.
+
+The principal of the Rowlie poems is the _Bristowe_ (Bristol) _Tragedy_,
+or _Death of Sir Charles Bawdin_. This Bawdin, or Baldwin, a real
+character, had been attainted by Edward IV. of high treason, and brought
+to the block. The poem is in the finest style of the old English ballad,
+and is wonderfully dramatic. King Edward sends to inform Bawdin of his
+fate:
+
+    Then with a jug of nappy ale
+    His knights did on him waite;
+    "Go tell the traitor that to daie
+    He leaves this mortal state."
+
+Sir Charles receives the tidings with bold defiance. Good Master Canynge
+goes to the king to ask the prisoner's life as a boon.
+
+    "My noble liege," good Canynge saide,
+      "Leave justice to our God;
+    And lay the iron rule aside,
+      Be thine the olyve rodde."
+
+The king is inexorable, and Sir Charles dies amid tears and loud weeping
+around the scaffold.
+
+Among the other Rowlie poems are the _Tragical Interlude of Ella_, "plaied
+before Master Canynge, and also before Johan Howard, Duke of Norfolk;"
+_Godwin_, a short drama; a long poem on _The Battle of Hastings_, and _The
+Romaunt of the Knight_, modernized from the original of John de Bergham.
+
+
+THE VERDICT.--These poems at once became famous, and the critics began to
+investigate the question of their authenticity. From this investigation
+Chatterton did not shrink. He sent some of them with letters to Horace
+Walpole, and, as Walpole did not immediately answer, he wrote to him quite
+impertinently. Then they were submitted to Mason and Gray. The opinion of
+those who examined them was almost unanimous that they were forgeries: he
+could produce no originals; the language is in many cases not that of the
+period, and the spelling and idioms are evidently factitious. A few there
+were who seemed to have committed themselves, at first, to their
+authenticity; but Walpole, the Wartons, Dr. Johnson, Gibbon the historian,
+Sheridan, and most other literary men, were clear as to their forgery. The
+forged manuscripts which he had the hardihood afterwards to present, were
+totally unlike those of Edward the Fourth's time; he was entirely at fault
+in his heraldry; words were used out of their meaning; and, in his poem on
+_The Battle of Hastings_, he had introduced the modern discoveries
+concerning Stone Henge. He uses the possessive case _yttes_, which did not
+come into use until long after the Rowlie period. Add to these that
+Chatterton's reputation for veracity was bad.
+
+The truth was, that he had found some curious scraps, which had set his
+fancy to work, and the example of Macpherson had led to the cheat he was
+practising upon the public. To some friends he confessed the deception,
+denying it again, violently, soon after; and he had been seen smoking
+parchment to make it look old. The lad was crazy.
+
+
+HIS SUICIDE.--Keeping up appearances, he went to London, and tried to get
+work. At one time he was in high spirits, sending presents to his mother
+and sisters, and promising them better days; at another, he was in want,
+in the lowest depression, no hope in the world. He only asks for work; he
+is entirely unconcerned for whom he writes or what party he eulogizes; he
+wants money and a name, and when these seem unattainable, he takes refuge
+from "the whips and scorns of time," the burning fever of pride, the
+gnawings of hunger, in suicide. He goes to his little garret
+room,--refusing, as he goes, a dinner from his landlady, although he is
+gaunt with famine,--mixes a large dose of arsenic in water, and--"jumps
+the life to come." He was just seventeen years and nine months old! When
+his room was forced open, it was found that he had torn up most of his
+papers, and had left nothing to throw light upon his deception.
+
+The verdict of literary criticism is that of the medical art--he was
+insane; and to what extent this mania acted as a monomania, that is, how
+far he was himself deceived, the world can never know. One thing, at
+least; it redeems all his faults. Precocious beyond any other known
+instance of precocity; intensely haughty; bold in falsehood; working best
+when the moon was at the full, he stands in English literature as the most
+singular of its curiosities. His will is an awful jest; his declaration of
+his religious opinions a tissue of contradictions and absurdities: he
+bequeathes to a clergyman his humility; to Mr. Burgum his prosody and
+grammar, with half his modesty--the other half to any young lady that
+needs it; his abstinence--a fearful legacy--to the aldermen of Bristol at
+their annual feast! to a friend, a mourning ring--"provided he pays for it
+himself"--with the motto, "Alas, poor Chatterton!" Fittest ending to his
+biography--"Alas, poor Chatterton!"
+
+And yet it is evident that the crazy Bristol boy and the astute Scotchman
+were alike the creatures of the age and the peculiar circumstances in
+which they lived. No other age of English history could have produced
+them. In an earlier period, they would have found no curiosity in the
+people to warrant their attempts; and in a later time, the increase in
+antiquarian studies would have made these efforts too easy of detection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+POETRY OF THE TRANSITION SCHOOL.
+
+
+   The Transition Period. James Thomson. The Seasons. The Castle of
+   Indolence. Mark Akenside. Pleasures of the Imagination. Thomas Gray.
+   The Elegy. The Bard. William Cowper. The Task. Translation of Homer.
+   Other Writers.
+
+
+
+THE TRANSITION PERIOD.
+
+
+The poetical standards of Dryden and Pope, as poetic examples and
+arbiters, exercised tyrannical sway to the middle of the eighteenth
+century, and continued to be felt, with relaxing influence, however, to a
+much later period. Poetry became impatient of too close a captivity to
+technical rules in rhythm and in subjects, and began once again to seek
+its inspiration from the worlds of nature and of feeling. While seeking
+this change, it passed through what has been properly called the period of
+transition,--a period the writers of which are distinctly marked as
+belonging neither to the artificial classicism of Pope, nor to the simple
+naturalism of Wordsworth and the Lake school; partaking, indeed, in some
+degree of the former, and preparing the way for the latter.
+
+The excited condition of public feeling during the earlier period,
+incident to the accession of the house of Hanover and the last struggles
+of the Jacobites, had given a political character to every author, and a
+political significance to almost every literary work. At the close of this
+abnormal condition of things, the poets of the transition school began
+their labors; untrammelled by the court and the town, they invoked the
+muse in green fields and by babbling brooks; from materialistic
+philosophy in verse they appealed through the senses to the hearts of men;
+and appreciation and popularity rewarded and encouraged them.
+
+
+JAMES THOMSON.--The first distinguished writer of this school was Thomson,
+the son of a Scottish minister. He was born on the 11th of September,
+1700, at Ednam in Roxburghshire. While a boy at school in Jedburgh, he
+displayed poetical talent: at the University of Edinburgh he completed his
+scholastic course, and studied divinity; which, however, he did not pursue
+as a profession. Being left, by his father's death, without means, he
+resolved to go to the great metropolis to try his fortunes. He arrived in
+London in sorry plight, without money, and with ragged shoes; but through
+the assistance of some persons of station, he procured occupation as tutor
+to a lord's son, and thus earned a livelihood until the publication of his
+first poem in 1726. That poem was _Winter_, the first of the series called
+_The Seasons_: it was received with unusual favor. The first edition was
+speedily exhausted, and with the publication of the second, his position
+as a poet was assured. In 1727 he produced the second poem of the series,
+_Summer_, and, with it, a proposal for issuing the _Four Seasons_, with a
+_Hymn_ on their succession. In 1728 his _Spring_ appeared, and in the next
+year an unsuccessful tragedy called _Sophonisba_, which owed its immediate
+failure to the laughter occasioned by the line,
+
+    O Sophonisba, Sophonisba O!
+
+This was parodied by some wag in these words:
+
+    O Jemmie Thomson, Jemmie Thomson O!
+
+and the ridicule was so potent that the play was ruined.
+
+The last of the seasons, _Autumn_, and the _Hymn_, were first printed in a
+complete edition of _The Seasons_, in 1730. It was at once conceded that
+he had gratified the cravings of the day, In producing a real and
+beautiful English pastoral. The reputation which he thus gained caused him
+to be selected as the mentor and companion of the son of Sir Charles
+Talbot in a tour through France and Italy in 1730 and 1731.
+
+In 1734 he published the first part of a poem called _Liberty_, the
+conclusion of which appeared in 1736. It is designed to trace the progress
+of Liberty through Italy, Greece, and Rome, down to her excellent
+establishment in Great Britain, and was dedicated to Frederick, Prince of
+Wales.
+
+His tragedies _Agamemnon_ and _Edward and Eleanora_ are in the then
+prevailing taste. They were issued in 1738-39. The latter is of political
+significance, in that Edward was like Frederick the Prince of Wales--heir
+apparent to the crown; and some of the passages are designed to strengthen
+the prince in the favor of the people.
+
+The personal life of Thomson is not of much interest. From his first
+residence in London, he supported, with his slender means, a brother, who
+died young of consumption, and aided two maiden sisters, who kept a small
+milliner-shop in Edinburgh. This is greatly to his praise, as he was at
+one time so poor that he was arrested for debt and committed to prison. As
+his reputation increased, his fortunes were ameliorated. In 1745 his play
+_Tancred and Sigismunda_ was performed. It was founded upon a story
+universally popular,--the same which appears in the episode of _The Fatal
+Marriage_ in Gil Bias, and in one of the stories of Boccaccio. He enjoyed
+for a short time a pension from the Prince of Wales, of which, however, he
+was deprived without apparent cause; but he received the office of
+Surveyor-General of the Leeward Islands, the duties of which he could
+perform by deputy; after that he lived a lazy life at his cottage near
+Richmond, which, if otherwise reprehensible, at least gave him the power
+to write his most beautiful poem, _The Castle of Indolence_. It appeared
+in 1748, and was universally admired; it has a rhetorical harmony similar
+and quite equal to that of the _Lotos Eaters_ of Tennyson. The poet, who
+had become quite plethoric, was heated by a walk from London, and, from a
+check of perspiration, was thrown into a high fever, a relapse of which
+caused his death on the 27th of August, 1748. His friend Lord Lyttleton
+wrote the prologue to his play of _Coriolanus_, which was acted after the
+poet's death, in which he says:
+
+    "--His chaste Muse employed her heaven-taught lyre
+    None but the noblest missions to inspire,
+    Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,
+    _One line which, dying, he could wish to blot_."
+
+The praise accorded him in this much-quoted line is justly his due: it is
+greater praise that he was opening a new pathway in English Literature,
+and supplying better food than the preceding age had given. His _Seasons_
+supplied a want of the age: it was a series of beautiful pastorals. The
+descriptions of nature will always be read and quoted with pleasure; the
+little episodes, if they affect the unity, relieve the monotony of the
+subject, and, like figures introduced by the painter into his landscape,
+take away the sense of loneliness, and give us a standard at once of
+judgment, of measurement, and of sympathetic enjoyment; they display, too,
+at once the workings of his own mind in his production, and the manners
+and sentiments of the age in which he wrote. It was fitting that he who
+had portrayed for us such beautiful gardens of English nature, should
+people them instead of leaving them solitary.
+
+
+THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.--This is an allegory, written after the manner of
+Spenser, and in the Spenserian stanza. He also employs archaic words, as
+Spenser did, to give it greater resemblance to Spenser's poem. The
+allegorical characters are well described, and the sumptuous adornings and
+lazy luxuries of the castle are set forth _con amore_. The spell that
+enchants the castle is broken by the stalwart knight _Industry_; but the
+glamour of the poem remains, and makes the reader in love with
+_Indolence_.
+
+
+MARK AKENSIDE.--Thomson had restored or reproduced the pastoral from
+Nature's self; Akenside followed in his steps. Thomson had invested blank
+verse with a new power and beauty; Akenside produced it quite as
+excellent. But Thomson was the original, and Akenside the copy. The one is
+natural, the other artificial.
+
+Akenside was the son of a butcher, and was born at New Castle, in 1721.
+Educated at the University of Edinburgh, he studied medicine, and
+received, at different periods, lucrative and honorable professional
+appointments. His great work, and the only one to which we need refer, is
+his _Pleasures of the Imagination_. Whether his view of the imagination is
+always correct or not, his sentiments are always elevated; his language
+high sounding but frequently redundant, and his versification correct and
+pleasing. His descriptions of nature are cold but correct; his standard of
+humanity is high but mortal. Grand and sonorous, he constructs his periods
+with the manner of a declaimer; his ascriptions and apostrophes are like
+those of a high-priest. The title of his poem, if nothing more, suggested
+_The Pleasures-of Hope_ to Campbell, and _The Pleasures of Memory_ to
+Rogers. As a man, Akenside was overbearing and dictatorial; as a hospital
+surgeon, harsh in his treatment of poor patients. His hymn to the Naiads
+has been considered the most thoroughly and correctly classical of
+anything in English. He died on the 23rd of June, 1770.
+
+
+THOMAS GRAY.--Among those who form a link between the school of Pope and
+that of the modern poets, Gray occupies a distinguished place, both from
+the excellence of his writings, and from the fact that, while he
+unconsciously conduced to the modern, he instinctively resisted its
+progress. He was in taste and intention an extreme classicist. Thomas Gray
+was born in London on the 26th December, 1716. His father was a money
+scrivener, and, to his family at least, a bad man; his mother, forced to
+support herself, kept a linen-draper shop; and to her the poet owed his
+entire education. He was entered at Eton College, and afterwards at
+Cambridge, and found in early life such friendships as were of great
+importance to him later in his career. Among his college friends were
+Horace Walpole, West, the son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and
+William Mason, who afterwards wrote the poet's life. After completing his
+college course, he travelled on the continent with Walpole; but, on
+account of incompatibility of temper, they quarrelled and parted, and Gray
+returned home. Although Walpole took the blame upon himself, it would
+appear that Gray was a somewhat captious person, whose serious tastes
+interfered with the gayer pleasures of his friend. On his return, Gray
+went to Cambridge, where he led the life of a retired student, devoting
+himself to the ancient authors, to poetry, botany, architecture, and
+heraldry. He was fastidious as to his own productions, which were very
+few, and which he kept by him, pruning, altering, and polishing, for a
+long time before he would let them see the light. His lines entitled _A
+Distant Prospect of Eton College_ appeared in 1742, and were received with
+great applause.
+
+It was at this time that he also began his _Elegy in a Country
+Churchyard_; which, however, did not appear until seven or eight years
+later, and which has made him immortal. The grandeur of its language, the
+elevation of its sentiments, and the sympathy of its pathos, commend it to
+all classes and all hearts; and of its kind of composition it stands alone
+in English literature.
+
+The ode on the progress of poetry appeared in 1755. Like the _Elegy_, his
+poem of _The Bard_ was for several years on the literary easel, and he was
+accidentally led to finish it by hearing a blind harper performing on a
+Welsh harp.
+
+On the death of Cibber, Gray was offered the laureate's crown, which he
+declined, to avoid its conspicuousness and the envy of his brother poets.
+In 1762, he applied for the professorship of modern history at Cambridge,
+but failed to obtain the position. He was more fortunate in 1768, when it
+again became vacant; but he held it as a sinecure, doing none of its
+duties. He died in 1770, on the 3d of July, of gout in the stomach. His
+habits were those of a recluse; and whether we agree or not, with Adam
+Smith, in saying that nothing is wanting to render him perhaps the first
+poet in the English language, but to have written a little more, it is
+astonishing that so great and permanent a reputation should have been
+founded on so very little as he wrote. Gray has been properly called the
+finest lyric poet in the language; and his lyric power strikes us as
+intuitive and original; yet he himself, adhering strongly to the
+artificial school, declared, if there was any excellence in his own
+numbers, he had learned it wholly from Dryden. His archæological tastes
+are further shown by his enthusiastic study of heraldry, and by his
+surrounding himself with old armor and other curious relics of the past.
+Mr. Mitford, in a curious dissection of the _Elegy_, has found numerous
+errors of rhetoric, and even of grammar.
+
+His _Bard_ is founded on a tradition that Edward I., when he conquered
+Wales, ordered all the bards to be put to death, that they might not, by
+their songs, excite the Welsh people to revolt. The last one who figures
+in his story, sings a lament for his brethren, prophesies the downfall of
+the usurper, and then throws himself over the cliff:
+
+    "Be thine despair and sceptered care,
+    To triumph and to die are mine!"
+    He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height,
+    Deep in the roaring tide, he plunged to endless night.
+
+
+WILLIAM COWPER.--Next in the catalogue of the transition school occurs the
+name of one who, like Gray, was a recluse, but with a better reason and a
+sadder one. He was a gentle hypochondriac, and, at intervals, a maniac,
+who literally turned to poetry, like Saul to the harper, for relief from
+his sufferings. William Cowper, the eldest son of the Rector of
+Berkhampsted in Hertfordshire, was born on the 15th of November, 1731. He
+was a delicate and sensitive child, and was seriously affected by the loss
+of his mother when he was six years old. At school, he was cruelly treated
+by an older boy, which led to his decided views against public schools,
+expressed in his poem called _Tirocinium_. His morbid sensitiveness
+increased upon him as he grew older, and interfered with his legal studies
+and advancement. His depression of spirits took a religious turn; and we
+are glad to think that religion itself brought the balm which gave him
+twelve years of unclouded mind, devoted to friendship and to poetry. He
+was offered, by powerful friends, eligible positions connected with the
+House of Lords, in 1762; but as the one of these which he accepted was
+threatened with a public examination, he abandoned it in horror; not,
+however, before the fearful suspense had unsettled his brain, so that he
+was obliged to be placed, for a short time, in an asylum for the insane.
+When he left this asylum, he went to Huntingdon, where he became
+acquainted with the Rev. William Unwin, who, with his wife and son, seem
+to have been congenial companions to his desolate heart. On the death of
+Mr. Unwin, in 1767, he removed with the widow to Olney, and there formed
+an intimate acquaintance with another clergyman, the Rev. William Newton.
+Here, and in this society, the remainder of the poet's life was passed in
+writing letters, which have been considered the best ever written in
+England; in making hymns, in conjunction with Mr. Newton, which have ever
+since been universal favorites; and in varied poetic attempts, which give
+him high rank in the literature of the day. The first of his larger pieces
+was a poem entitled, _The Progress of Error_, which appeared in 1783, when
+the author had reached the advanced age of 52. Then followed _Truth_ and
+_Expostulation_, which, according to the poet himself, did much towards
+diverting his melancholy thoughts. These poems would not have fixed his
+fame; but Lady Austen, an accomplished woman with whom he became
+acquainted in 1781, deserves our gratitude for having proposed to him the
+subjects of those poems which have really made him famous, namely, _The
+Task, John Gilpin_, and the translation of _Homer_. Before, however,
+undertaking these, he wrote poems on _Hope_, _Charity_, _Conversation_ and
+_Retirement_. The story of _John Gilpin_--a real one as told him by Lady
+Austen--made such an impression upon him, that he dashed off the ballad at
+a sitting.
+
+
+THE TASK.--The origin of _The Task_ is well known. In 1783, Lady Austen
+suggested to him to write a poem in blank verse: he said he would, if she
+would suggest the subject. Her answer was, "Write on _this sofa_." The
+poem thus begun was speedily expanded into those beautiful delineations of
+varied nature, domestic life, and religious sentiment which rivalled the
+best efforts of Thomson. The title that connects them is _The Task.
+Tirocinium_ or _the Review of Schools_, appeared soon after, and excited
+considerable attention in a country where public education has been the
+rule of the higher social life. Cowper began the translation of Homer in
+1785, from a feeling of the necessity of employment for his mind. His
+translations of both Iliad and Odyssey, which occupied him for five years,
+and which did not entirely keep off his old enemy, were published in 1791.
+They are correct in scholarship and idiom, but lack the nature and the
+fire of the old Grecian bard.
+
+The rest of his life was busy, but sad--a constant effort to drive away
+madness by incessant labor. The loss of his friend, Mrs. Unwin, in 1796,
+affected him deeply, and the clouds settled thicker and thicker upon his
+soul. In the year before his death, he published that painfully touching
+poem, _The Castaway_, which gives an epitome of his own sufferings in the
+similitude of a wretch clinging to a spar in a stormy night upon the
+Atlantic.
+
+His minor and fugitive poems are very numerous; and as they were
+generally inspired by persons and scenes around him, they are truly
+literary types of the age in which he lived. In his _Task_, he resembles
+Thomson and Akenside; in his didactic poems, he reminds us of the essays
+of Pope; in his hymns he catered successfully to the returning piety of
+the age; in his translations of Homer and of Ovid, he presented the
+ancients to moderns in a new and acceptable dress; and in his Letters he
+sets up an epistolary model, which may be profitably studied by all who
+desire to express themselves with energy, simplicity, and delicate taste.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE TRANSITION SCHOOL.
+
+
+_James Beattie_, 1735-1803: he was the son of a farmer, and was educated
+at Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he was afterwards professor of
+natural philosophy. For four years he taught a village school. His first
+poem, _Retirement_, was not much esteemed; but in 1771 appeared the first
+part of _The Minstrel_, a poem at once descriptive, didactic, and
+romantic. This was enthusiastically received, and gained for him the favor
+of the king, a pension of £200 per annum, and a degree from Oxford. The
+second part was published in 1774. _The Minstrel_ is written in the
+Spenserian stanza, and abounds in beautiful descriptions of nature,
+marking a very decided progress from the artificial to the natural school.
+The character of Edwin, the young minstrel, ardent in search for the
+beautiful and the true, is admirably portrayed; as is also that of the
+hermit who instructs the youth. The opening lines are very familiar:
+
+    Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb
+    The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar;
+
+and the description of the morning landscape has no superior in the
+language:
+
+    But who the melodies of morn can tell?
+      The wild brook babbling down the mountain side;
+    The lowing herd; the sheepfold's simple bell;
+      The pipe of early shepherd dim descried
+        In the lone valley.
+
+Beattie wrote numerous prose dissertations and essays, one of which was in
+answer to the infidel views of Hume--_Essay on the Nature and
+Immutability of Truth, in Opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism_. Beattie
+was of an excitable and sensitive nature, and his polemical papers are
+valued rather for the beauty of their language, than for acuteness of
+logic.
+
+
+_William Falconer_, 1730-1769: first a sailor in the merchant service, he
+afterwards entered the navy. He is chiefly known by his poem _The
+Shipwreck_, and for its astonishing connection with his own fortunes and
+fate. He was wrecked off Cape Colonna, on the coast of Greece, before he
+was eighteen; and this misfortune is the subject of his poem. Again, in
+1760, he was cast away in the Channel. In 1769, the Aurora frigate, of
+which he was the purser, foundered in Mozambique Channels, and he, with
+all others on board, went down with her. The excellence of his nautical
+directions and the vigor of his descriptions establish the claims of his
+poem; but it has the additional interest attaching to his curious
+experience--it is his autobiography and his enduring monument. The picture
+of the storm is very fine; but in the handling of his verse there is more
+of the artificial than of the romantic school.
+
+
+_William Shenstone_, 1714-1763: his principal work is _The
+Schoolmistress_, a poem in the stanza of Spenser, which is pleasing from
+its simple and sympathizing description of the village school, kept by a
+dame; with the tricks and punishment of the children, and many little
+traits of rural life and character. It is pitched in so low a key that it
+commends itself to the world at large. Shenstone is equally known for his
+mania in landscape gardening, upon which he spent all his means. His
+place, _The Leasowes_ in Shropshire, has gained the greater notoriety
+through the descriptions of Dodsley and Goldsmith. The natural simplicity
+of _The Schoolmistress_ allies it strongly to the romantic school, which
+was now about to appear.
+
+
+_William Collins_, 1720-1756: this unfortunate poet, who died at the early
+age of thirty-six, deserves particular mention for the delicacy of his
+fancy and the beauty of his diction. His _Ode on the Passions_ is
+universally esteemed for its sudden and effective changes from the
+bewilderment of Fear, the violence of Anger, and the wildness of Despair
+to the rapt visions of Hope, the gentle dejection of Pity, and the
+sprightliness of Mirth and Cheerfulness. His _Ode on the Death of Thomson_
+is an exquisite bit of pathos, as is also the _Dirge on Cymbeline_.
+Everybody knows and admires the short ode beginning
+
+    How sleep the brave who sink to rest
+    By all their country's wishes blest!
+
+His _Oriental Eclogues_ please by the simplicity of the colloquies, the
+choice figures of speech, and the fine descriptions of nature. But of all
+his poems, the most finished and charming is the _Ode to Evening_. It
+contains thirteen four-lined stanzas of varied metre, and in blank verse
+so full of harmony that rhyme would spoil it. It presents a series of
+soft, dissolving views, and stands alone in English poetry, with claims
+sufficient to immortalize the poet, had he written nothing else. The
+latter part of his life was clouded by mental disorders, not unsuggested
+to the reader by the pathos of many of his poems. Like Gray, he wrote
+little, but every line is of great merit.
+
+
+_Henry Kirke White_, 1785-1806: the son of a butcher, this gifted youth
+displayed, in his brief life, such devotion to study, and such powers of
+mind, that his friends could not but predict a brilliant future for him,
+had he lived. Nothing that he produced is of the highest order of poetic
+merit, but everything was full of promise. Of a weak constitution, he
+could not bear the rigorous study which he prescribed to himself, and
+which hastened his death. With the kind assistance of Mr. Capel Lofft and
+the poet Southey, he was enabled to leave the trade to which he had been
+apprenticed and go to Cambridge. His poems have most of them a strongly
+devotional cast. Among them are _Gondoline_, _Clifton Grove_, and the
+_Christiad_, in the last of which, like the swan, he chants his own
+death-song. His memory has been kept green by Southey's edition of his
+_Remains_, and by the beautiful allusion of Byron to his genius and his
+fate in _The English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. His sacred piece called
+_The Star of Bethlehem_ has been a special favorite:
+
+    When marshalled on the nightly plain
+      The glittering host bestud the sky,
+    One star alone of all the train
+      Can fix the sinner's wandering eye.
+
+
+_Bishop Percy_, 1728-1811: Dr. Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore, deserves
+particular notice in a sketch of English Literature not so much for his
+own works,--although he was a poet,--as for his collection of ballads,
+made with great research and care, and published in 1765. By bringing
+before the world these remains of English songs and idyls, which lay
+scattered through the ages from the birth of the language, he showed
+England the true wealth of her romantic history, and influenced the
+writers of the day to abandon the artificial and reproduce the natural,
+the simple, and the romantic. He gave the impulse which produced the
+minstrelsy of Scott and the simple stories of Wordsworth. Many of these
+ballads are descriptive of the border wars between England and Scotland;
+among the greatest favorites are _Chevy Chase, The Battle of Otterburne,
+The Death of Douglas_, and the story of _Sir Patrick Spens_.
+
+
+_Anne Letitia Barbauld_, 1743-1825: the hymns and poems of Mrs. Barbauld
+are marked by an adherence to the artificial school in form and manner;
+but something of feminine tenderness redeems them from the charge of being
+purely mechanical. Her _Hymns in Prose for Children_ have been of value in
+an educational point of view; and the tales comprised in _Evenings at
+Home_ are entertaining and instructive. Her _Ode to Spring_, which is an
+imitation of Collins's _Ode to Evening_, in the same measure and
+comprising the same number of stanzas, is her best poetic effort, and
+compares with Collins's piece as an excellent copy compares with the
+picture of a great master.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THE LATER DRAMA.
+
+
+   The Progress of the Drama. Garrick. Foote. Cumberland. Sheridan. George
+   Colman. George Colman, the Younger. Other Dramatists and Humorists.
+   Other Writers on Various Subjects.
+
+
+
+THE PROGRESS OF THE DRAMA.
+
+
+The latter half of the eighteenth century, so marked, as we have seen, for
+manifold literary activity, is, in one phase of its history, distinctly
+represented by the drama. It was a very peculiar epoch in English annals.
+The accession of George III., in 1760, gave promise, from the character of
+the king and of his consort, of an exemplary reign. George III. was the
+first monarch of the house of Hanover who may be justly called an English
+king in interest and taste. He and his queen were virtuous and honest; and
+their influence was at once felt by a people in whom virtue and honesty
+are inherent, and whose consciences and tastes had been violated by the
+evil examples of the former reigns.
+
+In 1762 George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales, was born; and as soon
+as he approached manhood, he displayed the worst features of his ancestral
+house: he was extravagant and debauched; he threw himself into a violent
+opposition to his father: with this view he was at first a Whig, but
+afterwards became a Tory. He had also peculiar opportunities for exerting
+authority during the temporary fits of insanity which attacked the king in
+1764, in 1788, and in 1804. At last, in 1810, the king was so disabled
+from attending to his duties that the prince became regent, and assumed
+the reins of government, not to resign them again during his life.
+
+In speaking of the drama of this period, we should hardly, therefore, be
+wrong in calling it the Drama of the Regency. It held, however, by
+historic links, following the order of historic events, to the earlier
+drama. Shakspeare and his contemporaries had established the dramatic art
+on a firm basis. The frown of puritanism, in the polemic period, had
+checked its progress: with the restoration of Charles II, it had returned
+to rival the French stage in wicked plots and prurient scenes. With the
+better morals of the Revolution, and the popular progress which was made
+at the accession of the house of Hanover, the drama was modified: the
+older plays were revived in their original freshness; a new and better
+taste was to be catered to; and what of immorality remained was chiefly
+due to the influence of the Prince of Wales. Actors, so long despised,
+rose to importance as great artists. Garrick and Foote, and, later,
+Kemble, Kean, and Mrs. Siddons, were social personages in England. Peers
+married actresses, and enduring reputation was won by those who could
+display the passions and the affections to the life, giving flesh and
+blood and mind and heart to the inimitable creations of Shakspeare.
+
+It must be allowed that this power of presentment marks the age more
+powerfully than any claims of dramatic authorship. The new play-writers
+did not approach Shakspeare; but they represented their age, and
+repudiated the vices, in part at least, of their immediate predecessors.
+In them, too, is to be observed the change from the artificial to the
+romantic and natural, The scenes and persons in their plays are taken from
+the life around them, and appealed to the very models from which they were
+drawn.
+
+
+DAVID GARRICK.--First among these purifiers of the drama is David Garrick,
+who was born in Lichfield, in 1716. He was a pupil of Dr. Johnson, and
+came up with that distinguished man to London, in 1735. The son of a
+captain in the Royal army, but thrown upon his own exertions, he first
+tried to gain a livelihood as a wine merchant; but his fondness for the
+stage led him to become an actor, and in taking this step he found his
+true position. A man of respectable parts and scholarship, he wrote many
+agreeable pieces for the stage; which, however, owed their success more to
+his accurate knowledge of the _mise en scene_, and to his own
+representation of the principal characters, than to their intrinsic
+merits. His mimetic powers were great: he acted splendidly in all casts,
+excelling, perhaps, in tragedy; and he, more than any actor before or
+since, has made the world thoroughly acquainted with Shakspeare. Dramatic
+authors courted him; for his appearance in any new piece was almost an
+assurance of its success.
+
+Besides many graceful prologues, epigrams, and songs, he wrote, or
+altered, forty plays. Among these the following have the greatest merit:
+_The Lying Valet_, a farce founded on an old English comedy; _The
+Clandestine Marriage_, in which he was aided by the elder Colman; (the
+character of _Lord Ogleby_ he wrote for himself to personate;) _Miss in
+her Teens_, a very clever and amusing farce. He was charmingly natural in
+his acting; but he was accused of being theatrical when off the stage. In
+the words of Goldsmith:
+
+    On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;
+    'Twas only that when he was off, he was acting.
+
+Garrick married a dancer, who made him an excellent wife. By his own
+exertions he won a highly respectable social position, and an easy fortune
+of £140,000, upon which he retired from the stage. He died in London in
+1779.
+
+In 1831-2 his _Private Correspondence with the Most Celebrated Persons of
+his Time_ was published, and opened a rich field to the social historian.
+Among his correspondents were Dr. Johnson, Boswell, Goldsmith, Gibber,
+Sheridan, Burke, Wilkes, Junius, and Dr. Franklin. Thus Garrick catered
+largely to the history of his period, as an actor and dramatic author,
+illustrating the stage; as a reviver of Shakspeare, and as a correspondent
+of history.
+
+
+SAMUEL FOOTE.--Among the many English actors who have been distinguished
+for great powers of versatility in voice, feature, and manner, there is
+none superior to Foote. Bold and self-reliant, he was a comedian in
+every-day life; and his ready wit and humor subdued Dr. Johnson, who had
+determined to dislike him. He was born in 1722, at Truro, and educated at
+Oxford: he studied law, but his peculiar aptitudes soon led him to the
+stage, where he became famous as a comic actor. Among his original pieces
+are _The Patron_, _The Devil on Two Stilts_, _The Diversions of the
+Morning_, _Lindamira_, and _The Slanderer_. But his best play, which is a
+popular burlesque on parliamentary elections, is _The Mayor of Garrat_. He
+died in 1777, at Dover, while on his way to France for the benefit of his
+health. His plays present the comic phase of English history in his day.
+
+
+RICHARD CUMBERLAND.--This accomplished man, who, in the words of Walter
+Scott, has given us "many powerful sketches of the age which has passed
+away," was born in 1732, and lived to the ripe age of seventy-nine, dying
+in 1811. After receiving his education at Cambridge, he became secretary
+to Lord Halifax. His versatile pen produced, besides dramatic pieces,
+novels and theological treatises, illustrating the principal topics of the
+time. In his plays there is less of immorality than in those of his
+contemporaries. _The West Indian_, which was first put upon the stage in
+1771, and which is still occasionally presented, is chiefly noticeable in
+that an Irishman and a West Indian are the principal characters, and that
+he has not brought them into ridicule, as was common at the time, but has
+exalted them by their merits. The best of his other plays are _The Jew,
+The Wheel of Fortune_, and _The Fashionable Lover_. Goldsmith, in his poem
+_Retaliation_, says of Cumberland, referring to his greater morality and
+his human sympathy,
+
+    Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts,
+    The Terence of England, the mender of hearts;
+    A flattering painter, who made it his care
+    To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
+
+
+RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.--No man represents the Regency so completely as
+Sheridan. He was a statesman, a legislator, an orator, and a dramatist;
+and in social life a wit, a gamester, a spendthrift, and a debauchee. His
+manifold nature seemed to be always in violent ebullition. He was born in
+September, 1751, and was the son of Thomas Sheridan, the actor and
+lexicographer, His mother, Frances Sheridan, was also a writer of plays
+and novels. Educated at Harrow, he was there considered a dunce; and when
+he grew to manhood, he plunged into dissipation, and soon made a stir in
+the London world by making a runaway match with Miss Linley, a singer, who
+was noted as one of the handsomest women of the day. A duel with one of
+her former admirers was the result.
+
+As a dramatist, he began by presenting _A Trip to Scarborough_, which was
+altered from Vanbrugh's _Relapse_; but his fame was at once assured by his
+production, in 1775, of _The Duenna_ and _The Rivals_. The former is
+called an opera, but is really a comedy containing many songs: the plot is
+varied and entertaining; but it is far inferior to _The Rivals_, which is
+based upon his own adventures, and is brimming with wit and humor. Mrs.
+Malaprop, Bob Acres, Sir Lucius O'Trigger, and the Absolutes, father and
+son, have been prime favorites upon the stage ever since.
+
+In 1777 he produced _The School for Scandal_, a caustic satire on London
+society, which has no superior in genteel comedy. It has been said that
+the characters of Charles and Joseph Surface were suggested by the Tom
+Jones and Blifil of Fielding; but, if this be true, the handling is so
+original and natural, that they are in no sense a plagiarism. Without the
+rippling brilliancy of _The Rivals, The School for Scandal_ is better
+sustained in scene and colloquy; and in spite of some indelicacy, which is
+due to the age, the moral lesson is far more valuable. The satire is
+strong and instructive, and marks the great advance in social decorum over
+the former age.
+
+In 1779 appeared _The Critic_, a literary satire, in which the chief
+character is that of Sir Fretful Plagiary.
+
+Sheridan sat in parliament as member for Stafford. His first effort in
+oratory was a failure; but by study he became one of the most effective
+popular orators of his day. His speeches lose by reading: he abounded in
+gaudy figures, and is not without bombast; but his wonderful flow of words
+and his impassioned action dazzled his audience and kept it spellbound.
+His oratory, whatever its faults, gained also the unstinted praise of his
+colleagues and rivals in the art. Of his great speech in the trial of
+Warren Hastings, in 1788, Fox declared that "all he had ever heard, all he
+had ever read, when compared with it, dwindled into nothing, and vanished
+like vapor before the sun." Burke called it "the most astonishing effort
+of eloquence, argument, and wit united, of which there was any record or
+tradition;" and Pitt said "that it surpassed all the eloquence of ancient
+or modern times."
+
+Sheridan was for some time the friend and comrade of the Prince Regent, in
+wild courses which were to the taste of both; but this friendship was
+dissolved, and the famous dramatist and orator sank gradually in the
+social scale, until he had sounded the depths of human misery. He was
+deeply in debt; he obtained money under mean and false pretences; he was
+drunken and debauched; and even death did not bring rest. He died in July,
+1816. His corpse was arrested for debt, and could not be buried until the
+debt was paid. In his varied brilliancy and in his fatal debauchery, his
+character stands forth as the completest type of the period of the
+Regency. Many memoirs have been written, among which those of his friend
+Moore, and his granddaughter the Hon. Mrs. Norton, although they unduly
+palliate his faults, are the best.
+
+
+GEORGE COLMAN.--Among the respectable dramatists of this period who
+exerted an influence in leading the public taste away from the witty and
+artificial schools of the Restoration, the two Colmans deserve mention.
+George Colman, the elder, was born in Florence in 1733, but began his
+education at Westminster School, from which he was removed to Oxford.
+After receiving his degree he studied law; but soon abandoned graver study
+to court the comic muse. His first piece, _Polly Honeycomb_, was produced
+in 1760; but his reputation was established by _The Jealous Wife_,
+suggested by a scene in Fielding's _Tom Jones_. Besides many humorous
+miscellanies, most of which appeared in _The St. James' Chronicle_,--a
+magazine of which he was the proprietor,--he translated Terence, and
+produced more than thirty dramatic pieces, some of which are still
+presented upon the stage. The best of these is _The Clandestine Marriage_,
+which was the joint production of Garrick and himself. Of this play,
+Davies says "that no dramatic piece, since the days of Beaumont and
+Fletcher, had been written by two authors, in which wit, fancy, and humor
+were so happily blended." In 1768 he became one of the proprietors of the
+Covent Garden Theatre: in 1789 his mind became affected, and he remained a
+mental invalid until his death in 1794.
+
+
+GEORGE COLMAN. THE YOUNGER.--This writer was the son of George Colman, and
+was born in 1762. Like his father, he was educated at Westminster and
+Oxford; but he was removed from the university before receiving his
+degree, and was graduated at King's College, Aberdeen. He inherited an
+enthusiasm for the drama and considerable skill as a dramatic author. In
+1787 he produced _Inkle and Yarico_, founded upon the pathetic story of
+Addison, in _The Spectator_. In 1796 appeared _The Iron Chest_; this was
+followed, in 1797,. by _The Heir at Law_ and _John Bull_. To him the world
+is indebted for a large number of stock pieces which still appear at our
+theatres. In 1802 he published a volume entitled _Broad Grins_, which was
+an expansion of a previous volume of comic scraps. This is full of frolic
+and humor: among the verses in the style of Peter Pindar are the
+well-known sketches _The Newcastle Apothecary_, (who gave the direction
+with his medicine, "When taken, to be well shaken,") and _Lodgings for
+Single Gentlemen_.
+
+The author's fault is his tendency to farce, which robs his comedies of
+dignity. He assumed the cognomen _the younger_ because, he said, he did
+not wish his father's memory to suffer for his faults. He died in 1836.
+
+
+
+OTHER HUMORISTS AND DRAMATISTS OF THE PERIOD.
+
+
+_John Wolcot_, 1738-1819: his pseudonym was _Peter Pindar_. He was a
+satirist as well as a humorist, and was bold in lampooning the prominent
+men of his time, not even sparing the king. The world of literature knows
+him best by his humorous poetical sketches, _The Apple-Dumplings and the
+King, The Razor-Seller, The Pilgrims and the Peas_, and many others.
+
+
+_Hannah More_, 1745-1833: this lady had a flowing, agreeable style, but
+produced no great work. She wrote for her age and pleased it; but
+posterity disregards what she has written. Her principal plays are:
+_Percy_, presented in 1777, and a tragedy entitled _The Fatal Falsehood_.
+She was a poet and a novelist also; but in neither part did she rise above
+mediocrity. In 1782 appeared her volume of _Sacred Dramas_. Her best novel
+is entitled _Cælebs in Search of a Wife, comprehending Observations on
+Domestic Habits and Manners, Religion and Morals_. Her greatest merit is
+that she always inculcated pure morals and religion, and thus aided in
+improving the society of her age. Something of her fame is also due to the
+rare appearance, up to this time, of women in the fields of literature; so
+that her merits are indulgently exaggerated.
+
+
+_Joanna Baillie_, 1762-1851: this lady, the daughter of a Presbyterian
+divine, wrote graceful verses, but is principally known by her numerous
+plays. Among these, which include thirteen _Plays on the Passions_, and
+thirteen _Miscellaneous Plays_, those best known are _De Montfort_ and
+_Basil_--both tragedies, which have received high praise from Sir Walter
+Scott. Her _Ballads_ and _Metrical Legends_ are all spirited and
+excellent; and her _Hymns_ breathe the very spirit of devotion. Very
+popular during her life, and still highly estimated by literary critics,
+her works have given place to newer and more favorite authors, and have
+already lost interest with the great world of readers.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS.
+
+
+_Thomas Warton_, 1728-1790: he was Professor of Poetry and of Ancient
+History at Oxford, and, for the last five years of his life,
+poet-laureate. The student of English Literature is greatly indebted to
+him for his _History of English Poetry_, which he brings down to the early
+part of the seventeenth century. No one before him had attempted such a
+task; and, although his work is rather a rare mass of valuable materials
+than a well articulated history, it is of great value for its collected
+facts, and for its suggestions as to where the scholar may pursue his
+studies farther.
+
+
+_Joseph Warton_, 1722-1800: a brother of Thomas Warton; he published
+translations and essays and poems. Among the translations was that of the
+_Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil_, which is valued for its exactness and
+perspicuity.
+
+
+_Frances Burney_, (Madame D'Arblay,) 1752-1840: the daughter of Dr.
+Burney, a musical composer. While yet a young girl, she astonished herself
+and the world by her novel of _Evelina_, which at once took rank among the
+standard fictions of the day. It is in the style of Richardson, but more
+truthful in the delineation of existing manners, and in the expression of
+sentiment. She afterwards published _Cecilia_ and several other tales,
+which, although excellent, were not as good as the first. She led an
+almost menial life, as one of the ladies in waiting upon Queen Charlotte;
+but the genuine fame achieved by her writings in some degree relieved the
+sense of thraldom, from which she happily escaped with a pension. The
+novels of Madame D'Arblay are the intermediate step between the novels of
+Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett, and the Waverly novels of Walter
+Scott. They are entirely free from any taint of immorality; and they were
+among the first feminine efforts that were received with enthusiasm: thus
+it is that, without being of the first order of merit, they mark a
+distinct era in English letters.
+
+
+_Edmund Burke_, 1730-1797: he was born in Dublin, and educated at Trinity
+College. He studied law, but soon found his proper sphere in public life.
+He had brilliant literary gifts; but his fame is more that of a statesman
+and an orator, than an author. Prominent in parliament, he took noble
+ground in favor of American liberty in our contest with the mother
+country, and uttered speeches which have remained as models of forensic
+eloquence. His greatest oratorical efforts were his famous speeches as one
+of the committee of impeachment in the case of Warren Hastings,
+Governor-General of India. Whatever may be thought of Hastings and his
+administration, the famous trial has given to English oratory some of its
+noblest specimens; and the people of England learned more of their empire
+in India from the learned, brilliant, and exhaustive speeches of Burke,
+than they could have learned in any other way. The greatest of his written
+works is: _Reflections on the Revolution in France_, written to warn
+England to avoid the causes of such colossal evil. In 1756 he had
+published his _Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and
+Beautiful_. This has been variously criticized; and, although written with
+vigor of thought and brilliancy of style, has now taken its place among
+the speculations of theory, and not as establishing permanent canons of
+æsthetical science. His work entitled _The Vindication of Natural Society,
+by a late noble writer_, is a successful attempt to overthrow the infidel
+system of Lord Bolingbroke, by applying it to civil society, and thus
+showing that it proved too much--"that if the abuses of or evils sometimes
+connected with religion invalidate its authority, then every institution,
+however beneficial, must be abandoned." Burke's style is peculiar, and, in
+another writer, would be considered pompous and pedantic; but it so
+expresses the grandeur and dignity of the man, that it escapes this
+criticism. His learning, his private worth, his high aims and
+incorruptible faith in public station, the dignity of his statesmanship,
+and the power of his oratory, constitute Mr. Burke as one of the noblest
+characters of any English period; and, although his literary reputation is
+not equal to his political fame, his accomplishments in the field of
+letters are worthy of admiration and honorable mention.
+
+
+_Hugh Blair_, 1718-1800: a Presbyterian divine in Edinburgh, Dr. Blair
+deserves special mention for his lectures on _Rhetoric and
+Belles-Lettres_, which for a long time constituted the principal text-book
+on those subjects in our schools and colleges. A better understanding of
+the true scope of rhetoric as a science has caused this work to be
+superseded by later text-books. Blair's lectures treat principally of
+style and literary criticism, and are excellent for their analysis of some
+of the best authors, and for happy illustrations from their works. Blair
+wrote many eloquent sermons, which were published, and was one of the
+strong champions of Macpherson, in the controversy concerning the poems of
+Ossian. He occupied a high place as a literary critic during his life.
+
+
+_William Paley_, 1743-1805: a clergyman of the Established Church, he rose
+to the dignity of Archdeacon and Chancellor of Carlisle. At first
+thoughtless and idle, he was roused from his unprofitable life by the
+earnest warnings of a companion, and became a severe student and a
+vigorous writer on moral and religious subjects. Among his numerous
+writings, those principally valuable are: _Horæ Paulinæ_, and _A View of
+the Evidences of Christianity_--the former setting forth the life and
+character of St. Paul, and the latter being a clear exposition of the
+truth of Christianity, which has long served as a manual of academic
+instruction. His treatise on _Natural Theology_ is, in the words of Sir
+James Mackintosh, "the wonderful work of a man who, after sixty, had
+studied anatomy in order to write it." Later investigations of science
+have discarded some of his _facts_; but the handling of the subject and
+the array of arguments are the work of a skilful and powerful hand. He
+wrote, besides, a work on _Moral and Political Philosophy_, and numerous
+sermons. His theory of morals is, that whatever is expedient is right; and
+thus he bases our sense of duty upon the ground of the production of the
+greatest amount of happiness. This low view has been successfully refuted
+by later writers on moral science.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY: SCOTT.
+
+
+   Walter Scott. Translations and Minstrelsy. The Lay of the Last
+   Minstrel. Other Poems. The Waverly Novels. Particular Mention.
+   Pecuniary Troubles. His Manly Purpose. Powers Overtasked. Fruitless
+   Journey. Return and Death. His Fame.
+
+
+
+The transition school, as we have seen, in returning to nature, had
+redeemed the pastoral, and had cultivated sentiment at the expense of the
+epic. As a slight reaction, and yet a progress, and as influenced by the
+tales of modern fiction, and also as subsidizing the antiquarian lore and
+taste of the age, there arose a school of poetry which is best represented
+by its _Tales in verse_;--some treating subjects of the olden time, some
+laying their scenes in distant countries, and some describing home
+incidents of the simplest kind. They were all minor epics: such were the
+poetic stories of Scott, the _Lalla Rookh_ of Moore, _The Bride_ and _The
+Giaour_ of Byron, and _The Village_ and _The Borough_ of Crabbe; all of
+which mark the taste and the demand of the period.
+
+
+WALTER SCOTT.--First in order of the new romantic poets was Scott, alike
+renowned for his _Lays_ and for his wonderful prose fictions; at once the
+most equable and the most prolific of English authors.
+
+Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, on the 15th of August, 1771. His
+father was a writer to the signet; his mother was Anne Rutherford, the
+daughter of a medical professor in the University of Edinburgh. His
+father's family belonged to the clan Buccleugh. Lame from his early
+childhood, and thus debarred the more active pleasures of children, his
+imagination was unusually vigorous; and he took special pleasure in the
+many stories, current at the time, of predatory warfare, border forays,
+bogles, warlocks, and second sight. He spent some of his early days in the
+country, and thus became robust and healthy; although his lameness
+remained throughout life. He was educated in Edinburgh, at the High School
+and the university; and, although not noted for excellence as a scholar,
+he exhibited precocity in verse, and delighted his companions by his
+readiness in reproducing old stories or improving new ones. After leaving
+the university he studied law, and ranged himself in politics as a
+Conservative or Tory.
+
+Although never an accurate classical scholar, he had a superficial
+knowledge of several languages, and was an industrious collector of old
+ballads and relics of the antiquities of his country. He was, however,
+better than a scholar;--he had genius, enthusiasm, and industry: he could
+create character, adapt incident, and, in picturesque description, he was
+without a rival.
+
+During the rumors of the invasion of Scotland by the French, which he has
+treated with such comical humor in _The Antiquary_, his lameness did not
+prevent his taking part with the volunteers, as quartermaster--a post
+given him to spare him the fatigue and rough service of the ranks. The
+French did not come; and Scott returned to his studies with a budget of
+incident for future use.
+
+
+TRANSLATIONS AND MINSTRELSY.--The study of the German language was then
+almost a new thing, even among educated people in England; and Scott made
+his first public essay in the form of translations from the German. Among
+these were versions of the _Erl König_ of Goethe, and the _Lenore_ and
+_The Wild Huntsman_ of Bürger, which appeared in 1796. In 1797 he rendered
+into English _Otho of Wittelsbach_ by Steinburg, and in 1799 Goethe's
+tragedy, _Götz von Berlichingen_. These were the trial efforts of his
+"'prentice hand," which predicted a coming master.
+
+On the 24th of December, 1797, he married Miss Carpenter, or Charpentier,
+a lady of French parentage, and retired to a cottage at Lasswade, where he
+began his studies, and cherished his literary aspirations in earnest and
+for life.
+
+In 1799 he was so fortunate as to receive the appointment of Sheriff of
+Selkirkshire, with a salary of £300 per annum. His duties were not
+onerous: he had ample time to scour the country, ostensibly in search of
+game, and really in seeking for the songs and traditions of Scotland,
+border ballads, and tales, and in storing his fancy with those picturesque
+views which he was afterwards to describe so well in verse and prose. In
+1802 he was thus enabled to present to the world his first considerable
+work, _The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, containing many new ballads
+which he had collected, with very valuable local and historical notes.
+This was followed, in 1804, by the metrical romance _of Sir Tristrem_, the
+original of which was by Thomas of Ercildoune, of the thirteenth century,
+known as _Thomas the Rhymer_: it was he who dreamed on Huntley bank that
+he met the Queen of Elfland,
+
+    And, till seven years were gone and past,
+    True Thomas on earth was never seen.
+
+The reputation acquired by these productions led the world to expect
+something distinctly original and brilliant from his pen; a hope which was
+at once realized.
+
+
+THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.--In 1805 appeared his first great poem, _The
+Lay of the Last Minstrel_, which immediately established his fame: it was
+a charming presentation of the olden time to the new. It originated in a
+request of the Countess of Dalkeith that he would write a ballad on the
+legend of Gilpin Horner. The picture of the last minstrel, "infirm and
+old," fired by remembrance as he begins to tell an old-time story of
+Scottish valor, is vividly drawn. The bard is supposed to be the last of
+his fraternity, and to have lived down to 1690. The tale, mixed of truth
+and fable, is exceedingly interesting. The octo-syllabic measure, with an
+occasional line of three feet, to break the monotony, is purely
+minstrelic, and reproduces the effect of the _troubadours and trouvères_.
+The wizard agency of Gilpin Horner's brood, and the miracle at the tomb of
+Michael Scott, are by no means out of keeping with the minstrel and the
+age of which he sings. The dramatic effects are good, and the descriptions
+very vivid. The poem was received with great enthusiasm, and rapidly
+passed through several editions. One element of its success is modestly
+and justly stated by the author in his introduction to a later edition:
+"The attempt to return to a more simple and natural style of poetry was
+likely to be welcomed at a time when the public had become tired of heroic
+hexameters, with all the buckram and binding that belong to them in modern
+days."
+
+With an annual income of £1000, and an honorable ambition, Scott worked
+his new literary mine with great vigor. He saw not only fame but wealth
+within his reach. He entered into a silent partnership with the publisher,
+James Ballantyne, which was for a long time lucrative, by reason of the
+unprecedented sums he received for his works. In 1806 he was appointed to
+the reversion--on the death of the incumbent--of the clerkship of the
+Court of Sessions, a place worth £1300 per annum.
+
+
+OTHER POEMS.--In 1808, before _The Lay_ had lost its freshness, _Marmion_
+appeared: it was kindred in subject and form, and was received with equal
+favor. _The Lady of the Lake_, the most popular of these poems, was
+published in 1810; and with it his poetical talent culminated. The later
+poems were not equal to any of those mentioned, although they were not
+without many beauties and individual excellences.
+
+_The Vision of Don Roderick_, which appeared in 1811, is founded upon the
+legend of a visit made by one of the Gothic kings of Spain to an enchanted
+cavern near Toledo. _Rokeby_ was published in 1812; _The Bridal of
+Triermain_ in 1813; _The Lord of the Isles_, founded upon incidents in the
+life of Bruce, in 1815; and _Harold the Dauntless_ in 1817. With the
+decline of his poetic power, manifest to himself, he retired from the
+field of poetry, but only to appear upon another and a grander field with
+astonishing brilliancy: it was the domain of the historical romance. Such,
+however, was the popular estimate of his poetry, that in 1813 the Prince
+Regent offered him the position of poet-laureate, which was gratefully and
+wisely declined.
+
+Just at this time the new poets came forth, in his own style, and actuated
+by his example and success. He recognized in Byron, Moore, Crabbe, and
+others, genius and talent; and, with his generous spirit, exaggerated
+their merits by depreciating his own, which he compared to cairngorms
+beside the real jewels of his competitors. The mystics, following the lead
+of the Lake poets, were ready to increase the depreciation. It soon became
+fashionable to speak of _The Lay_, and _Marmion_, and _The Lady of the
+Lake_ as spirited little stories, not equal to Byron's, and not to be
+mentioned beside the occult philosophy of _Thalaba_ and gentle egotism of
+_The Prelude_. That day is passed: even the critical world returns to its
+first fancies. In the words of Carlyle, a great balance-striker of
+literary fame, speaking in 1838: "It were late in the day to write
+criticisms on those metrical romances; at the same time, the great
+popularity they had seems natural enough. In the first place, there was
+the indisputable impress of worth, of genuine human force in them ...
+Pictures were actually painted and presented; human emotions conceived and
+sympathized with. Considering that wretched Dellacruscan and other
+vamping up of wornout tattlers was the staple article then, it may be
+granted that Scott's excellence was superior and supreme." Without
+preferring any claim to epic grandeur, or to a rank among the few great
+poets of the first class, Scott is entitled to the highest eminence in
+minstrelic power. He is the great modern troubadour. His descriptions of
+nature are simple and exquisite. There is nothing in this respect more
+beautiful than the opening of _The Lady of the Lake_. His battle-pieces
+live and resound again: what can be finer than Flodden field in _Marmion_,
+and The Battle of Beal and Duine in _The Lady of the Lake_?
+
+His love scenes are at once chaste, impassioned, and tender; and his harp
+songs and battle lyrics are unrivalled in harmony. And, besides these
+merits, he gives us everywhere glimpses of history, which, before his day,
+were covered by the clouds of ignorance, and which his breath was to sweep
+away.
+
+Such are his claims as the first of the new romantic poets. We might here
+leave him, to consider his prose works in another connection; but it seems
+juster to his fame to continue and complete a sketch of his life, because
+all its parts are of connected interest. The poems were a grand proem to
+the novels.
+
+While he was achieving fame by his poetry, and reaping golden rewards as
+well as golden opinions, he was also ambitious to establish a family name
+and estate. To this end, he bought a hundred acres of land on the banks of
+the Tweed, near Melrose Abbey, and added to these from time to time by the
+purchase of adjoining properties. Here he built a great mansion, which
+became famous as Abbotsford: he called it one of his air-castles reduced
+to solid stone and mortar. Here he played the part of a feudal proprietor,
+and did the honors for Scotland to distinguished men from all quarters:
+his hospitality was generous and unbounded.
+
+
+THE WAVERLEY NOVELS.--As early as 1805, while producing his beautiful
+poems, he had tried his hand upon a story in prose, based upon the
+stirring events in 1745, resulting in the fatal battle of Culloden, which
+gave a death-blow to the cause of the Stuarts, and to their attempts to
+regain the crown. Dissatisfied with the effort, and considering it at that
+time less promising than poetry, he had thrown the manuscript aside in a
+desk with some old fishing-tackle. There it remained undisturbed for eight
+years. With the decline of his poetic powers, he returned to the former
+notion of writing historical fiction; and so, exhuming his manuscript, he
+modified and finished it, and presented it anonymously to the world in
+1814. He had at first proposed the title of _Waverley, or 'Tis Fifty Years
+Since_, which was afterwards altered to '_Tis Sixty Years Since_. This,
+the first of his splendid series of fictions, which has given a name to
+the whole series, is by no means the best; but it was good and novel
+enough to strike a chord in the popular heart at once. Its delineations of
+personal characters already known to history were masterly; its historical
+pictures were in a new and striking style of art. There were men yet
+living to whom he could appeal--men who had _been out_ in the '45, who had
+seen Charles Edward and many of the originals of the author's heroes and
+heroines. In his researches and wanderings, he had imbibed the very spirit
+of Scottish life and history; and the Waverley novels are among the most
+striking literary types and expounders of history.
+
+
+PARTICULAR MENTION.--In 1815, before half the reading world had delighted
+themselves with _Waverley_, his rapid pen had produced _Guy Mannering_, a
+story of English and Scottish life, superior to Waverley in its original
+descriptions and more general interest. He is said to have written it in
+six weeks at Christmas time. The scope of this volume will not permit a
+critical examination of the Waverley novels. The world knows them almost
+by heart. In _The Antiquary_, which appeared in 1816, we have a rare
+delineation of local manners, the creation of distinct characters, and a
+humorous description of the sudden arming of volunteers in fear of
+invasion by the French. _The Antiquary_ was a free portrait or sketch of
+Mr. George Constable, filled in perhaps unconsciously from the author's
+own life; for he, no less than his friend, delighted in collecting relics,
+and in studying out the lines, prætoria, and general castrametation of the
+Roman armies. Andrew Gemmels was the original of that Edie Ochiltree who
+was bold enough to dispute the antiquary's more learned assertions.
+
+In the same year, 1816, was published the first series of _The Tales of my
+Landlord_, containing _The Black Dwarf_ and _Old Mortality_, both valuable
+as contributions to Scottish history. The former is not of much literary
+merit; and the author was so little pleased with it, that he brought it to
+a hasty conclusion; the latter is an extremely animated sketch of the
+sufferings of the Covenanters at the hands of Grahame of Claverhouse, with
+a fairer picture of that redoubted commander than the Covenanters have
+drawn. _Rob Roy_, the best existing presentation of Highland life and
+manners, appeared in 1817. Thus Scott's prolific pen, like nature,
+produced annuals. In 1818 appeared _The Heart of Mid-Lothian_, that
+touching story of Jeanie and Effie Deans, which awakens the warmest
+sympathy of every reader, and teaches to successive generations a moral
+lesson of great significance and power.
+
+In 1819 he wrote _The Bride of Lammermoor_, the story of a domestic
+tragedy, which warns the world that outraged nature will sometimes assert
+herself in fury; a story so popular that it has been since arranged as an
+Italian opera. With that came _The Legend of Montrose_, another historic
+sketch of great power, and especially famous for the character of Major
+Dugald Dalgetty, soldier of fortune and pedant of Marischal College,
+Aberdeen. The year 1819 also beheld the appearance of _Ivanhoe_, which
+many consider the best of the series. It describes rural England during
+the regency of John, the romantic return of Richard Lion-heart, the
+glowing embers of Norman and Saxon strife, and the story of the Templars.
+His portraiture of the Jewess Rebecca is one of the finest in the Waverley
+Gallery.
+
+The next year, 1820, brought forth _The Monastery_, the least popular of
+the novels thus far produced; and, as Scott tells us, on the principle of
+sending a second arrow to find one that was lost, he wrote _The Abbot_, a
+sequel, to which we are indebted for a masterly portrait of Mary Stuart in
+her prison of Lochleven. The _Abbot_, to some extent, redeemed and
+sustained its weaker brother. In this same year Scott was created a
+baronet, in recognition of his great services to English Literature and
+history. The next five years added worthy companion-novels to the
+marvellous series. _Kenilworth_ is founded upon the visit of Queen
+Elizabeth to her favorite Leicester, in that picturesque palace in
+Warwickshire, and contains that beautiful and touching picture of Amy
+Robsart. _The Pirate_ is a story the scene of which is laid in Shetland,
+and the material for which he gathered in a pleasure tour among those
+islands. In _The Fortunes of Nigel_, London life during the reign of James
+I. is described; and it contains life-like portraits of that monarch, of
+his unfortunate son, Prince Charles, and of Buckingham. _Peveril of the
+Peak_ is a story of the time of Charles II., which is not of equal merit
+with the other novels. _Quentin Durward_, one of the very best, describes
+the strife between Louis XI. of France and Charles the Bold of Burgundy,
+and gives full-length historic portraits of these princes. The scene of
+_St. Ronan's Well_ is among the English lakes in Cumberland, and the story
+describes the manners of the day at a retired watering-place. _Red
+Gauntlet_ is a curious narrative connected with one of the latest attempts
+of Charles Edward--abortive at the outset--to effect a rising in
+Scotland. In 1825 appeared his _Tales of the Crusaders_, comprising _The
+Betrothed_ and _The Talisman_, of which the latter is the more popular, as
+it describes with romantic power the deeds of Richard and his comrades in
+the second crusade.
+
+A glance at this almost tabular statement will show the scope and
+versatility of his mind, the historic range of his studies, the fertility
+of his fancy, and the rapidity of his pen. He had attained the height of
+fame and happiness; his success had partaken of the miraculous; but
+misfortune came to mar it all, for a time.
+
+
+PECUNIARY TROUBLES.--In the financial crash of 1825-6, he was largely
+involved. As a silent partner in the publishing house of the Ballantynes,
+and as connected with them in the affairs of Constable & Co., he found
+himself, by the failure of these houses, legally liable to the amount of
+£117,000. To relieve himself, he might have taken the benefit of the
+_bankrupt law_; or, such was his popularity, that his friends desired to
+raise a subscription to cover the amount of his indebtedness; but he was
+now to show by his conduct that, if the author was great, the man was
+greater. He refused all assistance, and even rejected general sympathy. He
+determined to relieve himself, to pay his debts, or die in the effort. He
+left Abbotsford, and took frugal lodgings in Edinburgh; curtailed all his
+expenses, and went to work--which was over-work--not for fame, but for
+guineas; and he gained both.
+
+His first novel after this, and the one which was to test the
+practicability of his plan, was _Woodstock_, a tale of the troublous times
+of the Civil War, in the last chapter of which he draws the picture of the
+restored Charles coming in peaceful procession to his throne. This he
+wrote in three months; and for it he received upwards of £8000. With this
+and the proceeds of his succeeding works, he was enabled to pay over to
+his creditors the large sum of £70,000; a feat unparalleled in the history
+of literature. But the anxiety and the labor were too much even for his
+powerful constitution: he died in his heroic attempt.
+
+
+HIS MANLY PURPOSE.--More for money than for reputation, he compiled
+hastily, and from partial and incomplete material, a _Life of Napoleon
+Bonaparte_, which appeared in 1827. The style is charming and the work
+eminently readable; but it contains many faults, is by no means
+unprejudiced, and, as far as pure truth is concerned, is, in parts, almost
+as much of a romance as any of the Waverley novels; but, for the first two
+editions, he received the enormous sum of £18,000. The work was
+accomplished in the space of one year. Among the other _task-work_ books
+were the two series of _The Chronicles of the Canongate_ (1827 and 1828),
+the latter of which contains the beautiful story of _St. Valentine's Day_,
+or _The Fair Maid of Perth_. It is written in his finest vein, especially
+in those chapters which describe the famous Battle of the Clans. In 1829
+appeared _Anne of Geierstein_, another story presenting the figure of
+Charles of Burgundy, and his defeat and death in the battle with the Swiss
+at Nancy.
+
+
+POWERS OVERTASKED.--And now new misfortunes were to come upon him. In 1826
+he had lost his wife: his sorrows weighed upon him, and his superhuman
+exertions were too much for his strength. In 1829 he was seized with a
+nervous attack, accompanied by hemorrhages of a peculiar kind. In
+February, 1830, a slight paralysis occurred, from which he speedily
+recovered; this was soon succeeded by another; and it was manifest that
+his mind was giving way. His last novel, _Count Robert of Paris_, was
+begun in 1830, as one of a fourth series of _The Tales of My Landlord_: it
+bears manifest marks of his failing powers, but is of value for the
+historic stores which it draws from the Byzantine historians, and
+especially from the unique work of Anna Comnena: "I almost wish," he said,
+"I had named it Anna Comnena." A slight attack of apoplexy in November,
+1830, was followed by a severer one in the spring of 1831. Even then he
+tried to write, and was able to produce _Castle Dangerous_. With that the
+powerful pen ended its marvellous work. The manly spirit still chafed that
+his debts were not paid, and could not be, by the labor of his hands.
+
+
+FRUITLESS JOURNEY.--In order to divert his mind, and, as a last chance for
+health, a trip to the Mediterranean was projected. The Barham frigate was
+placed by the government at his disposal; and he wandered with a party of
+friends to Malta, Naples, Pompeii, Paestum, and Rome. But feeling the end
+approaching, he exclaimed, "Let us to Abbotsford:" for the final hour he
+craved the _grata quies patriæ_; to which an admiring world has added the
+remainder of the verse--_sed et omnis terra sepulchrum_. It was not a
+moment too soon: he travelled northward to the Rhine, down that river by
+boat, and reached London "totally exhausted;" thence, as soon as he could
+be moved, he was taken to Abbotsford.
+
+
+RETURN AND DEATH.--There he lingered from July to September, and died
+peacefully on the 21st of the latter month, surrounded by his family and
+lulled to repose by the rippling of the Tweed. Among the noted dead of
+1832, including Goethe, Cuvier, Crabbe, and Mackintosh, he was the most
+distinguished; and all Scotland and all the civilized world mourned his
+loss.
+
+
+HIS FAME.--At Edinburgh a colossal monument has been erected to his
+memory, within which sits his marble figure. Numerous other memorial
+columns are found in other cities, but all Scotland is his true monument,
+every province and town of which he has touched with his magic pen.
+Indeed, Scotland may be said to owe to him a new existence. In the words
+of Lord Meadowbank,--who presided at the Theatrical Fund dinner in 1827,
+and who there made the first public announcement of the authorship of the
+Waverley novels,--Scott was "the mighty magician who rolled back the
+current of time, and conjured up before our living senses the men and
+manners of days which have long since passed away ... It is he who has
+conferred a new reputation on our national character, and bestowed on
+Scotland an imperishable name."
+
+Besides his poetry and novels, he wrote very much of a miscellaneous
+character for the reviews, and edited the works of the poets with valuable
+introductions and congenial biographies. Most of his fictions are
+historical in plot and personages; and those which deal with Scottish
+subjects are enriched by those types of character, those descriptions of
+manners--national and local--and those peculiarities of language, which
+give them additional and more useful historical value. It has been justly
+said that, by his masterly handling of historical subjects, he has taught
+the later historians how to write, how to give vivid and pictorial effects
+to what was before a detail of chronology or a dry schedule of philosophy.
+His critical powers may be doubted: he was too kind and genial for a
+critic; and in reading contemporary authors seems to have endued their
+inferior works with something of his own fancy.
+
+The _Life of Scott_, by his son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart, is one of the most
+complete and interesting biographies in the language. In it the student
+will find a list of all his works, with the dates of their production; and
+will wonder that an author who was so rapid and so prolific could write so
+much that was of the highest excellence. If not the greatest genius of his
+age, he was its greatest literary benefactor; and it is for this reason
+that we have given so much space to the record of his life and works.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY: BYRON AND MOORE.
+
+
+   Early Life of Byron. Childe Harold and Eastern Tales. Unhappy Marriage.
+   Philhellenism and Death. Estimate of his Poetry. Thomas Moore.
+   Anacreon. Later Fortunes. Lalla Rookh. His Diary. His Rank as Poet.
+
+
+
+In immediate succession after Scott comes the name of Byron. They were
+both great lights of their age; but the former may be compared to a planet
+revolving in regulated and beneficent beauty through an unclouded sky;
+while the latter is more like a comet whose lurid light came flashing upon
+the sight in wild and threatening career.
+
+Like Scott, Byron was a prolific poet; and he owes to Scott the general
+suggestion and much of the success of his tales in verse. His powers of
+description were original and great: he adopted the new romantic tone,
+while in his more studied works he was an imitator and a champion of a
+former age, and a contemner of his own.
+
+
+EARLY LIFE OF BYRON.--The Honorable George Gordon Byron, afterwards Lord
+Byron, was born in London on the 22d of January, 1788. While he was yet an
+infant, his father--Captain Byron--a dissipated man, deserted his mother;
+and she went with her child to live upon a slender pittance at Aberdeen.
+She was a woman of peculiar disposition, and was unfortunate in the
+training of her son. She alternately petted and quarrelled with him, and
+taught him to emulate her irregularities of temper. On account of an
+accident at his birth, he had a malformation in one of his feet, which,
+producing a slight limp in his gait through life, rendered his sensitive
+nature quite unhappy, the signs of which are to be discerned in his drama,
+_The Deformed Transformed_. From the age of five years he went to school
+at Aberdeen, and very early began to exhibit traits of generosity,
+manliness, and an imperious nature: he also displayed great quickness in
+those studies which pleased his fancy.
+
+In 1798, when he was eleven years old, his grand-uncle, William, the fifth
+Lord Byron, died, and was succeeded in the title and estates by the young
+Gordon Byron, who was at once removed with his mother to Newstead Abbey.
+In 1801 he was sent to Harrow, where he was well esteemed by his comrades,
+but was not considered forward in his studies.
+
+He seems to have been of a susceptible nature, for, while still a boy, he
+fell in love several times. His third experience in this way was
+undoubtedly the strongest of his whole life. The lady was Miss Mary
+Chaworth, who did not return his affection. His last interview with her he
+has powerfully described in his poem called _The Dream_. From Harrow he
+went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he lived an idle and
+self-indulgent life, reading discursively, but not studying the prescribed
+course. As early as November, 1806, before he was nineteen, he published
+his first volume, _Poems on Various Occasions_, for private distribution,
+which was soon after enlarged and altered, and presented to the public as
+_Hours of Idleness, a Series of Poems Original and Translated, by George
+Gordon, Lord Byron, A Minor_. These productions, although by no means
+equal to his later poems, are not without merit, and did not deserve the
+exceedingly severe criticism they met with from the _Edinburgh Review_.
+The critics soon found that they had bearded a young lion: in his rage, he
+sprang out upon the whole literary craft in a satire, imitated from
+Juvenal, called _The English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, in which he
+ridicules and denounces the very best poets of the day furiously but most
+uncritically. That his conduct was absurd and unjust, he himself allowed
+afterwards; and he attempted to call in and destroy all the copies of this
+work.
+
+
+CHILDE HAROLD AND EASTERN TALES.--In March, 1809, he took his seat in the
+House of Lords, where he did not accomplish much. He took up his residence
+at Newstead Abbey, his ancestral seat, most of which was in a ruinous
+condition; and after a somewhat disorderly life there, he set out on his
+continental tour, spending some time at Lisbon, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Malta,
+and in Greece. On his return, after two years' absence, he brought a
+summary of his travels in poetical form,--the first part of _Childe
+Harold_; and also a more elaborated poem entitled _Hints from Horace_.
+Upon the former he set little value; but he thought the latter a noble
+work. The world at once reversed his decision. The satire in the Latin
+vein is scarcely read; while to the first cantos of _Childe Harold_ it was
+due that, in his own words, "he woke up one morning and found himself
+famous." As fruits of the eastern portion of his travels, we have the
+romantic tale, _The Giaour_, published in 1811, and _The Bride of Abydos_,
+which appeared in 1813. The popularity of these oriental stories was
+mainly due to their having been conceived on the spots they describe. In
+1814 he issued _The Corsair_, perhaps the best of these sensational
+stories; and with singular versatility, in the same year, inspired by the
+beauty of the Jewish history, he produced _The Hebrew Melodies_, some of
+which are fervent, touching, and melodious. Late in the same year _Lara_
+was published, in the same volume with Mr. Rogers's _Jacqueline_, which it
+threw completely into the shade. Thus closed one distinct period of his
+life and of his authorship. A change came over the spirit of his dream.
+
+
+UNHAPPY MARRIAGE.--In 1815, urged by his friends, and thinking it due to
+his position, he married Miss Milbanke; but the union was without
+affection on either side, and both were unhappy. One child, a daughter,
+was born to them; and a year had hardly passed when they were separated,
+by mutual consent and for reasons never truly divulged; and which, in
+spite of modern investigations, must remain mysterious. He was licentious,
+extravagant, of a violent temper: his wife was of severe morals, cold, and
+unsympathetic. We need not advance farther into the horrors recently
+suggested to the world. The blame has rested on Byron; and, at the time,
+the popular feeling was so strong, that it may be said to have driven him
+from England. It awoke in him a dark misanthropy which returned English
+scorn with an unnatural hatred. He sojourned at various places on the
+continent. At Geneva he wrote a third canto of _Childe Harold_, and the
+touching story of Bonnivard, entitled _The Prisoner of Chillon_, and other
+short poems.
+
+In 1817 he was at Venice, where he formed a connection with the Countess
+Guiccioli, to the disgrace of both. In Venice he wrote a fourth canto of
+_Childe Harold_, the story of _Mazeppa_, the first two cantos of _Don
+Juan_, and two dramas, _Marino Faliero_ and _The Two Foscari_.
+
+For two years he lived at Ravenna, where he wrote some of his other
+dramas, and several cantos of _Don Juan_. In 1821 he removed to Pisa;
+thence, after a short stay, to Genoa, still writing dramas and working at
+_Don Juan_.
+
+
+PHILHELLENISM: HIS DEATH.--The end of his misanthropy and his debaucheries
+was near; but his story was to have a ray of sunset glory--his death was
+to be connected with a noble effort and an exhibition of philanthropic
+spirit which seem in some degree to palliate his faults. Unlike some
+writers who find in his conduct only a selfish whim, we think that it
+casts a beautiful radiance upon the early evening of a stormy life. The
+Greeks were struggling for independence from Turkish tyranny: Byron threw
+himself heart and soul into the movement, received a commission from the
+Greek government, recruited a band of Suliotes, and set forth gallantly to
+do or die in the cause of Grecian freedom: he died, but not in battle. He
+caught a fever of a virulent type, from his exposure, and after very few
+days expired, on the 19th of April, 1824, amid the mourning of the nation.
+Of this event, Macaulay--no mean or uncertain critic--could say, in his
+epigrammatical style: "Two men have died within our recollection, who, at
+a time of life at which few people have completed their education, had
+raised themselves, each in his own department, to the height of glory. One
+of them died at Longwood; the other at Missolonghi."
+
+
+ESTIMATE OF HIS POETRY.--In giving a brief estimate of his character and
+of his works, we may begin by saying that he represents, in clear
+lineaments, the nobleman, the traveller, the poet, and the debauchee, of
+the beginning of the nineteenth century. In all his works he unconsciously
+depicts himself. He is in turn Childe Harold, Lara, the Corsair, and Don
+Juan. He affected to despise the world's opinion so completely that he has
+made himself appear worse than he really was--more profane, more
+intemperate, more licentious. It is equally true that this tendency, added
+to the fact that he was a handsome peer, had much to do with the immediate
+popularity of his poems. There was also a paradoxical vanity, which does
+not seem easily reconcilable with his misanthropy, that thus led him to
+reproduce himself in a new dress in his dramas and tales. He paraded
+himself as if, after all, he did value the world's opinion.
+
+That he was one of the new romantic poets, with, however, a considerable
+tincture of the transition school, may be readily discerned in his works:
+his earlier poems are full of the conceits of the artificial age. His
+_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_ reminds one of the _MacFlecknoe_ of
+Dryden and _The Dunciad_ of Pope, without being as good as either. When
+he began that original and splendid portrait of himself, and transcript
+of his travels, _Childe Harold_, he imitated Spenser in form and in
+archaism. But he was possessed by the muse: the man wrote as the spirit
+within dictated, as the Pythian priestess is fabled to have uttered her
+oracles. _Childe Harold_ is a stream of intuitive, irrepressible poetry;
+not art, but overflowing nature: the sentiments good and bad came welling
+forth from his heart. His descriptive powers are great but peculiar.
+Travellers find in _Childe Harold_ lightning glimpses of European scenery,
+art, and nature, needing no illustrations, almost defying them. National
+conditions, manners, customs, and costumes, are photographed in his
+verses:--the rapid rush to Waterloo; a bull-fight in Spain; the women of
+Cadiz or Saragossa; the Lion of St. Mark; the eloquent statue of the Dying
+Gladiator; "Fair Greece, sad relic of departed worth;" the address to the
+ocean; touches of love and hate; pictures of sorrow, of torture, of death.
+Everywhere thought and glance are powerfully concentrated, and we find the
+poem to be journal, history, epic, and autobiography. His felicity of
+expression is so great, that, as we come upon the happy conceptions
+exquisitely rendered, we are inclined to say of each, as he has said of
+the Egeria of Muna:
+
+                         ... whatsoe'er thy birth,
+    Thou wert a beautiful thought and softly bodied forth.
+
+Of his dramas which are founded upon history, we cannot say so much; they
+are dramatic only in form: some of them are spectacular, like
+_Sardanapalus_, which is still presented upon the stage on account of its
+scenic effects. In _Manfred_ we have a rare insight into his nature, and
+_Cain_ is the vehicle for his peculiar, dark sentiments on the subject of
+religion.
+
+_Don Juan_ is illustrative not only of the poet, but of the age; there was
+a generation of such men and women. But quite apart from its moral, or
+rather immoral, character, the poem is one of the finest in our
+literature: it is full of wonderful descriptions, and exhibits a splendid
+mastery of language, rhythm, and rhyme: a glorious epic with an inglorious
+hero, and that hero Byron himself.
+
+As a man he was an enigma to the world, and doubtless to himself: he was
+bad, but he was bold. If he was vindictive, he was generous; if he was
+misanthropic and sceptical, it was partly because he despised shams: in
+all his actions, we see that implicit working out of his own nature, which
+not only conceals nothing, but even exaggerates his own faults. His
+antecedents were bad;--his father was a villain; his grand-uncle a
+murderer; his mother a woman of violent temper; and himself, with all this
+legacy, a man of powerful passions. If evil is in any degree to be
+palliated because it is hereditary, those who most condemn it in the
+abstract, may still look with compassionate leniency upon the career of
+Lord Byron.
+
+
+THOMAS MOORE.--Emphatically the creature of his age, Moore wrote
+sentimental songs in melodious language to the old airs of Ireland, and
+used them as an instrument to excite the Irish people in the struggle they
+were engaged in against English misgovernment. But his songs were true
+neither to tradition nor to nature; they placed before the ardent Celtic
+fancy an Irish glory and grandeur entirely different from the reality. Nor
+had he in any degree caught the bardic spirit. His lyre was attuned to
+reach the ear rather than the heart; his scenes are in enchanted lands;
+his _dramatis personæ_ tread theatrical boards; his thunder is a
+melo-dramatic roll; his lightning is pyrotechny; his tears are either
+hypocritical or maudlin; and his laughter is the perfection of genteel
+comedy.
+
+Thomas Moore was born in Dublin, on the 28th of May, 1779: he was a
+diminutive but precocious child, and was paraded by his father and mother,
+who were people in humble life, as a reciter of verse; and as an early
+rhymer also. His first poem was printed in a Dublin magazine, when he was
+fourteen years old. In 1794 he entered Trinity College, Dublin; and,
+although never considered a good scholar, he was graduated in 1798, when
+he was nineteen years old.
+
+
+ANACREON.--The first work which brought him into notice, and which
+manifests at once the precocity of his powers and the peculiarity of his
+taste, was his translation of the _Odes of Anacreon_. He had begun this
+work while at college, but it was finished and published in London,
+whither he had gone after leaving college, to enter the Middle Temple, in
+order to study law. With equal acuteness and adaptation to character, he
+dedicated the poems to the Prince of Wales, an anacreontic hero. As might
+be expected, with such a patron, the volume was a success. In 1801 he
+published another series of erotic poems, under the title _The Poetical
+Works of the late Thomas Little_. This gained for him, in Byron's line,
+the name of "the young Catullus of his day"; and, at the instance of Lord
+Moira, he was appointed poet-laureate, a post he filled only long enough
+to write one birthday ode. What seemed a better fortune came in the shape
+of an appointment as Registrar of the Admiralty Court of Bermuda. He went
+to the island; remained but a short time; and turned over the uncongenial
+duties of the post to a deputy, who subsequently became a defaulter, and
+involved Moore to a large amount. Returning from Bermuda, he travelled in
+the United States and Canada; not without some poetical record of his
+movements. In 1806 he published his _Epistles, Odes, and Other Poems_,
+which called down the righteous wrath of the Edinburgh Review: Jeffrey
+denounced the book as "a public nuisance," and "a corrupter of public
+morals." For this harsh judgment, Moore challenged him; but the duel was
+stopped by the police. This hostile meeting was turned to ridicule by
+Byron in the lines:
+
+    When Little's leadless pistols met his eye,
+    And Bow-street myrmidons stood laughing by.
+
+
+LATER FORTUNES.--Moore was now the favorite--the poet and the dependent of
+the nobility; and his versatile pen was principally employed to amuse and
+to please. He soon began that series of _Irish Melodies_ which he
+continued to augment with new pieces for nearly thirty years.
+
+Always of a theatrical turn, he acted well in private drama, in which the
+gentlemen were amateurs, and the female parts were personated by
+professional actresses. Thus playing in a cast with Miss Dyke, the
+daughter of an Irish actor, Moore fell in love with her, and married her
+on the 25th of March, 1811.
+
+With a foolish lack of judgment, he lost his hopes of preferment, by
+writing satires against the regent; but as a means of livelihood, he
+engaged to write songs for Powers, at a salary of £500 per annum, for
+seven years.
+
+
+LALLA ROOKH.--The most acceptable offering to fame, and the most
+successful pecuniary venture, was his _Lalla Rookh_. The East was becoming
+known to the English; and the fancy of the poet could convert the glimpses
+of oriental things into charming pictures. Long possessed with the purpose
+to write an Eastern story in verse, Moore set to work with laudable
+industry to read books of travels and history, in order to form a strong
+and sensible basis for his poetical superstructure. The work is a
+collection of beautiful poems, in a delicate setting of beautiful prose.
+The princess Lalla Rookh journeys, with great pomp, to become the bride of
+the youthful king of Bokkara, and finds among her attendants a handsome
+young poet, who beguiles the journey by singing to her these tales in
+verse. The dangers of the process became manifest--the king of Bokkara is
+forgotten, and the heart of the unfortunate princess is won by the beauty
+and the minstrelsy of the youthful poet. What is her relief and her joy to
+find on her arrival the unknown poet seated upon the throne as the king,
+who had won her heart as an humble bard!
+
+This beautiful and popular work was published in 1817; and for it Moore
+received from his publishers, the Longmans, £3000.
+
+In the same year Moore took a small cottage at Sloperton on the estate of
+the Marquis of Lansdowne, which, with some interruptions of travel, and a
+short residence in Paris, continued to be his residence during his life.
+Improvident in money matters, he was greatly troubled by his affairs in
+Bermuda;--the amount for which he became responsible by the defalcation of
+his deputy was £6000; which, however, by legal cleverness, was compromised
+for a thousand guineas.
+
+
+HIS DIARY.--It is very fortunate, for a proper understanding of Moore's
+life, that we have from this time a diary which is invaluable to the
+biographer. In 1820 he went to Paris, where he wasted his time and money
+in fashionable dissipation, and produced nothing of enduring value. Here
+he sketched an Egyptian story, versified in _Alciphron_, but enlarged in
+the prose romance called _The Epicurean_.
+
+On a short tour he visited Venice, where he received, as a gift from Lord
+Byron, his autobiographical memoirs, which contained so much that was
+compromising to others, that they were never published--at least in that
+form. They were withdrawn from the Murrays, in whose hands he had placed
+them, upon the death of Byron in 1824, and destroyed. A short visit to
+Ireland led to his writing the _Memoirs of Captain Rock_, a work which
+attained an unprecedented popularity in Ireland.
+
+In 1825 he published his _Life of Sheridan_, which is rather a friendly
+panegyric than a truthful biography.
+
+During three years--from 1827 to 1830--he was engaged upon the _Life of
+Byron_, which concealed more truth than it divulged. But in all these
+years, his chief dependence for daily bread was upon his songs and glees,
+squibs for newspapers and magazines, and review articles.
+
+In 1831 he made another successful hit in his _Life of Lord Edward
+Fitzgerald_, a rebel of '98, which was followed in 1833 by _The Travels of
+an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion_.
+
+In 1835, through the agency of Lord John Russel, the improvident poet
+received a pension of £300. It came in a time of need; for he was getting
+old, and his mind moved more sluggishly. His infirmities made him more
+domestic; but his greater trials were still before him. His sons were
+frivolous spendthrifts; one for whom he had secured a commission in the
+army behaved ill, and drew upon his impoverished father again and again
+for money: both died young. This cumulation of troubles broke him down; he
+had a cerebral attack in December, 1849, and lived helpless and broken
+until the 26th of February, 1852, when he expired without suffering.
+
+
+HIS POETRY.--In most cases, the concurrence of what an author has written
+will present to us the mental and moral features of the man. It is
+particularly true in the case of Moore. He appears to us in Protean
+shapes, indeed, but not without an affinity between them. Small in
+stature, of jovial appearance; devoted to the gayest society; not very
+earnest in politics; a Roman Catholic in name, with but little practical
+religion, he pandered at first to a frivolous public taste, and was even
+more corrupt than the public morals.
+
+Not so apparently as Pope an artificial poet, he had few touches of
+nature. Of lyric sentiment he has but little; but we must differ from
+those who deny to him rare lyrical expression, and happy musical
+adaptations. His songs one can hardly _read_; we feel that they must be
+sung. He has been accused, too violently, by Maginn of plagiarism: this,
+of course, means of phrases and ideas. In our estimate of Moore, it counts
+but little; his rare rhythm and exquisite cadences are not plagiarized;
+they are his own, and his chief merit.
+
+He abounds in imagery of oriental gorgeousness; and if, in personality,
+he may be compared to his own Peri, or one of "the beautiful blue damsel
+flies" of that poem, he has given to his unfriendly critics a judgment of
+his own style, in a criticism made by Fadladeen of the young poet's story
+to Lalla Rookh;--"it resembles one of those Maldivian boats--a slight,
+gilded thing, sent adrift without rudder or ballast, and with nothing but
+vapid sweets and faded flowers on board." "The effect of the whole," says
+one of his biographers, speaking of Lalla Rookh, "is much the same as that
+of a magnificent ballet, on which all the resources of the theatre have
+been lavished, and no expense spared in golden clouds, ethereal light,
+gauze-clad sylphs, and splendid tableaux."
+
+Moore has been felicitously called "the poet of all circles," a phrase
+which shows that he reflected the general features of his age. At no time
+could the license of _Anacreon_, or the poems of Little, have been so well
+received as when "the first gentleman in Europe" set the example of
+systematic impurity. At no time could _Irish Melodies_ have had such a
+_furore_ of adoption and applause, as when _Repeal_ was the cry, and the
+Irish were firing their minds by remembering "the glories of Brian the
+Brave;" that Brian Boroimhe who died in the eleventh century, after
+defeating the Danes in twenty-five battles.
+
+Moore's _Biographies_, with all their faults, are important social
+histories. _Lalla Rookh_ has a double historical significance: it is a
+reflection--like _Anastasius_ and _Vathek_, like _Thalaba_ and _The Curse
+of Kehama_, like _The Giaour_ and _The Bride of Abydos_--of English
+conquest, travel, and adventure in the East. It is so true to nature in
+oriental descriptions and allusions, that one traveller declared that to
+read it was like riding on a camel; but it is far more important to
+observe that the relative conditions of England and the Irish Roman
+Catholics are symbolized in the Moslem rule over the Ghebers, as
+delineated in _The Fire Worshippers_. In his preface to that poem, Moore
+himself says: "The cause of tolerance was again my inspiring theme; and
+the spirit that had spoken in the melodies of Ireland soon found itself at
+home in the East."
+
+In an historic view of English Literature, the works of Moore, touching
+almost every subject, must always be of great value to the student of his
+period: there he will always have his prominent place. But he is already
+losing his niche in public favor as a poet proper; better taste, purer
+morals, truer heart-songs, and more practical views will steadily supplant
+him, until, with no power to influence the present, he shall stand only as
+a charming relic of the past.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY (CONTINUED).
+
+
+   Robert Burns. His Poems. His Career. George Crabbe. Thomas Campbell.
+   Samuel Rogers. P. B. Shelley. John Keats. Other Writers.
+
+
+
+ROBERT BURNS.
+
+
+If Moore was, in the opinion of his age, an Irish prodigy, Burns is, for
+all time, a Scottish marvel. The one was polished and musical, but
+artificial and insidiously immoral; the other homely and simple, but
+powerful and effective to men of all classes in society. The one was the
+poet of the aristocracy; the other the genius whose sympathies were with
+the poor. One was most at home in the palaces of the great; and the other,
+in the rude Ayrshire cottage, or in the little sitting-room of the
+landlord in company with Souter John and Tam O'Shanter. As to most of his
+poems, Burns was really of no distinct school, but seems to stand alone,
+the creature of circumstance rather than of the age, in an unnatural and
+false position, compared by himself to the daisy he uprooted with his
+ploughshare:
+
+    Even thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate,
+    That fate is thine--no distant date;
+    Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate,
+                       Full on thy bloom,
+    Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight
+                       Shall be thy doom!
+
+His life was uneventful. He was the son of a very poor man who was
+gardener to a gentleman at Ayr. He was born in Alloway on the 25th of
+January, 1759. His early education was scanty; but he read with avidity
+the few books on which he could lay his hands, among which he particularly
+mentions, in his short autobiography, _The Spectator_, the poems of Pope,
+and the writings of Sterne and Thomson. But the work which he was to do
+needed not even that training: he drew his simple subjects from
+surrounding nature, and his ideas came from his heart rather than his
+head. Like Moore, he found the old tunes or airs of the country, and set
+them to new words--words full of sentiment and sense.
+
+
+HIS POEMS.--Most of his poems are quite short, and of the kind called
+fugitive, except that they will not fly away. _The Cotter's Saturday
+Night_ is for men of all creeds, a pastoral full of divine philosophy. His
+_Address to the Deil_ is a tender thought even for the Prince of Darkness,
+whom, says Carlyle, his kind nature could not hate with right orthodoxy.
+His poems on _The Louse, The Field-Mouse's Nest_, and _The Mountain
+Daisy_, are homely meditations and moral lessons, and contain counsels for
+all hearts. In _The Twa Dogs_ he contrasts, in fable, the relative
+happiness of rich and poor. In the beautiful song
+
+    Ye banks and braes of bonnie Doun,
+
+he expresses that hearty sympathy with nature which is one of the most
+attractive features of his character. His _Bruce's Address_ stirs the
+blood, and makes one start up into an attitude of martial advance. But his
+most famous poem--drama, comedy, epic, and pastoral--is _Tam o' Shanter_:
+it is a universal favorite; and few travellers leave Scotland without
+standing at the window of "Alloway's auld haunted kirk," walking over the
+road upon which Meg galloped, pausing over "the keystane of the brigg"
+where she lost her tail; and then returning, full of the spirit of the
+poem, to sit in Tam's chair, and drink ale out of the same silver-bound
+wooden bicker, in the very room of the inn where Tam and the poet used to
+get "unco fou," while praising "inspiring bold John Barley-corn." Indeed,
+in the words of the poor Scotch carpenter, met by Washington Irving at
+Kirk Alloway, "it seems as if the country had grown more beautiful since
+Burns had written his bonnie little songs about it."
+
+
+HIS CAREER.--The poet's career was sad. Gifted but poor, and doomed to
+hard work, he was given a place in the excise. He went to Edinburgh, and
+for a while was a great social lion; but he acquired a horrid thirst for
+drink, which shortened his life. He died in Dumfries, at the early age of
+thirty-seven. His allusions to his excesses are frequent, and many of them
+touching. In his praise of _Scotch Drink_ he sings _con amore_. In a
+letter to Mr. Ainslie, he epitomizes his failing: "Can you, amid the
+horrors of penitence, regret, headache, nausea, and all the rest of the
+hounds of hell that beset a poor wretch who has been guilty of the sin of
+drunkenness,--can you speak peace to a troubled soul."
+
+Burns was a great letter-writer, and thought he excelled in that art; but,
+valuable as his letters are, in presenting certain phases of his literary
+and personal character, they display none of the power of his poetry, and
+would not alone have raised him to eminence. They are in vigorous and
+somewhat pedantic English; while most of his poems are in that Lowland
+Scottish language or dialect which attracts by its homeliness and pleases
+by its _couleur locale_. It should be stated, in conclusion, that Burns is
+original in thought and presentation; and to this gift must be added a
+large share of humor, and an intense patriotism. Poverty was his grim
+horror. He declared that it killed his father, and was pursuing him to the
+grave. He rose above the drudgery of a farmer's toil, and he found no
+other work which would sustain him; and yet this needy poet stands to-day
+among the most distinguished Scotchmen who have contributed to English
+Literature.
+
+
+GEORGE CRABBE.--Also of the transition school; in form and diction
+adhering to the classicism of Pope, but, with Thomson, restoring the
+pastoral to nature, the poet of the humble poor;--in the words of Byron,
+"Pope in worsted stockings," Crabbe was the delight of his time; and Sir
+Walter Scott, returning to die at Abbotsford, paid him the following
+tribute: he asked that they would read him something amusing, "Read me a
+bit of Crabbe." As it was read, he exclaimed, "Capital--excellent--very
+good; Crabbe has lost nothing."
+
+George Crabbe was born on December 24th, 1754, at Aldborough, Suffolk. His
+father was a poor man; and Crabbe, with little early education, was
+apprenticed to a surgeon, and afterwards practised; but his aspirations
+were such that he went to London, with three pounds in his pocket, for a
+literary venture. He would have been in great straits, had it not been for
+the disinterested generosity of Burke, to whom, although an utter
+stranger, he applied for assistance. Burke aided him by introducing him to
+distinguished literary men; and his fortune was made. In 1781 he published
+_The Library_, which was well received. Crabbe then took orders, and was
+for a little time curate at Aldborough, his native place, while other
+preferment awaited him. In 1783 he appeared under still more favorable
+auspices, by publishing _The Village_, which had a decided success. Two
+livings were then given him; and he, much to his credit, married his early
+love, a young girl of Suffolk. In _The Village_ he describes homely scenes
+with great power, in pentameter verse. The poor are the heroes of his
+humble epic; and he knew them well, as having been of them. In 1807
+appeared _The Parish Register_, in 1810 _The Borough_, and in 1812 his
+_Tales in Verse_,--the precursor, in the former style, however, of
+Wordsworth's lyrical stories. All these were excellent and very popular,
+because they were real, and from his own experience. _The Tales of the
+Hall_, referring chiefly to the higher classes of society, are more
+artificial, and not so good. His pen was most at home in describing
+smugglers, gipsies, and humble villagers, and in delineating poverty and
+wretchedness; and thus opening to the rich and titled, doors through which
+they might exercise their philanthropy and munificence. In this way Crabbe
+was a reformer, and did great good; although his scenes are sometimes
+revolting, and his pathos too exacting. As a painter of nature, he is true
+and felicitous; especially in marine and coast views, where he is a
+pre-Raphaelite in his minuteness. Byron called him "Nature's sternest
+painter, but the best." He does not seem to write for effect, and he is
+without pretension; so that the critics were quite at fault; for what they
+mainly attack is not the poet's work so much as the consideration whether
+his works come up to his manifesto. Crabbe died in 1832, on the 3d of
+February, being one of the famous dead of that fatal year.
+
+Crabbe's poems mark his age. At an earlier time, when literature was for
+the fashionable few, his subjects would have been beneath interest; but
+the times had changed; education had been more diffused, and readers were
+multiplied. Goldsmith's _Deserted Village_ had struck a new chord, upon
+which Crabbe continued to play. Of his treatment of these subjects it must
+be said, that while he holds a powerful pen, and portrays truth vividly,
+he had an eye only for the sadder conditions of life, and gives pain
+rather than excites sympathy in the reader. Our meaning will be best
+illustrated by a comparison of _The Village_ of Crabbe with _The Deserted
+Village_ of Goldsmith, and the pleasure with which we pass from the
+squalid scenes of the former to the gentler sorrows and sympathies of the
+latter.
+
+
+THOMAS CAMPBELL.--More identified with his age than any other poet, and
+yet forming a link between the old and the new, was Campbell. Classical
+and correct in versification, and smothering nature with sonorous prosody,
+he still had the poetic fire, and an excellent power of poetic criticism.
+He was the son of a merchant, and was born at Glasgow on the 27th of July,
+1777. He thus grew up with the French revolution, and with the great
+progress of the English nation in the wars incident to it. He was
+carefully educated, and was six years at the University of Glasgow, where
+he received prizes for composition. He went later to Germany, after being
+graduated, to study Greek literature with Heyne. After some preliminary
+essays in verse, he published the _Pleasures of Hope_ in 1799, before he
+was twenty-two years old. It was one of the greatest successes of the age,
+and has always since been popular. His subject was one of universal
+interest; his verse was high-sounding; and his illustrations modern--such
+as the fall of Poland--_Finis Poloniæ_; and although there is some
+turgidity, and some want of unity, making the work a series of poems
+rather than a connected one, it was most remarkable for a youth of his
+age. It was perhaps unfortunate for his future fame; for it led the world
+to expect other and better things, which were not forthcoming. Travelling
+on the continent in the next year, 1800, he witnessed the battle of
+Hohenlinden from the monastery of St. Jacob, and wrote that splendid,
+ringing battle-piece, which has been so often recited and parodied. From
+that time he wrote nothing in poetry worthy of note, except songs and
+battle odes, with one exception. Among his battle-pieces which have never
+been equalled are _Ye Mariners of England_, _The Battle of the Baltic_,
+and _Lochiel's Warning_. His _Exile of Erin_ has been greatly admired, and
+was suspected at the time of being treasonable; the author, however, being
+entirely innocent of such an intention, as he clearly showed.
+
+Besides reviews and other miscellanies, Campbell wrote _The Annals of
+Great Britain, from the Accession of George III. to the Peace of Amiens_,
+which is a graceful but not valuable work. In 1805 he received a pension
+of £200 per annum.
+
+In 1809 he published his _Gertrude of Wyoming_--the exception referred
+to--a touching story, written with exquisite grace, but not true to the
+nature of the country or the Indian character. Like _Rasselas_, it is a
+conventional English tale with foreign names and localities; but as an
+English poem it has great merit; and it turned public attention to the
+beautiful Valley of Wyoming, and the noble river which flows through it.
+
+As a critic, Campbell had great acquirements and gifts. These were
+displayed in his elaborate _Specimens of the British Poets_, published in
+1819, and in his _Lectures on Poetry_ before the Surrey Institution in
+1820. In 1827 he was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow; but
+afterwards his literary efforts were by no means worthy of his reputation.
+Few have read his _Pilgrim of Glencoe_; and all who have, are pained by
+its manifestation of his failing powers. In fact, his was an unfinished
+fame--a brilliant beginning, but no continuance. Sir Walter Scott has
+touched it with a needle, when he says, "Campbell is in a manner a bugbear
+to himself; the brightness of his early success is a detriment to all his
+after efforts. He is afraid of the shadow which his own fame casts before
+him." Byron placed him in the second category of the greatest living
+English poets; but Byron was no critic.
+
+He also published a _Life of Petrarch_, and a _Life of Frederick the
+Great_; and, in 1830, he edited the _New Monthly Magazine_. He died at
+Boulogne, June 15th, 1844, after a long period of decay in mental power.
+
+
+SAMUEL ROGERS.--Rogers was a companion or consort to Campbell, although
+the two men were very different personally. As Campbell had borrowed from
+Akenside and written _The Pleasures of Hope_, Rogers enriched our
+literature with _The Pleasures of Memory_, a poem of exquisite
+versification, more finished and unified than its pendent picture;
+containing neither passion nor declamation, but polish, taste, and
+tenderness.
+
+Rogers was born in a suburb of London, in 1762. His father was a banker;
+and, although well educated, the poet was designed to succeed him, as he
+did, being until his death a partner in the same banking-house. Early
+enamored of poetry by reading Beattie's _Minstrel_, Rogers devoted all his
+spare time to its cultivation, and with great and merited success.
+
+In 1786 he produced his _Ode to Superstition_, after the manner of Gray,
+and in 1792 his _Pleasures of Memory_, which was enthusiastically
+received, and which is polished to the extreme. In 1812 appeared a
+fragment, _The Voyage of Columbus_, and in 1814 _Jacqueline_, in the same
+volume with Byron's _Lara_. _Human Life_ was published in 1819. It is a
+poem in the old style, (most of his poems are in the rhymed pentameter
+couplet;) but in 1822 appeared his poem of _Italy_, in blank verse, which
+has the charm of originality in presentation, freshness of personal
+experience, picturesqueness in description, novelty in incident and story,
+scholarship, and taste in art criticism. In short, it is not only the best
+of his poems, but it has great merit besides that of the poetry. The story
+of Ginevra is a masterpiece of cabinet art, and is universally
+appreciated. With these works Rogers contented himself. Rich and
+distinguished, his house became a place of resort to men of distinction
+and taste in art: it was filled with articles of _vertu_; and Rogers the
+poet lived long as Rogers the _virtuoso_. His breakfast parties were
+particularly noted. His long, prosperous, and happy life was ended on the
+18th December, 1855, at the age of ninety-two.
+
+The position of Rogers may be best illustrated in the words of Sir J.
+Mackintosh, in which he says: "He appeared at the commencement of this
+literary revolution, without paying court to the revolutionary tastes, or
+seeking distinction by resistance to them." His works are not destined to
+live freshly in the course of literature, but to the historical student
+they mark in a very pleasing manner the characteristics of his age.
+
+
+PERCY B. SHELLEY.--Revolutions never go backward; and one of the greatest
+characters in this forward movement was a gifted, irregular, splendid,
+unbalanced mind, who, while taking part in it, unconsciously, as one of
+many, stands out also in a very singular individuality.
+
+Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on the 4th of August, 1792, at Fieldplace,
+in Sussex, England. He was the eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley, and of
+an ancient family, traced back, it is said, to Sir Philip Sidney. When
+thirteen years old he was sent to Eton, where he began to display his
+revolutionary tendencies by his resistance to the fagging system; and
+where he also gave some earnest in writing of his future powers. At the
+age of sixteen he entered University College, Oxford, and appeared as a
+radical in most social, political, and religious questions. On account of
+a paper entitled _The Necessity of Atheism_, he was expelled from the
+university and went to London. In 1811 he made a runaway match with Miss
+Harriet Westbrook, the daughter of the keeper of a coffee-house, which
+brought down on him the wrath of his father. After the birth of two
+children, a separation followed; and he eloped with Miss Godwin in 1814.
+His wife committed suicide in 1816; and then the law took away from him
+the control of his children, on the ground that he was an atheist.
+
+After some time of residence in England, he returned to Italy, where soon
+after he met with a tragical end. Going in an open boat from Leghorn to
+Spezzia, he was lost in a storm on the Mediterranean: his body was washed
+on shore near the town of Via Reggio, where his remains were burned in
+the presence of Lord Byron, Leigh Hunt, and others. The ashes were
+afterwards buried in the Protestant cemetery at Rome in July, 1822.
+
+Shelley's principles were irrational and dangerous. He was a
+transcendentalist of the extreme order, and a believer in the
+perfectability of human nature. His works are full of his principles. The
+earliest was _Queen Mab_, in which his profanity and atheism are clearly
+set forth. It was first privately printed, and afterwards published in
+1821. This was followed by _Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude_, in 1816.
+In this he gives his own experience in the tragical career of the hero.
+His longest and most pretentious poem was _The Revolt of Islam_, published
+in 1819. It is in the Spenserian stanza. Also, in the same year, he
+published _The Cenci_, a tragedy, a dark and gloomy story on what should
+be a forbidden subject, but very powerfully written. In 1820 he also
+published _The Prometheus Unbound_, which is full of his irreligious
+views. His remaining works were smaller poems, among which may be noted
+_Adonais_, and the odes _To the Skylark_ and _The Cloud_.
+
+In considering his character, we must first observe the power of his
+imagination; it was so strong and all-absorbing, that it shut out the real
+and the true. He was a man of extreme sensibility; and that sensibility,
+hurt by common contact with things and persons around him, made him morbid
+in morality and metaphysics. He was a polemic of the fiercest type; and
+while he had an honest desire for reform of the evils that he saw about
+him, it is manifest that he attacked existing institutions for the very
+love of controversy. Bold, retired, and proud, without a spice of vanity,
+if he has received harsh judgment from one half the critical world, who
+had at least the claim that they were supporting pure morals and true
+religion, his character has been unduly exalted by the other half, who
+have mistaken reckless dogmatism for true nobility of soul. The most
+charitable judgment is that of Moir, who says: "It is needless to disguise
+the fact--and it accounts for all--his mind was diseased; he never knew,
+even from boyhood, what it was to breathe the atmosphere of healthy
+life--to have the _mens sana in corpore sano_."
+
+But of his poetical powers we must speak in a different manner. What he
+has left, gives token that, had he lived, he would have been one of the
+greatest modern poets. Thoroughly imbued with the Greek poetry, his
+verse-power was wonderful, his language stately and learned without
+pedantry, his inspiration was that of nature in her grandest moods, his
+fancy always exalted; and he presents the air of one who produces what is
+within him from an intense love of his art, without regard to the opinion
+of the world around him,--which, indeed, he seems to have despised more
+thoroughly than any other poet has ever done. Byron affected to despise
+it; Shelley really did.
+
+We cannot help thinking that, had he lived after passing through the fiery
+trial of youthful passions and disordered imagination, he might have
+astonished the world with the grand spectacle of a convert to the good and
+true, and an apostle in the cause of both. Of him an honest thinker has
+said,--and there is much truth in the apparent paradox,--"No man who was
+not a fanatic, had ever more natural piety than he; and his supposed
+atheism is a mere metaphysical crotchet in which he was kept by the
+affected scorn and malignity of dunces."[37]
+
+
+JOHN KEATS.--Another singular illustration of eccentricity and abnormal
+power in verse is found in the brief career of John Keats, the son of the
+keeper of a livery-stable in London, who was born on the 29th October,
+1795.
+
+Keats was a sensitive and pugnacious youth; and in 1810, after a very
+moderate education, he was apprenticed to a surgeon; but the love of
+poetry soon interfered with the surgery, and he began to read, not without
+the spirit of emulation, the works of the great poets--Chaucer, Spenser,
+Shakspeare, and Milton. After the issue of a small volume which attracted
+little or no attention, he published his _Endymion_ in 1818, which, with
+some similarity in temperament, he inscribed to the memory of Thomas
+Chatterton. It is founded upon the Greek mythology, and is written in a
+varied measure. Its opening line has been a familiar quotation since:
+
+    A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
+
+It was assailed by all the critics; but particularly, although not
+unfairly, by Jeffrey, in the _Edinburgh Review_. An article in
+_Blackwood_, breathing the spirit of British caste, had the bad taste to
+tell the young apothecary to go back to his galley-pots. The excessive
+sensibility of Keats received a great shock from this treatment; but we
+cannot help thinking that too much stress has been laid upon this in
+saying that he was killed by it. This was more romantic than true. He was
+by inheritance consumptive, and had lost a brother by that disease. Add to
+this that his peculiar passions and longings took the form of fierce
+hypochondria.
+
+With a decided originality, he was so impressible that there are in his
+writings traces of the authors whom he was reading, if he did not mean to
+make them models of style.
+
+In 1820 he published a volume containing _Lamia_, _Isabella_, and _The Eve
+of St. Agnes_, and _Hyperion_, a fragment, which was received with far
+greater favor by the reviewers. Keats was self-reliant, and seems to have
+had something of that magnificent egotism which is not infrequently
+displayed by great minds.
+
+The judicious verdict at last pronounced upon him may be thus epitomized:
+he was a poet with fine fancy, original ideas, felicity of expression, but
+full of faults due to his individuality and his youth; and his life was
+not spared to correct these. In 1820 a hemorrhage of brilliant arterial
+blood heralded the end. He himself said, "Bring me a candle; let me see
+this blood;" and when it was brought, added, "I cannot be deceived in that
+color; that drop is my death-warrant: I must die." By advice he went to
+Italy, where he grew rapidly worse, and died on the 23d of February, 1821,
+having left this for his epitaph: "Here lies one whose name was writ in
+water." Thus dying at the age of twenty-four, he must be judged less for
+what he was, than as an earnest of what he would have been. _The Eve of
+St. Agnes_ is one of the most exquisite poems in any language, and is as
+essentially allied to the simplicity and nature of the modern school of
+poetry as his _Endymion_ is to the older school. Keats took part in what a
+certain writer has called "the reaction against the barrel-organ style,
+which had been reigning by a kind of sleepy, divine right for half a
+century."
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE PERIOD.
+
+
+In consonance with the Romantic school of Poetry, and as contributors to
+the prose fiction of the period of Scott, Byron, and Moore, a number of
+gifted women have made good their claim to the favor of the reading world,
+and have left to us productions of no mean value. First among these we
+mention Mrs. FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS, 1794-1835: early married to Captain
+Hemans, of the army, she was not happy in the conjugal state, and lived
+most of her after-life in retirement, separated from her husband. Her
+style is harmonious, and her lyrical power excellent; she makes melody of
+common-places; and the low key in which her poetry is pitched made her a
+favorite with the multitude. There is special fervor in her religious
+poems. Most of her writings are fugitive and occasional pieces. Among the
+longer poems are _The Forest Sanctuary_, _Dartmoor_, (a lyric poem,) and
+_The Restoration of the works of Art to Italy_. _The Siege of Valencia_
+and _The Vespers of Palermo_ are plays on historical subjects. There is a
+sameness in her poetry which tires; but few persons can be found who do
+not value highly such a descriptive poem as _Bernardo del Carpio_,
+conceived in the very spirit of the Spanish Ballads, and such a sad and
+tender moralizing as that found in _The Hour of Death_:
+
+    Leaves have their time to fall,
+      And flowers to wither, at the north-wind's breath,
+    And stars to set--but all,
+      Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!
+
+Such poems as these will live when the greater part of what she has
+written has been forgotten, because its ministry has been accomplished.
+
+_Mrs. Caroline Elizabeth Norton_, (born in 1808, still living:) she is the
+daughter of Thomas Sheridan, and the grand-daughter of the famous R. B.
+Sheridan. She married the Hon. Mr. Norton, and, like Mrs. Hemans, was
+unhappy in her union. As a poet, she has masculine gifts combined with
+feminine grace and tenderness. Her principal poems are _The Sorrows of
+Rosalie_, _The Undying One_, (founded on the legend of _The Wandering
+Jew_,) and _The Dream_. Besides these her facile pen has produced a
+multitude of shorter pieces, which have been at once popular. Her claims
+to enduring fame are not great, and she must be content with a present
+popularity.
+
+_Letitia Elizabeth Landon_, 1802-1839: more gifted, and yet not as well
+trained as either of the preceding, Miss Landon (L. E. L.) has given vent
+to impassioned sentiment in poetry and prose. Besides many smaller pieces,
+she wrote _The Improvisatrice_, _The Troubadour_, _The Golden Violet_, and
+several prose romances, among which the best are _Romance and Reality_,
+and _Ethel Churchill_. She wrote too rapidly to finish with elegance; and
+her earlier pieces are disfigured by this want of finish, and by a lack of
+cool judgment; but her later writings are better matured and more correct.
+She married Captain Maclean, the governor of Cape Coast Castle, in Africa,
+and died there suddenly, from an overdose of strong medicine which she was
+accustomed to take for a nervous affection.
+
+_Maria Edgeworth_, 1767-1849: she was English born, but resided most of
+her life in Ireland. Without remarkable genius, she may be said to have
+exercised a greater influence over her period than any other woman who
+lived in it. There is an aptitude and a practical utility in her stories
+which are felt in all circles. Her works for children are delightful and
+formative. Every one has read and re-read with pleasure the interesting
+and instructive stories contained in _The Parents' Assistant_. And what
+these are to the children, her novels are to those of larger growth. They
+are eighteen in number, and are illustrative of the society, fashion, and
+morals of the day; and always inculcate a good moral. Among them we may
+particularize _Forester_, _The Absentee_, and _The Modern Griselda_. All
+critics, even those who deny her great genius, agree in their estimate of
+the moral value of her stories, every one of which is at once a
+portraiture of her age and an instructive lesson to it. The feminine
+delicacy with which she offers counsel and administers reproof gives a
+great charm to, and will insure the permanent popularity of, her
+productions.
+
+_Jane Austen_, 1775-1817: as a novelist she occupied a high place in her
+day, but her stories are gradually sinking into an historic repose, from
+which the coming generations will not care to disturb them. _Pride and
+Prejudice_ and _Sense and Sensibility_ are perhaps the best of her
+productions, and are valuable as displaying the society and the nature
+around her with delicacy and tact.
+
+_Mary Ferrier_, 1782-1855: like Miss Austen, she wrote novels of existing
+society, of which _The Marriage_ and _The Inheritance_ are the best known.
+They were great favorites with Sir Walter Scott, who esteemed Miss
+Ferrier's genius highly: they are little read at the present time.
+
+_Robert Pollok_, 1799-1827: a Scottish minister, who is chiefly known by
+his long poem, cast in a Miltonic mould, entitled _The Course of Time_. It
+is singularly significant of religious fervor, delicate health, youthful
+immaturity, and poetic yearnings. It abounds in startling effects, which
+please at first from their novelty, but will not bear a calm, critical
+analysis. On its first appearance, _The Course of Time_ was immensely
+popular; but it has steadily lost favor, and its highest flights are
+"unearthly flutterings" when compared with the powerful soarings of
+Milton's imagination and the gentle harmonies of Cowper's religious muse.
+Pollok died early of consumption: his youth and his disease account for
+the faults and defects of his poem.
+
+_Leigh Hunt_, 1784-1859: a novelist, a poet, an editor, a critic, a
+companion of literary men, Hunt occupies a distinct position among the
+authors of his day. Wielding a sensible and graceful rather than a
+powerful pen, he has touched almost every subject in the range of our
+literature, and has been the champion and biographer of numerous literary
+friends. He was the companion of Byron, Shelley, Keats, Lamb, Coleridge,
+and many other authors. He edited at various times several radical
+papers--_The Examiner_, _The Reflector_, _The Indicator_, and _The
+Liberal_; for a satire upon the regent, published in the first, he was
+imprisoned for two years. Among his poems _The Story of Rimini_ is the
+best. His _Legend of Florence_ is a beautiful drama. There are few pieces
+containing so small a number of lines, and yet enshrining a full story,
+which have been as popular as his _Abou Ben Adhem_. Always cheerful,
+refined and delicate in style, appreciative of others, Hunt's place in
+English literature is enviable, if not very exalted; like the atmosphere,
+his writings circulate healthfully and quietly around efforts of greater
+poets than himself.
+
+_James Hogg_, 1770-1835: a self-taught rustic, with little early
+schooling, except what the shepherd-boy could draw from nature, he wrote
+from his own head and heart without the canons and the graces of the
+Schools. With something of the homely nature of Burns, and the Scottish
+romance of Walter Scott, he produced numerous poems which are stamped with
+true genius. He catered to Scottish feeling, and began his fame by the
+stirring lines beginning;
+
+    My name is Donald McDonald,
+    I live in the Highlands so grand.
+
+His best known poetical works are _The Queen's Wake_, containing seventeen
+stories in verse, of which the most striking is that of _Bonny Kilmeny_.
+He was always called "The Ettrick Shepherd." Wilson says of _The Queen's
+Wake_ that "it is a garland of fresh flowers bound with a band of rushes
+from the moor;" a very fitting and just view of the work of one who was at
+once poet and rustic.
+
+_Allan Cunningham_, 1785-1842; like Hogg, in that as a writer he felt the
+influence of both Burns and Scott, Cunningham was the son of a gardener,
+and a self-made man. In early life he was apprenticed to a mason. He wrote
+much fugitive poetry, among which the most popular pieces are, _A Wet
+Sheet and a Flowing Sea_, _Gentle Hugh Herries_, and _It's Hame and it's
+Hame_. Among his stories are _Traditional Tales of the Peasantry_, _Lord
+Roldan_, and _The Maid of Elwar_. His position for a time, as clerk and
+overseer of Chantrey's establishment, gave him the idea of writing _The
+Lives of Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects_. He was a
+voluminous author; his poetry is of a high lyrical order, and true to
+nature; but his prose will not retain its place in public favor: it is at
+once diffuse and obscure.
+
+_Thomas Hope_, 1770-1831: an Amsterdam merchant, who afterwards resided in
+London, and who illustrated the progress of knowledge concerning the East
+by his work entitled, _Anastasius, or Memoirs of a Modern Greek_.
+Published anonymously, it excited a great interest, and was ascribed by
+the public to Lord Byron. The intrigues and adventures of the hero are
+numerous and varied, and the book has great literary merit; but it is
+chiefly of historical value in that it describes persons and scenes in
+Greece and Turkey, countries in which Hope travelled at a time when few
+Englishmen visited them.
+
+_William Beckford_, 1760-1844: he was the son of an alderman, who became
+Lord Mayor of London. After a careful education, he found himself the
+possessor of a colossal fortune. He travelled extensively, and wrote
+sketches of his travels. His only work of importance is that called
+_Vathek_, in which he describes the gifts, the career, and the fate of the
+Caliph of that name, who was the grandson of the celebrated Haroun al
+Raschid. His palaces are described in a style of Oriental gorgeousness;
+his temptations, his lapses from virtue, his downward progress, are
+presented with dramatic power; and there is nothing in our literature more
+horribly real and terror-striking than the _Hall of Eblis_,--that hell
+where every heart was on fire, where "the Caliph Vathek, who, for the sake
+of empty pomp and forbidden power, had sullied himself with a thousand
+crimes, became a prey to grief without end and remorse without
+mitigation." Many of Beckford's other writings are blamed for their
+voluptuous character; the last scene in _Vathek_ is, on the other hand, a
+most powerful and influential sermon. Beckford was eccentric and unsocial:
+he lived for some time in Portugal, but returned to England, and built a
+luxurious palace at Bath.
+
+_William Roscoe_, 1753-1831: a merchant and banker of Liverpool. He is
+chiefly known by his _Life of Lorenzo de Medici_, and _The Life and
+Pontificate of Leo X._, both of which contained new and valuable
+information. They are written in a pleasing style, and with a liberal and
+charitable spirit as to religious opinions. Since they appeared, history
+has developed new material and established more exacting canons, and the
+studies of later writers have already superseded these pleasing works.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+WORDSWORTH, AND THE LAKE SCHOOL.
+
+
+   The New School. William Wordsworth. Poetical Canons. The Excursion and
+   Sonnets. An Estimate. Robert Southey. His Writings. Historical Value.
+   S. T. Coleridge. Early Life. His Helplessness. Hartley and H. N.
+   Coleridge.
+
+
+
+THE NEW SCHOOL.
+
+
+In the beginning of the year 1820 George III. died, after a very long--but
+in part nominal--reign of fifty-nine years, during a large portion of
+which he was the victim of insanity, while his son, afterwards George IV.,
+administered the regency of the kingdom.
+
+George III. did little, either by example or by generosity, to foster
+literary culture: his son, while nominally encouraging authors, did much
+to injure the tone of letters in his day. But literature was now becoming
+independent and self-sustaining: it needed to look no longer wistfully for
+a monarch's smile: it cared comparatively little for the court: it issued
+its periods and numbers directly to the English people: it wrote for them
+and of them; and when, in 1830, the last of the Georges died, after an
+ill-spent life, in which his personal pleasures had concerned him far more
+than the welfare of his people, former prescriptions and prejudices
+rapidly passed away; and the new epoch in general improvement and literary
+culture, which had already begun its course, received a marvellous
+impulsion.
+
+The great movement, in part unconscious, from the artificial rhetoric of
+the former age towards the simplicity of nature, was now to receive its
+strongest propulsion: it was to be preached like a crusade; to be reduced
+to a system, and set forth for the acceptance of the poetical world: it
+was to meet with criticism, and even opprobrium, because it had the
+arrogance to declare that old things had entirely passed away, and that
+all things must conform themselves to the new doctrine. The high-priest of
+this new poetical creed was Wordsworth: he proposed and expounded it; he
+wrote according to its tenets; he defended his illustrations against the
+critics by elaborate prefaces and essays. He boldly faced the clamor of a
+world in arms; and what there was real and valuable in his works has
+survived the fierce battle, and gathered around him an army of proselytes,
+champions, and imitators.
+
+
+WORDSWORTH.--William Wordsworth was the son of the law-agent to the Earl
+of Lonsdale; he was born at Cockermouth, Cumberland, in 1770. It was a
+gifted family. His brother, Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, was Master of
+Trinity College. Another, the captain of an East Indiaman, was lost at sea
+in his own ship. He had also a clever sister, who was the poet's friend
+and companion as long as she lived.
+
+Wordsworth and his companions have been called the Lake Poets, because
+they resided among the English lakes. Perhaps too much has been claimed
+for the Lake country, as giving inspiration to the poets who lived there:
+it is beautiful, but not so surpassingly so as to create poets as its
+children. The name is at once arbitrary and convenient.
+
+Wordsworth was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, which he entered
+in 1787; but whenever he could escape from academic restraints, he
+indulged his taste for pedestrian excursions: during these his ardent mind
+became intimate and intensely sympathetic with nature, as may be seen in
+his _Evening Walk_, in the sketch of the skater, and in the large
+proportion of description in all his poems.
+
+It is truer of him than perhaps of any other author, that the life of the
+man is the best history of the poet. All that is eventful and interesting
+in his life may be found translated in his poetry. Milton had said that
+the poet's life should be a grand poem. Wordsworth echoed the thought:
+
+    If thou indeed derive thy light from Heaven,
+    Then to the measure of that Heaven-born light,
+    Shine, Poet! in thy place, and be content.
+
+He was not distinguished at college; the record of his days there may be
+found in _The Prelude_, which he calls _The Growth of a Poet's Mind_. He
+was graduated in 1791, with the degree of B.A., and went over to France,
+where he, among others, was carried away with enthusiasm for the French
+Revolution, and became a thorough Radical. That he afterwards changed his
+political views, should not be advanced in his disfavor; for many ardent
+and virtuous minds were hoping to see the fulfilment of recent predictions
+in greater freedom to man. Wordsworth erred in a great company, and from
+noble sympathies. He returned to England in 1792, with his illusions
+thoroughly dissipated. The workings of his mind are presented in _The
+Prelude_.
+
+In the same year he published _Descriptive Sketches_, and _An Evening
+Walk_, which attracted little attention. A legacy of £900 left him by his
+friend Calvert, in 1795, enabled the frugal poet to devote his life to
+poetry, and particularly to what he deemed the emancipation of poetry from
+the fetters of the mythic and from the smothering ornaments of rhetoric.
+
+In Nov., 1797, he went to London, taking with him a play called _The
+Borderers_: it was rejected by the manager. In the autumn of 1798, he
+published his _Lyrical Ballads_, which contained, besides his own verses,
+a poem by an anonymous friend. The poem was _The Ancient Mariner_; the
+friend, Coleridge. In the joint operation, Wordsworth took the part based
+on nature; Coleridge illustrated the supernatural. The _Ballads_ were
+received with undisguised contempt; nor, by reason of its company, did
+_The Ancient Mariner_ have a much better hearing. Wordsworth preserved his
+equanimity, and an implicit faith in himself.
+
+After a visit to Germany, he settled in 1799 at Grasmere, in the Lake
+country, and the next year republished the _Lyrical Ballads_ with a new
+volume, both of which passed to another edition in 1802. With this
+edition, Wordsworth ran up his revolutionary flag and nailed it to the
+mast.
+
+
+POETICAL CANONS.--It would be impossible as well as unnecessary to attempt
+an analysis of even the principal poems of so voluminous a writer; but it
+is important to state in substance the poetical canons he laid down. They
+may be found in the prefaces to the various editions of his _Ballads_, and
+may be thus epitomized:
+
+I. He purposely chose his incidents and situations from common life,
+because in it our elementary feelings coexist in a state of simplicity.
+
+II. He adopts the _language_ of common life, because men hourly
+communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is
+originally derived; and because, being less under the influence of social
+vanity, they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated
+expressions.
+
+III. He asserts that the language of poetry is in no way different, except
+in respect to metre, from that of good prose. Poetry can boast of no
+celestial _ichor_ that distinguishes her vital juices from those of prose:
+the same human blood circulates through the veins of them both. In works
+of imagination and sentiment, in proportion as ideas and feelings are
+valuable, whether the composition be in prose or verse, they require and
+exact one and the same language.
+
+Such are the principal changes proposed by Wordsworth; and we find Herder,
+the German poet and metaphysician, agreeing with him in his estimate of
+poetic language. Having thus propounded his tenets, he wrote his earlier
+poems as illustrations of his views, affecting a simplicity in subject and
+diction that was sometimes simply ludicrous. It was an affected
+simplicity: he was simple with a purpose; he wrote his poems to suit his
+canons, and in that way his simplicity became artifice.
+
+Jeffrey and other critics rose furiously against the poems which
+inculcated such doctrines. "This will never do" were the opening words of
+an article in the _Edinburgh Review_. One of the _Rejected Addresses_,
+called _The Baby's Début, by W. W._, (spoken in the character of Nancy
+Lake, eight years old, who is drawn upon the stage in a go-cart,) parodies
+the ballads thus:
+
+    What a large floor! 'tis like a town;
+    The carpet, when they lay it down,
+      Won't hide it, I'll be bound:
+    And there's a row of lamps, my eye!
+    How they do blaze: I wonder why
+      They keep them on the ground?
+
+And this, Jeffrey declares, is a flattering imitation of Wordsworth's
+style.
+
+The day for depreciating Wordsworth has gone by; but calmer critics must
+still object to his poetical views in their entireness. In binding all
+poetry to his _dicta_, he ignores that _mythus_ in every human mind, that
+longing after the heroic, which will not be satisfied with the simple and
+commonplace. One realm in which Poetry rules with an enchanted sceptre is
+the land of reverie and day-dream,--a land of fancy, in which genius
+builds for itself castles at once radiant and, for the time, real; in
+which the beggar is a king, the poor man a Croesus, the timid man a hero:
+this is the fairy-land of the imagination. Among Wordsworth's poems are a
+number called _Poems of the Imagination_. He wrote learnedly about the
+imagination and fancy; but the truth is, that of all the great
+poets,--and, in spite of his faults, he is a great poet,--there is none so
+entirely devoid of imagination. What has been said of the heroic may be
+applied to wit, so important an element in many kinds of poetry; he
+ignores it because he was without it totally. If only humble life and
+commonplace incidents and unfigured rhetoric and bald language are the
+proper materials for the poetry, what shall be said of all literature,
+ancient and modern, until Wordsworth's day?
+
+
+THE EXCURSION AND SONNETS.--With his growing fame and riper powers, he had
+deviated from his own principles, especially of language; and his peaceful
+epic, _The Excursion_, is full of difficult theology, exalted philosophy,
+and glowing rhetoric. His only attempt to adhere to his system presents
+the incongruity of putting these subjects into the lips of men, some of
+whom, the Scotch pedler for example, are not supposed to be equal to their
+discussion. In his language, too, he became far more polished and
+melodious. The young writer of the _Lyrical Ballads_ would have been
+shocked to know that the more famous Wordsworth could write
+
+    A golden lustre slept upon the hills;
+
+or speak of
+
+    A pupil in the many-chambered school,
+    Where superstition weaves her airy dreams.
+
+_The Excursion_, although long, is unfinished, and is only a portion of
+what was meant to be his great poem--_The Recluse_. It contains poetry of
+the highest order, apart from its mannerism and its improbable narrative;
+but the author is to all intents a different man from that of the
+_Ballads_: as different as the conservative Wordsworth of later years was
+from the radical youth who praised the French Revolution of 1791. As a
+whole, _The Excursion_ is accurate, philosophic, and very dull, so that
+few readers have the patience to complete its perusal, while many enjoy
+its beautiful passages.
+
+To return to the events of his life. In 1802 he married; and, after
+several changes of residence, he finally purchased a place called
+Rydal-mount in 1813, where he spent the remainder of his long, learned,
+and pure life. Long-standing dues from the Earl of Lonsdale to his father
+were paid; and he received the appointment of collector at Whitehaven and
+stamp distributor for Cumberland. Thus he had an ample income, which was
+increased in 1842 by a pension of £300 per annum. In 1843 he was made
+poet-laureate. He died in 1850, a famous poet, his reputation being due
+much more to his own clever individuality than to the poetic principles he
+asserted.
+
+His ecclesiastical sonnets compare favorably with any that have been
+written in English. Landor, no friend of the poet, says: "Wordsworth has
+written more fine sonnets than are to be met with in the language
+besides."
+
+
+AN ESTIMATE.--The great amount of verse Wordsworth has written is due to
+his estimate of the proper uses of poetry. Where other men would have
+written letters, journals, or prose sketches, his ready metrical pen wrote
+in verse: an excursion to England or Scotland, _Yarrow Visited and
+Revisited_, journeys in Germany and Italy, are all in verse. He exhibits
+in them all great humanity and benevolence, and is emphatically and
+without cant the poet of religion and morality. Coleridge--a poet and an
+attached friend, perhaps a partisan--claims for him, in his _Biographia
+Literaria_, "purity of language, freshness, strength, _curiosa felicitas_
+of diction, truth to nature in his imagery, imagination in the highest
+degree, but faulty fancy." We have already ventured to deny him the
+possession of imagination: the rest of his friend's eulogium is not
+undeserved. He had and has many ardent admirers, but none more ardent than
+himself. He constantly praised his own verses, and declared that they
+would ultimately conquer all prejudices and become universally popular--an
+opinion that the literary world does not seem disposed to adopt.
+
+
+ROBERT SOUTHEY.--Next to Wordsworth, and, with certain characteristic
+differences, of the same school, but far beneath him in poetical power, is
+Robert Southey, who was born at Bristol, August 12, 1774. He was the son
+of a linen-draper in that town. He entered Balliol College, Oxford, in
+1792, but left without taking his degree. In 1794 he published a radical
+poem on the subject of _Wat Tyler_, the sentiments of which he was
+afterwards very willing to repudiate. With the enthusiastic instinct of a
+poet, he joined with Wordsworth and Coleridge in a scheme called
+_Pantisocrasy_; that is, they were to go together to the banks of the
+Susquehanna, in a new country of which they knew nothing except by
+description; and there they were to realize a dream of nature in the
+golden age--a Platonic republic, where everything was to be in common, and
+from which vice and selfishness were to be forever excluded. But these
+young neo-platonists had no money, and so the scheme was given up.
+
+In 1795 he married Miss Fricker, a milliner of Bristol, and made a voyage
+to Lisbon, where his uncle was chaplain to the British Factory. He led an
+unsettled life until 1804, when he established himself at Keswick in the
+Lake country, where he spent his life. He was a literary man and nothing
+else, and perhaps one of the most industrious writers that ever held a
+literary pen. Much of the time, indeed, he wrote for magazines and
+reviews, upon whatever subject was suggested to him, to win his daily
+bread.
+
+
+HIS WRITINGS.--After the publication of _Wat Tyler_ he wrote an epic poem
+called _Joan of Arc_, in 1796, which was crude and severely criticized.
+After some other unimportant essays, he inaugurated his purpose of
+illustrating the various oriental mythologies, by the publication of
+_Thalaba the Destroyer_, which was received with great disfavor at the
+time, and which first coupled his name with that of Wordsworth as of the
+school of Lake poets. It is in irregular metre, which at first has the
+charm of variety, but which afterwards loses its effect, on account of its
+broken, disjointed versification. In 1805 appeared _Madoc_--a poem based
+upon the subject of early Welsh discoveries in America. It is a long poem
+in two parts: the one descriptive of _Madoc in Wales_ and the other of
+_Madoc in Aztlan_. Besides many miscellaneous works in prose, we notice
+the issue, in 1810, of _The Curse of Kehama_--the second of the great
+mythological poems referred to.
+
+Among his prose works must be mentioned _The Chronicle of the Cid_, _The
+History of Brazil_, _The Life of Nelson_, and _The History of the
+Peninsular War_. A little work called _The Doctor_ has been greatly liked
+in America.
+
+Southey wrote innumerable reviews and magazine articles; and, indeed,
+tried his pen at every sort of literary work. His diction--in prose, at
+least--is almost perfect, and his poetical style not unpleasing. His
+industry, his learning, and his care in production must be acknowledged;
+but his poems are very little read, and, in spite of his own prophecies,
+are doomed to the shelf rather than retained upon the table. Like
+Wordsworth, he was one of the most egotistical of men; he had no greater
+admirer than Robert Southey; and had his exertions not been equal to his
+self-laudation, he would have been intolerable.
+
+The most singular instance of perverted taste and unmerited eulogy is to
+be found in his _Vision of Judgment_, which, as poet-laureate, he produced
+to the memory of George the Third. The severest criticism upon it is Lord
+Byron's _Vision of Judgment_--reckless, but clever and trenchant. The
+consistency and industry of Southey's life caused him to be appointed
+poet-laureate upon the death of Pye; and in 1835, having declined a
+baronetcy, he received an annual pension of £300. Having lost his first
+wife in 1837, he married Miss Bowles, the poetess, in 1839; but soon after
+his mind began to fail, and he had reached a state of imbecility which
+ended in death on the 21st of March, 1843. In 1837, at the age of
+sixty-three, he collected and edited his complete poetical works, with
+copious and valuable historical notes.
+
+
+HISTORICAL VALUE.--It is easy to see in what manner Southey, as a literary
+man, has reflected the spirit of the age. Politically, he exhibits
+partisanship from Radical to Tory, which may be clearly discerned by
+comparing his _Wat Tyler_ with his _Vision of Judgment_ and his _Odes_. As
+to literary and poetic canons, his varied metre, and his stories in the
+style of Wordsworth, show that he had abandoned all former schools. In his
+histories and biographies he is professedly historical; and in his epics
+he shows that greater range of learned investigation which is so
+characteristic of that age. The _Curse of Kehama_ and _Thalaba_ would have
+been impossible in a former age. He himself objected to be ranked with the
+Lakers; but Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge have too much in common,
+notwithstanding much individual difference, not to be classed together as
+innovators and asserters, whether we call them Lakers or something else.
+
+It was on the occasion of his publishing _Thalaba_, that his name was
+first coupled with that of Wordsworth. His own words are, "I happened to
+be residing at Keswick when Mr. Wordsworth and I began to be acquainted.
+Mr. Coleridge also had resided there; and this was reason enough for
+classing us together as a school of poets." There is not much external
+resemblance, it is true, between _Thalaba_ and the _Excursion_; but the
+same poetical motives will cause both to remain unread by the
+multitude--unnatural comparisons, recondite theology, and a great lack of
+common humanity. That there was a mutual admiration is found in Southey's
+declaration that Wordsworth's sonnets contain the profoundest poetical
+wisdom, and that the _Preface_ is the quintessence of the philosophy of
+poetry.
+
+
+SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.--More individual, more eccentric, less
+commonplace, in short, a far greater genius than either of his fellows,
+Coleridge accomplished less, had less system, was more visionary and
+fragmentary than they: he had an amorphous mind of vast proportions. The
+man, in his life and conversation, was great; the author has left little
+of value which will last when the memory of his person has disappeared. He
+was born on the 21st of October, 1772, at Ottery St. Mary. His father was
+a clergyman and vicar of the parish. He received his education at Christ's
+Hospital in London, where, among others, he had Charles Lamb as a comrade,
+and formed with him a friendship which lasted as long as they both lived.
+
+
+EARLY LIFE.--There he was an erratic student, but always a great reader;
+and while he was yet a lad, at the age of fourteen, he might have been
+called a learned man.
+
+He had little self-respect, and from stress of poverty he intended to
+apprentice himself to a shoemaker; but friends who admired his learning
+interfered to prevent this, and he was sent with a scholarship to Jesus
+College, Cambridge, in 1791. Like Wordsworth and Southey, he was an
+intense Radical at first; and on this account left college without his
+degree in 1793. He then enlisted as a private in the 15th Light Dragoons;
+but, although he was a favorite with his comrades, whose letters he wrote,
+he made a very poor soldier. Having written a Latin sentence under his
+saddle on the stable wall, his superior education was recognized; and he
+was discharged from the service after only four months' duty. Eager for
+adventure, he joined Southey and Lloyd in their scheme of pantisocracy,
+to which we have already referred; and when that failed for want of money,
+he married the sister-in-law of Southey--Miss Fricker, of Bristol. He was
+at this time a Unitarian as well as a Radical, and officiated frequently
+as a Unitarian minister. His sermons were extremely eloquent. He had
+already published some juvenile poems, and a drama on the fall of
+Robespierre, and had endeavored to establish a periodical called _The
+Watchman_. He was always erratic, and dependent upon the patronage of his
+friends; in short, he always presented the sad spectacle of a man who
+could not take care of himself.
+
+
+HIS WRITINGS.--After a residence at Stowey, in Somersetshire, where he
+wrote some of his finest poems, among which were the first part of
+_Christabel_, _The Ancient Mariner_, and _Remorse_, a tragedy, he was
+enabled, through the kindness of friends, to go, in 1798, to Germany,
+where he spent fourteen months in the study of literature and metaphysics.
+In the year 1800 he returned to the Lake country, where he for some time
+resided with Southey at Keswick; Wordsworth being then at Grasmere. Then
+was established as a fixed fact in English literature the Lake school of
+poetry. These three poets acted and reacted upon each other. From having
+been great Radicals they became Royalists, and Coleridge's Unitarian
+belief was changed into orthodox churchmanship. His translation of
+Schiller's _Wallenstein_ should rather be called an expansion of that
+drama, and is full of his own poetic fancies. After writing for some time
+for the _Morning Post_, he went to Malta as the Secretary to the Governor
+in 1804, at a salary of £800 per annum. But his restless spirit soon drove
+him back to Grasmere, and to desultory efforts to make a livelihood.
+
+In 1816 he published the two parts of _Christabel_, an unfinished poem,
+which, for the wildness of the conceit, exquisite imagery, and charming
+poetic diction, stands quite alone in English literature. In a periodical
+called _The Friend_, which he issued, are found many of his original
+ideas; but it was discontinued after twenty-seven numbers. His _Biographia
+Literaria_, published in 1817, contains valuable sketches of literary men,
+living and dead, written with rare critical power.
+
+In his _Aids to Reflection_, published in 1825, are found his metaphysical
+tenets; his _Table-Talk_ is also of great literary value; but his lectures
+on Shakspeare show him to have been the most remarkable critic of the
+great dramatist whom the world has produced.
+
+It has already been mentioned that when the first volume of Wordsworth's
+_Lyrical Ballads_ was published, _The Ancient Mariner_ was included in it,
+as a poem by an anonymous friend. It had been the intention of Coleridge
+to publish another poem in the second volume; but it was considered
+incongruous, and excluded. That poem was the exquisite ballad entitled
+_Love_, or _Genevieve_.
+
+
+HIS HELPLESSNESS.--With no home of his own, he lived by visiting his
+friends; left his wife and children to the support of others, and seemed
+incapable of any other than this shifting and shiftless existence. This
+natural imbecility was greatly increased during a long period by his
+constant use of opium, which kept him, a greater portion of his life, in a
+world of dreams. He was fortunate in having a sincere and appreciative
+friend in Mr. Gilman, surgeon, near London, to whose house he went in
+1816; and where, with the exception of occasional visits elsewhere, he
+resided until his death in 1834. If the Gilmans needed compensation for
+their kindness, they found it in the celebrity of their visitor; even
+strangers made pilgrimages to the house at Highgate to hear the rhapsodies
+of "the old man eloquent." Coleridge once asked Charles Lamb if he had
+ever heard him preach, referring to the early days when he was a Unitarian
+preacher. "I never heard you do anything else," was the answer he
+received. He was the prince of talkers, and talked more coherently and
+connectedly than he wrote: drawing with ease from the vast stores of his
+learning, he delighted men of every degree. While of the Lake school of
+poetry, and while in some sort the creature of his age and his
+surroundings, his eccentricities gave him a rare independence and
+individuality. A giant in conception, he was a dwarf in execution; and
+something of the interest which attaches to a _lusus naturæ_ is the chief
+claim to future reputation which belongs to S. T. C.
+
+
+HARTLEY COLERIDGE, his son, (1796-1849,) inherited much of his father's
+talents; but was an eccentric, deformed, and, for a time, an intemperate
+being. His principal writings were monographs on various subjects, and
+articles for Blackwood. HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE, (1800-1843,) a nephew and
+son-in-law of the poet, was also a gifted man, and a profound classical
+scholar. His introduction to the study of the great classic poets,
+containing his analysis of Homer's epics, is a work of great merit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+THE REACTION IN POETRY.
+
+
+   Alfred Tennyson. Early Works. The Princess. Idyls of the King.
+   Elizabeth B. Browning. Aurora Leigh. Her Faults. Robert Browning. Other
+   Poets.
+
+
+
+TENNYSON AND THE BROWNINGS.
+
+
+ALFRED TENNYSON.--It is the certain fate of all extravagant movements,
+social or literary, to invite criticism and opposition, and to be followed
+by reaction. The school of Wordsworth was the violent protest against what
+remained of the artificial in poetry; but it had gone, as we have seen, to
+the other extreme. The affected simplicity, and the bald diction which it
+inculcated, while they raised up an army of feeble imitators, also
+produced in the ranks of poetry a vindication of what was good in the old;
+new theories, and a very different estimate of poetical subjects and
+expression. The first poet who may be looked upon as leading the
+reactionary party is Alfred Tennyson. He endeavored out of all the schools
+to synthesize a new one. In many of his descriptive pieces he followed
+Wordsworth: in his idyls, he adheres to the romantic school; in his
+treatment and diction, he stands alone.
+
+
+EARLY EFFORTS.--He was the son of a clergyman of Lincolnshire, and was
+born at Somersby, in 1810. After a few early and almost unknown efforts in
+verse, the first volume bearing his name was issued in 1830, while he was
+yet an under-graduate at Cambridge: it had the simple title--_Poems,
+chiefly Lyrical_. In their judgment of this new poet, the critics were
+almost as much at fault as they had been when the first efforts of
+Wordsworth appeared; but for very different reasons. Wordsworth was simple
+and intensely realistic. Tennyson was mystic and ideal: his diction was
+unusual; his little sketches conveyed an almost hidden moral; he seemed to
+inform the reader that, in order to understand his poetry, it must be
+studied; the meaning does not sparkle upon the surface; the language
+ripples, the sense flows in an undercurrent. His first essays exhibit a
+mania for finding strange words, or coining new ones, which should give
+melody, to his verse. Whether this was a process of development or not, he
+has in his later works gotten rid of much of this apparent mannerism,
+while he has retained, and even improved, his harmony. He exhibits a rare
+power of concentration, as opposed to the diffusiveness of his
+contemporaries. Each of his smaller poems is a thought, briefly, but
+forcibly and harmoniously, expressed. If it requires some exertion to
+comprehend it, when completely understood it becomes a valued possession.
+
+It is difficult to believe that such poems as _Mariana_ and _Recollections
+of the Arabian Nights_ were the production of a young man of twenty.
+
+In 1833 he published his second volume, containing additional poems, among
+which were _Enone_, _The May Queen_, _The Lotos-Eaters_, and _A Dream of
+Fair Women_. _The May Queen_ became at once a favorite, because every one
+could understand it: it touched a chord in every heart; but his rarest
+power of dreamy fancy is displayed in such pieces as _The Arabian Nights_
+and the _Lotos-Eaters_. No greater triumph has been achieved in the realm
+of fancy than that in the court of good Haroun al Raschid, and amid the
+Lotos dreams of the Nepenthe coast. These productions were not received
+with the favor which they merited, and so he let the critics alone for
+nine years. In 1842 he again appeared in print, with, among other poems,
+the exquisite fragment of the _Morte d'Arthur_, _Godiva_, _St. Agnes_,
+_Sir Galahad_, _Lady Clara Vere de Vere_, _The Talking Oak_, and chief,
+perhaps, of all, _Locksley Hall_. In these poems he is not only a poet,
+but a philosopher. Each of these is an extended apothegm, presenting not
+only rules of life, but mottoes and maxims for daily use. They are
+soliloquies of the nineteenth century, and representations of its men and
+conditions.
+
+
+THE PRINCESS.--In 1847 he published _The Princess, a Medley_--a pleasant
+and suggestive poem on woman's rights, in which exquisite songs are
+introduced, which break the monotony of the blank verse, and display his
+rare lyric power. The _Bugle Song_ is among the finest examples of the
+adaptation of sound to sense in the language; and there is nothing more
+truthful and touching than the short verses beginning,
+
+    Home they brought her warrior dead.
+
+Arthur Hallam, a gifted son of the distinguished historian, who was
+betrothed to Tennyson's sister, died young; and the poet has mourned and
+eulogized him in a long poem entitled _In Memoriam_. It contains one
+hundred and twenty-nine four-lined stanzas, and is certainly very musical
+and finished; but it is rather the language of calm philosophy elaborately
+studied, than that of a poignant grief. It is not, in our judgment, to be
+compared with his shorter poems, and is generally read and overpraised
+only by his more ardent admirers, who discover a crystal tear of genuine
+emotion in every stanza.
+
+
+IDYLS OF THE KING.--The fragment on the death of Arthur, already
+mentioned, foreshadowed a purpose of the poet's mind to make the legends
+of that almost fabulous monarch a vehicle for modern philosophy in English
+verse. In 1859 appeared a volume containing the _Idyls of the King_. They
+are rather minor epics than idyls. The simple materials are taken from the
+Welsh and French chronicles, and are chiefly of importance in that they
+cater to that English taste which finds national greatness typified in
+Arthur. It had been a successful stratagem with Spenser in _The Fairy
+Queen_, and has served Tennyson equally well in the _Idyls_. It unites the
+ages of fable and of chivalry; it gives a noble lineage to heroic deeds.
+The best is the last--_Guinevere_--almost the perfection of pathos in
+poetry. The picturesqueness of his descriptions is evinced by the fact
+that Gustave Doré has chosen these _Idyls_ as a subject for illustration,
+and has been eminently successful in his labor.
+
+_Maud_, which appeared in 1855, notwithstanding some charming lyrical
+passages, may be considered Tennyson's failure. In 1869 he completed _The
+Idyls_ by publishing _The Coming of Arthur_, _The Holy Grail_, and
+_Pelleas and Etteare_. He also finished the _Morte d'Arthur_, and put it
+in its proper place as _The Passing of Arthur_.
+
+Tennyson was appointed poet-laureate upon the death of Wordsworth, in
+1850, and receives besides a pension of £200. He lived for a long time in
+great retirement at Farringford, on the Isle of Wight; but has lately
+removed to Petersfield, in Hampshire. It may be reasonably doubted whether
+this hermit-life has not injured his poetical powers; whether, great as he
+really is, a little inhalation of the air of busy every-day life would not
+have infused more of nature and freshness into his verse. Among his few
+_Odes_ are that on the death of the Duke of Wellington, the dedication of
+his poems to the Queen, and his welcome to Alexandra, Princess of Wales,
+all of which are of great excellence. His _Charge of the Light Brigade_,
+at Balaclava, while it gave undue currency to that stupid military
+blunder, must rank as one of the finest battle-lyrics in the language.
+
+The poetry of Tennyson is eminently representative of the Victorian age.
+He has written little; but that little marks a distinct era in
+versification--great harmony untrammelled by artificial _correctness_; and
+in language, a search for novelty to supply the wants and correct the
+faults of the poetic vocabulary. He is national in the _Idyls_;
+philosophic in _The Two Voices_, and similar poems. The _Princess_ is a
+gentle satire on the age; and though, in striving for the reputation of
+originality, he sometimes mistakes the original for the beautiful, he is
+really the laurelled poet of England in merit as well as in title.
+
+
+ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.--The literary usher is now called upon to cry
+with the herald of the days of chivalry--_Place aux dames_. A few ladies,
+as we have seen, have already asserted for themselves respectable
+positions in the literary ranks. Without a question as to the relative
+gifts of mind in man and woman, we have now reached a name which must rank
+among those of the first poets of the present century--one which
+represents the Victorian age as fully and forcibly as Tennyson, and with
+more of novelty than he. Nervous in style, elevated in diction, bold in
+expression, learned and original, Mrs. Browning divides the poetic renown
+of the period with Tennyson. If he is the laureate, she was the
+acknowledged queen of poetry until her untimely death.
+
+Miss Elizabeth Barrett was born in London, in 1809. She was educated with
+great care, and began to write at a very early age. A volume, entitled
+_Essays on Mind, with Other Poems_, was published when she was only
+seventeen. In 1833 she produced _Prometheus Bound_, a translation of the
+drama of Æschylus from the original Greek, which exhibited rare classical
+attainments; but which she considered so faulty that she afterwards
+retranslated it. In 1838 appeared _The Seraphim, and other Poems_; and in
+1839, _The Romaunt of the Page_. Not long after, the rupture of a
+blood-vessel brought her to the verge of the grave; and while she was
+still in a precarious state of health, her favorite brother was drowned.
+For several years she lived secluded, studying and composing when her
+health permitted; and especially drawing her inspiration from original
+sources in Greek and Hebrew. In 1844 she published her collected poems in
+two volumes. Among these was _Lady Geraldine's Courtship_: an exquisite
+story, the perusal of which is said to have induced Robert Browning to
+seek her acquaintance. Her health was now partially restored; and they
+were married in 1846. For some time they resided at Florence, in a
+congenial and happy union. The power of passionate love is displayed in
+her _Sonnets from the Portuguese_, which are among the finest in the
+language. Differing in many respects from those of Shakspeare, they are
+like his in being connected by one impassioned thought, and being, without
+doubt, the record of a heart experience.
+
+Thoroughly interested in the social and political conditions of struggling
+Italy, she gave vent to her views and sympathies in a volume of poems,
+entitled _Casa Guidi Windows_. Casa Guidi was the name of their residence
+in Florence, and the poems vividly describe what she saw from its
+windows--divers forms of suffering, injustice, and oppression, which
+touched the heart of a tender woman and a gifted poet, and compelled it to
+burst forth in song.
+
+
+AURORA LEIGH.--But by far the most important work of Mrs. Browning is
+_Aurora Leigh_: a long poem in nine books, which appeared in 1856, in
+which the great questions of the age, social and moral, are handled with
+great boldness. It is neither an epic, nor an idyl, nor a tale in verse:
+it combines features of them all. It presents her clear convictions of
+life and art, and is full of philosophy, largely expressed in the language
+of irony and sarcasm. She is an inspired advocate of the intellectual
+claims of woman; and the poem is, in some degree, an autobiography: the
+identity of the poet and the heroine gives a great charm to the narrative.
+There are few finer pieces of poetical inspiration than the closing scene,
+where the friend and lover returns blind and helpless, and the woman's
+heart, unconquered before, surrenders to the claims of misfortune as the
+champion of love. After a happy life with her husband and an only child,
+sent for her solace, this gifted woman died in 1863.
+
+
+HER FAULTS.--It is as easy to criticize Mrs. Browning's works as to admire
+them; but our admiration is great in spite of her faults: in part because
+of them, for they are faults of a bold and striking individuality. There
+is sometimes an obscurity in her fancies, and a turgidity in her language.
+She seems to transcend the poet's license with a knowledge that she is
+doing so. For example:
+
+    We will sit on the throne of a purple sublimity,
+    And grind down men's bones to a pale unanimity.
+
+And again, in speaking of Goethe, she says:
+
+    His soul reached out from far and high,
+    And fell from inner entity.
+
+Her rhymes are frequently and arrogantly faulty: she seems to scorn the
+critics; she writes more for herself than for others, and infuses all she
+writes with her own fervent spirit: there is nothing commonplace or
+lukewarm. She is so strong that she would be masculine; but so tender that
+she is entirely feminine: at once one of the most vigorous of poets and
+one of the best of women. She has attained the first rank among the
+English poets.
+
+
+ROBERT BROWNING.--As a poet of decided individuality, which has gained for
+him many admirers, Browning claims particular mention. His happy marriage
+has for his fame the disadvantage that he gave his name to a greater
+poet; and it is never mentioned without an instinctive thought of her
+superiority. Many who are familiar with her verses have never read a line
+of her husband. This is in part due to a mysticism and an intense
+subjectivity, which are not adapted to the popular comprehension. He has
+chosen subjects unknown or uninteresting to the multitude of readers, and
+treats them with such novelty of construction and such an affectation of
+originality, that few persons have patience to read his poems.
+
+Robert Browning was born, in 1812, at Camberwell; and after a careful
+education, not at either of the universities, (for he was a dissenter,) he
+went at the age of twenty to Italy, where he eagerly studied the history
+and antiquity to be found in the monasteries and in the remains of the
+mediæval period. He also made a study of the Italian people. In 1835 he
+published a drama called _Paracelsus_, founded upon the history of that
+celebrated alchemist and physician, and delineating the conditions of
+philosophy in the fifteenth century. It is novel, antique, and
+metaphysical: it exhibits the varied emotions of human sympathy; but it is
+eccentric and obscure, and cannot be popular. He has been called the poet
+for poets; and this statement seems to imply that he is not the poet for
+the great world.
+
+In 1837 he published a tragedy called _Strafford_; but his Italian culture
+seems to have spoiled his powers for portraying English character, and he
+has presented a stilted Strafford and a theatrical Charles I.
+
+In 1840 appeared _Sordello_, founded upon incidents in the history of that
+Mantuan poet Sordello, whom Dante and Virgil met in purgatory; and who,
+deserting the language of Italy, wrote his principal poems in the
+Provençal. The critics were so dissatisfied with this work, that Browning
+afterwards omitted it in the later editions of his poems. In 1843 he
+published a tragedy entitled _A Blot on the 'Scutcheon_, and a play
+called _The Dutchess of Cleves_. In 1850 appeared _Christmas Eve_ and
+_Easter Day_. Concerning all these, it may be said that it is singular and
+sad that a real poetic gift, like that of Browning, should be so shrouded
+with faults of conception and expression. What leads us to think that many
+of these are an affectation, is that he has produced, almost with the
+simplicity of Wordsworth, those charming sketches, _The Good News from
+Ghent to Aix_, and _An Incident at Ratisbon_.
+
+Among his later poems we specially commend _A Death in the Desert_, and
+_Pippa Passes_, as less obscure and more interesting than any, except the
+lyrical pieces just mentioned. It is difficult to show in what manner
+Browning represents his age. His works are only so far of a modern
+character that they use the language of to-day without subsidizing its
+simplicity, and abandon the old musical couplet without presenting the
+intelligible if commonplace thought which it used to convey.
+
+
+
+OTHER POETS OF THE LATEST PERIOD.
+
+
+_Reginald Heber_, 1783-1826: a godly Bishop of Calcutta. He is most
+generally known by one effort, a little poem, which is a universal
+favorite, and has preached, from the day it appeared, eloquent sermons in
+the cause of missions--_From Greenland's Icy Mountains_. Among his other
+hymns are _Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning_, and _The Son of
+God goes forth to War_.
+
+_Barry Cornwall_, born 1790: this is a _nom de plume_ of _Bryan Proctor_,
+a pleasing, but not great poet. His principal works are _Dramatic Scenes_,
+_Mirandola_, a tragedy, and _Marcian Colonna_. His minor poems are
+characterized by grace and fluency. Among these are _The Return of the
+Admiral_; _The Sea, the Sea, the Open Sea_; and _A Petition to Time_. He
+also wrote essays and tales in prose--a _Life of Edmund Keane_, and a
+_Memoir of Charles Lamb_. His daughter, _Adelaide Anne Proctor_, is a
+gifted poetess, and has written, among other poems, _Legends and Lyrics_,
+and _A Chaplet of Verses_.
+
+_James Sheridan Knowles_, 1784-1862: an actor and dramatist. He left the
+stage and became a Baptist minister. His plays were very successful upon
+the stage. Among them, those of chief merit are _The Hunchback_,
+_Virginius and Caius Gracchus_, and _The Wife, a Tale of Mantua_.
+
+_Jean Ingelow_, born 1830: one of the most popular of the later English
+poets. _The Song of Seven_, and _My Son's Wife Elizabeth_, are extremely
+pathetic, and of such general application that they touch all hearts. The
+latter is the refrain of _High Tide on the Coast of Lancashire_. She has
+published, besides, several volumes of stories for children, and one
+entitled _Studies for Stories_.
+
+_Algernon Charles Swinburne_, born 1843: he is principally and very
+favorably known by his charming poem _Atalanta in Calydon_. He has also
+written a somewhat heterodox and licentious poem entitled _Laus Veneris_,
+_Chastelard_, and _The Song of Italy_; besides numerous minor poems and
+articles for magazines. He is among the most notable and prolific poets of
+the age; and we may hope for many and better works from his pen.
+
+_Richard Harris Barham_, 1788-1845: a clergyman of the Church of England,
+and yet one of the most humorous of writers. He is chiefly known by his
+_Ingoldsby Legends_, which were contributed to the magazines. They are
+humorous tales in prose and verse; the latter in the vein of Peter Pindar,
+but better than those of Wolcot, or any writer of that school. Combined
+with the humorous and often forcible, there are touches of pathos and
+terror which are extremely effective. He also wrote a novel called _My
+Cousin Nicholas_.
+
+_Philip James Bailey_, born 1816: he published, in 1839, _Festus_, a poem
+in dramatic form, having, for its _dramatis personæ_, God in his three
+persons, Lucifer, angels, and man. Full of rare poetic fancy, it repels
+many by the boldness of its flight in the consideration of the
+incomprehensible, which many minds think the forbidden. _The Angel World_
+and _The Mystic_ are of a similar kind; but his last work, _The Age, a
+Colloquial Satire_ is on a mundane subject and in a simpler style.
+
+_Charles Mackay_, born 1812: principally known by his fugitive pieces,
+which contain simple thoughts on pleasant language. His poetical
+collections are called _Town Lyrics_ and _Egeria_.
+
+_John Keble_, 1792-1866: the modern George Herbert; a distinguished
+clergyman. He was Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and produced, besides
+_Tracts for the Times_, and other theological writings, _The Christian
+Year_, containing a poem for every Sunday and holiday in the
+ecclesiastical year. They are devout breathings in beautiful verse, and
+are known and loved by great numbers out of his own communion. Many of
+them have been adopted as hymns in many collections.
+
+_Martin Farquhar Tupper_, born 1810: his principal work is _Proverbial
+Philosophy_, in two series. It was unwontedly popular; and Tupper's name
+was on every tongue. Suddenly, the world reversed its decision and
+discarded its favorite; so that, without having done anything to warrant
+the desertion, Tupper finds himself with but very few admirers, or even
+readers: so capricious is the _vox populi_. The poetry is not without
+merit; but the world cannot forgive itself for having rated it too high.
+
+_Matthew Arnold_, born 1822: the son of Doctor Arnold of Rugby. He has
+written numerous critical papers, and was for some time Professor of
+Poetry at Oxford. _Sorab and Rustam_ is an Eastern tale in verse, of great
+beauty. His other works are _The Strayed Reveller_, and _Empedocles on
+Etna_. More lately, an Inspector of Schools, he has produced several works
+on education, among which are _Popular Education in France_ and _The
+Schools and Universities of the Continent_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+THE LATER HISTORIANS.
+
+
+   New Materials. George Grote. History of Greece. Lord Macaulay. History
+   of England. Its Faults. Thomas Carlyle. Life of Frederick II. Other
+   Historians.
+
+
+
+NEW MATERIALS.
+
+
+Nothing more decidedly marks the nineteenth century than the progress of
+history as a branch of literature. A wealth of material, not known before,
+was brought to light, increasing our knowledge and reversing time-honored
+decisions upon historic points. Countries were explored and their annals
+discovered. Expeditions to Egypt found a key to hieroglyphs; State papers
+were arranged to the hand of the scholar; archives, like those of
+Simancas, were thrown open. The progress of Truth, through the extension
+of education, unmasked ancient prescriptions and prejudices: thus, where
+the chronicle remained, philosophy was transformed; and it became evident
+that the history of man in all times must be written anew, with far
+greater light to guide the writer than the preceding century had enjoyed.
+Besides, the world of readers became almost as learned as the historian
+himself, and he wrote to supply a craving and a demand such as had never
+before existed. A glance at the labors of the following historians will
+show that they were not only annalists, but reformers in the full sense of
+the word: they re-wrote what had been written before, supplying defects
+and correcting errors.
+
+
+GEORGE GROTE.--This distinguished writer was born near London, in 1794. He
+was the son of a banker, and received his education at the Charter House.
+Instead of entering one of the universities, he became a clerk in his
+father's banking-house. Early imbued with a taste for Greek literature, he
+continued his studies with great zeal; and was for many years collecting
+the material for a history of Greece. The subject was quietly and
+thoroughly digested in his mind before he began to write. A member of
+Parliament from 1832 to 1841, he was always a strong Whig, and was
+specially noted for his championship of the vote by ballot. There was no
+department of wholesome reform which he did not sustain. He opposed the
+corn laws, which had become oppressive; he favored the political rights of
+the Jews, and denounced prescriptive evils of every kind.
+
+
+HISTORY OF GREECE.--In 1846 he published the first volume of his _History
+of Greece from the Earliest Period to the Death of Alexander the Great_:
+the remaining volumes appeared between that time and 1856. The work was
+well received by critics of all political opinions; and the world was
+astonished that such a labor should have been performed by any writer who
+was not a university man. It was a luminous ancient history, in a fresh
+and racy modern style: the review of the mythology is grand; the political
+conditions, the manners and customs of the people, the military art, the
+progress of law, the schools of philosophy, are treated with remarkable
+learning and clearness. But he as clearly exhibits the political condition
+of his own age, by the sympathy which he displays towards the democracy of
+Athens in their struggles against the tenets and actions of the
+aristocracy. The historian writes from his own political point of view;
+and Grote's history exhibits his own views of reform as plainly as that of
+Mitford sets forth his aristocratic proclivities. Thus the English
+politics of the age play a part in the Grecian history.
+
+There were several histories of Greece written not long before that of
+Grote, which may be considered as now set aside by his greater accuracy
+and better style. Among these the principal are that of JOHN GILLIES,
+1747-1836, which is learned, but statistical and dry; that of CONNOP
+THIRLWALL, born 1797, Bishop of St. David's, which was greatly esteemed by
+Grote himself; and that of WILLIAM MITFORD, 1744-1827, to correct the
+errors and supply the deficiencies of which, Grote's work was written.
+
+
+LORD MACAULAY.--Thomas Babington Macaulay was born at Rothley, in
+Leicestershire, on the 25th of October, 1800. His father, Zachary
+Macaulay, a successful West Indian merchant, devoted his later life to
+philanthropy. His mother was Miss Selina Mills, the daughter of a
+bookseller of Bristol. After an early education, chiefly conducted at
+home, he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1818, where he
+distinguished himself as a debater, and gained two prize poems and a
+scholarship. He was graduated in 1822, and afterwards continued his
+studies; producing, during the next four years, several of his stirring
+ballads. He began to write for the Edinburgh Review in 1825. In 1830 he
+entered Parliament, and was immediately noted for his brilliant oratory in
+advocating liberal principles. In 1834 he was sent to India, as a member
+of the Supreme Council; and took a prominent part in preparing an Indian
+code of laws. This code was published on his return to England, in 1838;
+but it was so kind and considerate to the natives, that the martinets in
+India defeated its adoption. From his return until 1847, he had a seat in
+Parliament as member for Edinburgh; but in the latter year his support of
+the grant to the Maynooth (Roman Catholic) College so displeased his
+constituents, that in the next election he lost his seat.
+
+During all these busy years he had been astonishing and delighting the
+reading world by his truly brilliant papers in the _Edinburgh Review_,
+which have been collected and published as _Miscellanies_. The subjects
+were of general interest; their treatment novel and bold; the learning
+displayed was accurate and varied; and the style pointed, vigorous, and
+harmonious. The papers upon _Clive_ and _Hastings_ are enriched by his
+intimate knowledge of Indian affairs, acquired during his residence in
+that country. His critical papers are severe and satirical, such as the
+articles on _Croker's Boswell_, and on _Mr. Robert Montgomery's Poems_.
+His unusual self-reliance as a youth led him to great vehemence in the
+expression of his opinions, as well as into errors of judgment, which he
+afterwards regretted. The radicalism which is displayed in his essay on
+_Milton_ was greatly modified when he came to treat of kindred subjects in
+his History.
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND.--He had long cherished the intention of writing
+the history of England, "from the accession of James II. down to a time
+which is within the memory of men still living." The loss of his election
+at Edinburgh gave him the leisure necessary for carrying out this purpose.
+In 1848 he published the first and second volumes, which at once achieved
+an unprecedented popularity. His style had lost none of its brilliancy;
+his reading had been immense; his examination of localities was careful
+and minute. It was due, perhaps, to this growing fame, that the electors
+of Edinburgh, without any exertion on his part, returned him to Parliament
+in 1852. In 1855 the third and fourth volumes of his History appeared,
+bringing the work down to the peace of Ryswick, in 1697. All England
+applauded the crown when he was elevated to the peerage, in 1857, as Baron
+Macaulay of Rothley.
+
+It was now evident that Macaulay had deceived himself as to the magnitude
+of his subject; at least, he was never to finish it. He died suddenly of
+disease of the heart, on the 28th of December, 1859; and all that remained
+of his History was a fragmentary volume, published after his death by his
+sister, Lady Trevelyan, which reaches the death of William III., in 1702.
+
+
+ITS FAULTS.--The faults of Macaulay's History spring from the character of
+the man: he is always a partisan or a bitter enemy. His heroes are angels;
+those whom he dislikes are devils; and he pursues them with the ardor of a
+crusader or the vendetta of a Corsican. The Stuarts are painted in the
+darkest colors; while his eulogy of William III. is fulsome and false. He
+blackens the character of Marlborough for real faults indeed; but for such
+as Marlborough had in common with thousands of his contemporaries. If, as
+has been said, that great captain deserved the greatest censure as a
+statesman and warrior, it is equally true, paradoxical as it may seem,
+that he deserved also the greatest praise in both capacities. Macaulay has
+fulminated the censure and withheld the praise.
+
+What is of more interest to Americans, he loses no opportunity of
+attacking and defaming William Penn; making statements which have been
+proved false, and attributing motives without reason or justice.
+
+His style is what the French call the _style coupé_,--short sentences,
+like those of Tacitus, which ensure the interest by their recurring
+shocks. He writes history with the pen of a reviewer, and gives verdicts
+with the authority of a judge. He seems to say, Believe the autocrat; do
+not venture to philosophize.
+
+His poetry displays tact and talent, but no genius; it is pageantry in
+verse. His _Lays of Ancient Rome_ are scholarly, of course, and pictorial
+in description, but there is little of nature, and they are theatrical
+rather than dramatic; they are to be declaimed rather than to be read or
+sung.
+
+In society, Macaulay was a great talker--he harangued his friends; and
+there was more than wit in the saying of Sidney Smith, that his
+conversation would have been improved by a few "brilliant flashes of
+silence."
+
+But in spite of his faults, if we consider the profoundness of his
+learning, the industry of his studies, and the splendor of his style, we
+must acknowledge him as the most distinguished of English historians. No
+one has yet appeared who is worthy to complete the magnificent work which
+he left unfinished.
+
+
+THOMAS CARLYLE.--A literary brother of a very different type, but of a
+more distinct individuality, is Carlyle, who was born in Dumfries-shire,
+Scotland, in 1795. He was the eldest son of a farmer. After a partial
+education at home, he entered the University of Edinburgh, where he was
+noted for his attainments in mathematics, and for his omnivorous reading.
+After leaving the university he became a teacher in a private family, and
+began to study for the ministry, a plan which he soon gave up.
+
+His first literary effort was a _Life of Schiller_, issued in numbers of
+the _London Magazine_, in 1823-4. He turned his attention to German
+literature, in the knowledge of which he has surpassed all other
+Englishmen. He became as German as the Germans.
+
+In 1826 he married, and removed to Craigen-Puttoch, on a farm, where, in
+isolation and amid the wildness of nature, he studied, and wrote articles
+for the _Edinburgh Review_, the _Foreign Quarterly_, and some of the
+monthly magazines. His study of the German, acting upon an innate
+peculiarity, began to affect his style very sensibly, as is clearly seen
+in the singular, introverted, parenthetical mode of expression which
+pervades all his later works. His earlier writings are in ordinary
+English, but specimens of _Carlylese_ may be found in his _Sartor
+Resartus_, which at first appalled the publishers and repelled the general
+reader. Taking man's clothing as a nominal subject, he plunges into
+philosophical speculations with which clothes have nothing to do, but
+which informed the world that an original thinker and a novel and curious
+writer had appeared.
+
+In 1834 he removed to Chelsea, near London, where he has since resided. In
+1837, he published his _French Revolution_, in three volumes,--_The
+Bastile_, _The Constitution_, _The Guillotine_. It is a fiery, historical
+drama rather than a history; full of rhapsodies, startling rhetoric,
+disconnected pictures. It has been fitly called "a history in flashes of
+lightning." No one could learn from it the history of that momentous
+period; but one who has read the history elsewhere, will find great
+interest in Carlyle's wild and vivid pictures of its stormy scenes.
+
+In 1839 he wrote, in his dashing style, upon _Chartism_, and about the
+same time read a course of lectures upon _Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the
+Heroic in History_, in which he is an admirer of will and impulse, and
+palliates evil when found in combination with these.
+
+In 1845 he edited _The Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell_, and in
+his extravagant eulogies worships the hero rather than the truth.
+
+
+FREDERICK II.--In 1858 appeared the first two volumes of _The Life of
+Frederick the Great_, and since that time he has completed the work. This
+is doubtless his greatest effort. It is full of erudition, and contains
+details not to be found in any other biography of the Prussian monarch;
+but so singularly has he reasoned and commented upon his facts, that the
+enlightened reader often draws conclusions different from those which the
+author has been laboring to establish. While the history shows that, for
+genius and success, Frederick deserved to be called the Great, Carlyle
+cannot make us believe that he was not grasping, selfish, a dissembler,
+and an immoral man.
+
+The author's style has its admirers, and is a not unpleasing novelty and
+variety to lovers of plain English; but it wearies in continuance, and one
+turns to French or German with relief. The Essays upon _German
+Literature_, _Richter_, and _The Niebelungen Lied_ are of great value to
+the young student. Such tracts as _Past and Present_, and _The Latter-Day
+Pamphlets_, have caused him to be called the "Censor of the Age." He is
+too eccentric and prejudiced to deserve the name in its best meaning. If
+he fights shams, he sometimes mistakes windmills and wine-skins for
+monsters, and, what is worse, if he accost a shepherd or a milkmaid, they
+at once become _Amadis de Gaul_ and _Dulcinea del Toboso_. In spite of
+these prejudices and peculiarities, Carlyle will always be esteemed for
+his arduous labors, his honest intentions, and his boldness in expressing
+his opinions. His likes and dislikes find ready vent in his written
+judgments, and he cares for neither friend nor foe, in setting forth his
+views of men and events. On many subjects it must be said his views are
+just. There are fields in which his word must be received with authority.
+
+
+
+OTHER HISTORIANS OF THE LATEST PERIOD.
+
+
+_John Lingard_, 1771-1851: a Roman Catholic priest. He was a man of great
+probity and worth. His chief work is _A History of England_, from the
+first invasion of the Romans to the accession of William and Mary. With a
+natural leaning to his own religious side in the great political
+questions, he displays great industry in collecting material, beauty of
+diction, and honesty of purpose. His history is of particular value, in
+that it stands among the many Protestant histories as the champion of the
+Roman Catholics, and gives an opportunity to "hear the other side," which
+could not have had a more respectable advocate. In all the great
+controversies, the student of English history must consult Lingard, and
+collate his facts and opinions with those of the other historians. He
+wrote, besides, numerous theological and controversial works.
+
+_Patrick Fraser Tytler_, 1791-1849: the author of _A History of Scotland
+from Alexander III. to James VI. (James I. of England)_, and _A History of
+England during the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary_. His _Universal History_
+has been used as a text-book, and in style and construction has great
+merit, although he does not rise to the dignity of a philosophic
+historian.
+
+_Sir William Francis Patrick Napier_, 1785-1866: a distinguished soldier,
+and, like Cæsar, a historian of the war in which he took part. His
+_History of the War in the Peninsula_ stands quite alone. It is clear in
+its strategy and tactics, just to the enemy, and peculiar but effective in
+style. It was assailed by several military men, but he defended all his
+positions in bold replies to their strictures, and the work remains as
+authority upon the great struggle which he relates.
+
+_Lord Mahon_, Earl of Stanhope, born 1805: his principal work is a
+_History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles_.
+He had access to much new material, and from the Stuart papers has drawn
+much of interest with reference to that unfortunate family. His view of
+the conduct of Washington towards Major André has been shown to be quite
+untenable. He also wrote a _History of the War of Succession in Spain_.
+
+_Henry Thomas Buchle_, 1822-1862: he was the author of a _History of
+Civilization_, of which he published two volumes, the work remaining
+unfinished at the time of his death. For bold assumptions, vigorous style,
+and great reading, this work must be greatly admired; but all his theories
+are based on second principles, and Christianity, as a divine institution,
+is ignored. It startled the world into admiration, but has not retained
+the place in popular esteem which it appeared at first to make for itself.
+He is the English _Comte_, without the eccentricity of his model.
+
+_Sir Archibald Alison_, 1792-1867: he is the author of _The History of
+Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration
+of the Bourbons_, and a continuation from 1815 to 1852. It may be doubted
+whether even the most dispassionate scholar can write the history of
+contemporary events. We may be thankful for the great mass of facts he has
+collated, but his work is tinctured with his high Tory principles; his
+material is not well digested, and his style is clumsy.
+
+_Agnes Strickland_, born 1806: after several early attempts Miss
+Strickland began her great task, which she executed nobly--_The Queens of
+England_. Accurate, philosophic, anecdotal, and entertaining, this work
+ranks among the most valuable histories in English. If the style is not so
+nervous as that of masculine writers, there is a ready intuition as to the
+rights and the motives of the queens, and a great delicacy combined with
+entire lack of prudery in her treatment of their crimes. The library of
+English history would be singularly incomplete without Miss Strickland's
+work. She also wrote _The Queens of Scotland_, and _The Bachelor Kings of
+England_.
+
+_Henry Hallam_, 1778-1859: the principal works of this judicious and
+learned writer are _A View of Europe during the Middle Ages_, _The
+Constitutional History of England_, and _An Introduction to the Literature
+of Europe_ in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. With
+the skill of an advocate he combines the calmness of a judge; and he has
+been justly called "the accurate Hallam," because his facts are in all
+cases to be depended on. By his clear and illustrative treatment of dry
+subjects, he has made them interesting; and his works have done as much to
+instruct his age as those of any writer. Later researches in literature
+and constitutional history may discover more than he has presented, but he
+taught the new explorers the way, and will always be consulted with
+profit, as the representative of this varied learning during the first
+half of the nineteenth century.
+
+_James Anthony Froude_, born 1818: an Oxford graduate, Mr. Froude
+represents the Low Church party in a respectable minority. His chief work
+is _A History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of
+Elizabeth_. With great industry, and the style of a successful novelist in
+making his groups and painting his characters, he has written one of the
+most readable books published in this period. He claimed to take his
+authorities from unpublished papers, and from the statute-books, and has
+endeavored to show that Henry VIII. was by no means a bad king, and that
+Elizabeth had very few faults. His treatment of Anne Boleyn and Mary Queen
+of Scots is unjust and ignoble. Not content with publishing what has been
+written in their disfavor, with the omniscience of a romancer, he asserts
+their motives, and produces thoughts which they never uttered. A race of
+powerful critics has sprung forth in defence of Mary, and Mr. Froude's
+inaccuracies and injustice have been clearly shown. To novel readers who
+are fond of the sensational, we commend his work: to those who desire
+historic facts and philosophies, we proclaim it to be inaccurate,
+illogical, and unjust in the highest degree.
+
+_Sharon Turner_, 1768-1847: among many historical efforts, principally
+concerning England in different periods, his _History of the Anglo-Saxons_
+stands out prominently as a great work. He was an eccentric scholar, and
+an antiquarian, and he found just the place to delve in when he undertook
+that history. The style is not good--too epigrammatic and broken; but his
+research is great, his speculations bold, and his information concerning
+the numbers, manners, arts, learning, and other characters of the
+Anglo-Saxons, immense. The student of English history must read Turner for
+a knowledge of the Saxon period.
+
+_Thomas Arnold_, 1795-1832: widely known and revered as the Great
+Schoolmaster. He was head-master at Rugby, and influenced his pupils more
+than any modern English instructor. Accepting the views of Niebuhr, he
+wrote a work on _Roman History_ up to the close of the second Punic war.
+But he is more generally known by his historical lectures delivered at
+Oxford, where he was Professor of Modern History. A man of original views
+and great honesty of purpose, his influence in England has been
+strengthened by the excellent biography written by his friend Dean
+Stanley.
+
+_William Hepworth Dixon_, born 1821: he was for some time editor of _The
+Athenæum_. In historic biography he appears as a champion of men who have
+been maligned by former writers. He vindicates _William Penn_ from the
+aspersions of Lord Macaulay, and _Bacon_ from the charges of meanness and
+corruption.
+
+_Charles Merivale_, born 1808: he is a clergyman, and a late Fellow of
+Cambridge, and is favorably known by his admirable work entitled, _The
+History of the Romans under the Empire_. It forms an introduction to
+Gibbon, and displays a thorough grasp of the great epoch, varied
+scholarship, and excellent taste. His analyses of Roman literature are
+very valuable, and his pictures of social life so vivid that we seem to
+live in the times of the Cæsars as we read.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE LATER NOVELISTS AS SOCIAL REFORMERS.
+
+
+   Bulwer. Changes in Writing. Dickens's Novels. American Notes. His
+   Varied Powers. Second Visit to America. Thackeray. Vanity Fair. Henry
+   Esmond. The Newcomes. The Georges. Estimate of his Powers.
+
+
+
+The great feature in the realm of prose fiction, since the appearance of
+the works of Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett, had been the Waverley
+novels of Sir Walter Scott; but these apart, the prose romance had not
+played a brilliant part in literature until the appearance of Bulwer, who
+began, in his youth, to write novels in the old style; but who underwent
+several organic changes in modes of thought and expression, and at last
+stood confessed as the founder of a new school.
+
+
+BULWER.--Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer was a younger son of General
+Bulwer of Heydon Hall, Norfolk, England. He was born, in 1806, to wealth
+and ease, but was early and always a student. Educated at Cambridge, he
+took the Chancellor's prize for a poem on _Sculpture_. His first public
+effort was a volume of fugitive poems, called _Weeds and Wild Flowers_, of
+more promise than merit. In 1827 he published _Falkland_, and very soon
+after _Pelham, or the Adventures of a Gentleman_. The first was not
+received favorably; but _Pelham_ was at once popular, neither for the
+skill of the plot nor for its morality, but because it describes the
+character, dissipations, and good qualities of a fashionable young man,
+which are always interesting to an English public. Those novels that
+immediately followed are so alike in general features that they may be
+called the Pelham series. Of these the principal are _The Disowned_,
+_Devereux_, and _Paul Clifford_--the last of which throws a sentimental,
+rosy light upon the person and adventures of a highwayman; but it is too
+unreal to have done as much injury as the _Pirate's Own Book_, or the
+_Adventures of Jack Sheppard_. It may be safely asserted that _Paul
+Clifford_ never produced a highwayman. Of the same period is _Eugene
+Aram_, founded upon the true story of a scholar who was a murderer--a
+painful subject powerfully handled.
+
+In 1831 Bulwer entered Parliament, and seems to have at once commenced a
+new life. With his public duties he combined severe historical study; and
+the novels he now produced gave witness of his riper and better learning.
+Chief among these were _Rienzi_, and _The Last Days of Pompeii_. The
+former is based upon the history of that wonderful and unfortunate man
+who, in the fourteenth century, attempted to restore the Roman republic,
+and govern it like an ancient tribune. The latter is a noble production:
+he has caught the very spirit of the day in which Pompeii was submerged by
+the lava-flood; his characters are masterpieces of historic delineation;
+he handles like an adept the conflicting theologies, Christian, Roman, and
+Egyptian; and his natural scenes--Vesuvius in fury, the Bay of Naples in
+the lurid light, the crowded amphitheatre, and the terror which fell on
+man and beast, gladiator and lion--are _chef-d'oeuvres_ of Romantic art.
+
+
+CHANGES IN WRITING.--For a time he edited _The New Monthly Magazine_, and
+a change came over the spirit of his novels. This was first noticed in his
+_Ernest Maltravers_, and the sequel, _Alice, or the Mysteries_, which are
+marked by sentimental passion and mystic ideas. In _Night and Morning_ he
+is still mysterious: a blind fate seems to preside over his characters,
+robbing the good of its free merit and condoning the evil.
+
+In 1838 he was made a baronet. His versatile pen now turned to the drama;
+and although he produced nothing great, his _Lady of Lyons_, _Richelieu_,
+_Money_, and _The Sea Captain_ have always since been favorites upon the
+stage, subsidizing the talents of actors like Macready, Kean, and Edwin
+Booth.
+
+We must now chronicle another change, from the mystic to the supernatural,
+as displayed in _Zanoni_ and _Lucretia_, and especially in _A Strange
+Story_, which is the strangest of all. It was at the same period that he
+wrote _The Last of the Barons_, or the story of Warwick the king-maker,
+and _Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings_. Both are valuable to the
+student of English history as presenting the fruits of his own historic
+research.
+
+The last and most decided, and, we may add, most beneficial, change in
+Bulwer as a writer, was manifested in his publication of the _Caxtons_,
+the chief merit of which is as an usher of the novels which were to
+follow. Pisistratus Caxton is the modern Tristram Shandy, and becomes the
+putative editor of the later novels. First of these is _My Novel, or
+Varieties of English Life_. It is an admirable work: it inculcates a
+better morality, and a sense of Christian duty, at which Pelham would have
+laughed in scorn. Like it, but inferior to it, is _What Will He do with
+It?_ which has an interesting plot, an elevated style, and a rare human
+sympathy.
+
+Among other works, which we cannot mention, he wrote _The New Timon_, and
+_King Arthur_, in poetry, and a prose history entitled _Athens, its Rise
+and Fall_.
+
+Without the highest genius, but with uncommon scholarship and great
+versatility, Bulwer has used the materials of many kinds lying about him,
+to make marvellous mosaics, which imitate very closely the finest efforts
+of word-painting of the great geniuses of prose fiction.
+
+
+CHARLES DICKENS.--Another remarkable development of the age was the use
+of prose fiction, instead of poetry, as the vehicle of satire in the cause
+of social reform. The world consents readily to be amused, and it likes to
+be amused at the expense of others; but it soon tires of what is simply
+amusing or satirical unless some noble purpose be disclosed. The novels of
+former periods had interested by the creation of character and scenes; and
+there had been numerous satires prompted by personal pique. It is the
+glory of this latest age that it demands what shall so satirize the evil
+around it in men, in classes, in public institutions, that the evil shall
+recoil before the attack, and eventually disappear. Chief among such
+reformers are Dickens and Thackeray.
+
+Charles Dickens, the prince of modern novelists, was born at Landsport,
+Portsmouth, England, in 1812. His father was at the time a clerk in the
+Pay Department of the Navy, but afterwards became a reporter of debates in
+Parliament. After a very hard early life and an only tolerable education,
+young Dickens made some progress in the study of law; but soon undertook
+his father's business as reporter, in which he struggled as he has made
+David Copperfield to do in becoming proficient.
+
+His first systematic literary efforts were as a daily writer and reporter
+for _The True Sun_; he then contributed his sketches of life and
+character, drawn from personal observation, to the _Morning Chronicle_:
+these were an earnest of his future powers. They were collected as
+_Sketches by Boz_, in two volumes, and published in 1836.
+
+
+PICKWICK.--In 1837 he was asked by a publisher to prepare a series of
+comic sketches of cockney sportsmen, to illustrate, as well as to be
+illustrated by, etchings by Seymour. This yoking of two geniuses was a
+trammel to both; but the suicide of Seymour dissolved the connection, and
+Dickens had free play to produce the _Pickwick Papers_, by Boz, which were
+illustrated, as he proceeded, by H. K. Browne (Phiz). The work met and
+has retained an unprecedented popularity. Caricature as it was, it
+caricatured real, existent oddities; everything was probable; the humor
+was sympathetic if farcical, the assertion of humanity bold, and the
+philosophy of universal application. He had touched our common nature in
+all ranks and conditions; he had exhibited men and women of all types; he
+had exposed the tricks of politics and the absurdity of elections; the
+snobs of society were severely handled. He was the censor of law courts,
+the exposer of swindlers, the dread of cockneys, the friend of rustics and
+of the poor; and he has displayed in the principal character, that of the
+immortal Pickwick, the power of a generous, simple-hearted, easily
+deceived, but always philanthropic man, who comes through all his trials
+without bating a jot of his love for humanity and his faith in human
+nature. But the master-work of his plastic hand was Sam Weller, whose wit
+and wisdom pervaded both hemispheres, and is as potent to excite laughter
+to-day as at the first.
+
+In this work he began that assault, not so much on shams as upon
+prominent, unblushing evil, which he carried on in some form or other in
+all his later works; and which was to make him prominent among the
+reformers and benefactors of his age. He was at once famous, and his pen
+was in demand to amuse the idle and to aid the philanthropic.
+
+
+NICHOLAS NICKLEBY.--The _Pickwick Papers_ were in their intention a series
+of sketches somewhat desultory and loosely connected. His next work was
+_Nicholas Nickleby_, a complete story, in which he was entirely
+successful. Wonderful in the variety and reality of his characters, his
+powerful satire was here principally directed against the private
+boarding-schools in England, where unloved children, exiled and forgotten,
+were ill fed, scantily clothed, untaught, and beaten. Do-the-boys' Hall
+was his type, and many a school prison under that name was fearfully
+exposed and scourged. The people read with wonder and applause; these
+haunts of cruelty were scrutinized, some of them were suppressed; and
+since Nicholas Nickleby appeared no such school can live, because Squeers
+and Smike are on every lip, and punishment awaits the tyrant.
+
+Our scope will not permit a review of his numerous novels. In _Oliver
+Twist_ he denounces the parish system in its care of orphans, and throws a
+Drummond light upon the haunts of crime in London.
+
+_The Old Curiosity Shop_ exposes the mania of gaming, and seems to have
+been a device for presenting the pathetic pictures of _Little Nell_ and
+her grandfather, the wonderful and rapid learning of the marchioness, and
+the uncommon vitality of Mr. Richard Swiveller; and also the compound of
+will and hideousness in Quilp.
+
+He affected to find in the receptacle of Master Humphrey's clock, his
+_Barnaby Rudge_, a very dramatic picture of the great riot incited by Lord
+George Gordon in 1780, which, in its gathering, its fury, and its easy
+dispersion, was not unlike that of Wat Tyler. Dickens's delineations are
+eminently historic, and present a better notion of the period than the
+general history itself.
+
+
+AMERICAN NOTES.--In 1841 Dickens visited America, where he was received by
+the public with great enthusiasm, and annoyed, as the author of his
+biography says, by many individuals. On his return to England, he produced
+his _American Notes for General Circulation_. They were sarcastic,
+superficial, and depreciatory, and astonished many whose hospitalities he
+had received. But, in 1843, he published _Martin Chuzzlewit_, in which
+American peculiarities are treated with the broadest caricature. The
+_Notes_ might have been forgiven; but the novel excited a great and just
+anger in America. His statements were not true; his pictures were not
+just; his prejudice led him to malign a people who had received him with
+a foolish hospitality. He had eaten and drunk at the hands of the men whom
+he abused, and his character suffered more than that of his intended
+victims. In taking a few foibles for his caricature, he had left our
+merits untold, and had been guilty of the implication that we had none,
+although he knew that there were as elegant gentlemen, as refined ladies,
+and as cultivated society in America as the best in England. But a truce
+to reproaches; he has been fully forgiven.
+
+His next novel was _Dombey and Son_, in which he attacks British pomp and
+pride of state in the haughty merchant. It is full of character and of
+pathos. Every one knows, as if they had appeared among us, the proud and
+rigid Dombey, J. B. the sly, the unhappy Floy, the exquisite Toots, the
+inimitable Nipper, Sol Gills the simple, and Captain Cuttle with his hook
+and his notes.
+
+This was followed by _David Copperfield_, which is, to some extent, an
+autobiography describing the struggles of his youth, his experience in
+acquiring short-hand to become a reporter, and other vicissitudes of his
+own life. In it there is an attack upon the system of model prisons; but
+the chief interest is found in his wonderful portraitures of varied and
+opposite characters: the Peggottys, Steerforth, the inimitable Micawber,
+Betsy Trotwood; Agnes, the lovely and lovable; Mr. Dick, with such noble
+method in his madness; Dora, the child-wife; the simple Traddles, and
+Uriah Heep, the 'umble intriguer and villain.
+
+_Bleak House_ is a tremendous onslaught upon the Chancery system, and is
+said to have caused a modification of it; his knowledge of law gave him
+the power of an expert in detailing and dissecting its enormities.
+
+_Little Dorrit_ presents the heartlessness of society, and is besides a
+full and fearful picture of the system of imprisonment for debt. For
+variety, power, and pathos, it is one of his best efforts.
+
+_A Tale of Two Cities_ is a gloomy but vivid story of the French
+Revolution, which has by no means the popularity of his other works.
+
+In _Hard Times_, a shorter story, he has shown the evil consequences of a
+hard, statistical, cramming education, in which the sympathies are
+repressed, and the mind made a practical machine. The failure of Gradgrind
+has warned many a parent from imitating him.
+
+_Great Expectations_ failed to fulfil the promise of the name; but Joe
+Gargery is as original a character as any he had drawn.
+
+His last completed story is _Our Mutual Friend_, which, although unequal
+to his best novels, has still original characters and striking scenes. The
+rage for rising in the social scale ruins the Veneerings, and Podsnappery
+is a well-chosen name far the heartless dogmatism which rules in English
+society.
+
+Besides these splendid works, we must mention the delight he has given,
+and the good he has done in expanding individual and public charity, by
+his exquisite Christmas stories, of which _The Chimes_, _The Christmas
+Carol_, and _The Cricket on the Hearth_ are the best.
+
+His dramatic power has been fully illustrated by the ready adaptations of
+his novels to the stage; they are, indeed, in scenes, personages, costume,
+and interlocution, dramas in all except the form; and he himself was an
+admirable actor.
+
+
+HIS VARIED POWERS.--His tenderness is touching, and his pathos at once
+excites our sympathy. He does not tell us to feel or to weep, but he shows
+us scenes like those in the life of Smike, and in the sufferings and death
+of Little Nell, which so simply appeal to the heart that we are for the
+time forgetful of the wand which conjures them before us.
+
+Dickens is bold in the advocacy of truth and in denouncing error; he is
+the champion of honest poverty; he is the foe of class pretension and
+oppression; he is the friend of friendless children; the reformer of
+those whom society has made vagrants. Without many clear assertions of
+Christian doctrine, but with no negation of it, he believes in doing good
+for its own sake,--in self-denial, in the rewards which virtue gives
+herself. His faults are few and venial. His merry life smacks too much of
+the practical joke and the punch-bowl; he denounces cant in the
+self-appointed ministers of the gospel, but he is not careful to draw
+contrasted pictures of good pastors. His opinion seems to be based upon a
+human perfectibility. But for rare pictures of real life he has never been
+surpassed; and he has instructed an age, concerning itself, wisely,
+originally, and usefully. He has the simplicity of Goldsmith, and the
+truth to nature of Fielding and Smollett, without a spice of
+sentimentalism or of impurity; he has brought the art of prose fiction to
+its highest point, and he has left no worthy successor. He lived for years
+separated from his wife on the ground of incompatibility, and, during his
+later years at Gadshill, twenty miles from London, to avoid the
+dissipations and draughts upon his time in that city.
+
+
+SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA.--In 1868 he again visited America, to read
+portions of his own works. He was well received by the public; but society
+had learned its lesson on his former visit, and he was not overwhelmed
+with a hospitality he had so signally failed to appreciate. And if we had
+learned better, he had vastly improved; the genius had become a gentleman.
+His readings were a great pecuniary success, and at their close he made an
+amend which was graceful and proper; so that when he departed from our
+shores his former errors were fully condoned, and he left an admiring
+hemisphere behind him.
+
+In the glow of health, and while writing, in serial numbers, a very
+promising novel entitled _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_, he was struck by
+apoplexy, in June, 1870, and in a few hours was dead. England has hardly
+experienced a greater loss. All classes of men mourned when he was buried
+in Westminster Abbey, in the poets' corner, among illustrious writers,--a
+prose-poet, none of whom has a larger fame than he; a historian of his
+time of greater value to society than any who distinctively bear the
+title. His characters are drawn from life; his own experience is found in
+_Nicholas Nickleby_ and _David Copperfield_; _Micawber_ is a caricature of
+his own father. _Traddles_ is said to represent his friend Talfourd.
+_Skimpole_ is supposed to be an original likeness of Leigh Hunt, and
+William and Daniel Grant, of Manchester, were the originals of the
+_Brothers Cheeryble_.
+
+
+WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.--Dickens gives us real characters in the garb
+of fiction; but Thackeray uses fiction as the vehicle of social
+philosophy. Great name, second only to Dickens; he is not a story-teller,
+but an eastern Cadi administering justice in the form of apologue. Dickens
+is eminently dramatic; Thackeray has nothing dramatic, neither scene nor
+personage. He is Democritus the laughing philosopher, or Jupiter the
+thunderer; he arraigns vice, pats virtue on the shoulder, shouts for
+muscular Christianity, uncovers shams,--his personages are only names.
+Dickens describes individuals; Thackeray only classes: his men and women
+are representatives, and, with but few exceptions, they excite our sense
+of justice, but not our sympathy; the principal exception is _Colonel
+Newcome_, a real individual creation upon whom Thackeray exhausted his
+genius, and he stands alone.
+
+Thackeray was born in Calcutta, of an old Yorkshire family, in 1811. His
+father was in the civil service, and he was sent home, when a child of
+seven, for his education at the Charter House in London. Thence he was
+entered at Cambridge, but left without being graduated. An easy fortune of
+£20,000 led him to take life easily; he studied painting with somewhat of
+the desultory devotion he has ascribed to Clive Newcome, and, like that
+worthy, travelled on the Continent. Partly by unsuccessful investments,
+and partly by careless living, his means were spent, and he took up
+writing as a profession. The comic was his forte, and his early pieces,
+written under the pseudonym of Michael Angelo Fitzmarsh and George Fitz
+Boodle, are broadly humorous, but by no means in his later finished style.
+_The Great Hoggarty Diamond_ (1841) did not disclose his full powers.
+
+In 1841, _Punch_, a weekly comic illustrated sheet, was begun, and it
+opened to Thackeray a field which exactly suited him. Short scraps of
+comedy, slightly connected sketches, and the weekly tale of brick, chimed
+with his humor, and made him at once a favorite. The best of these serial
+contributions were _The Snob Papers_: they are as fine specimens of
+humorous satire as exist in the language. But these would not have made
+him famous, as they did not disclose his power as a novelist.
+
+
+VANITY FAIR.--This was done by his _Vanity Fair_, which was published, in
+monthly numbers, between 1846 and 1848. It was at once popular, and is the
+most artistic of all his works. He called it a novel without a hero, and
+he is right; the mind repudiates all aspirants for the post, and settles
+upon poor Major Sugar-Plums as the best man in it. He could not have said
+_without a heroine_, for does not the world since ring with the fame of
+Becky Sharpe, the cleverest and wickedest little woman in England? The
+virtuous reader even is sorry that Becky must come to grief, as, with a
+proper respect to morality, the novelist makes her.
+
+Never had the Vanity Fair of European society received so scathing a
+dissection; and its author was immediately recognized as one of the
+greatest living satirists and novelists. If he adheres more to the old
+school of Fielding, who was his model, in his plots and handling of the
+story, he was evidently original in his satire.
+
+In 1847, upon the completion of this work, he began his _History of
+Pendennis_, in serial numbers, in which he presents the hero, Arthur
+Pendennis, as an average youth of the day, full of faults and foibles, but
+likewise generous and repentant. Here he enlists the sympathies which one
+never feels for perfection; and here, too, he portrays female loveliness
+and endurance in his Mrs. Pendennis and Laura. Arthur is a purer Tom Jones
+and Laura a superior Sophia Western.
+
+In 1851 he gave a course of lectures, repeated in America the next year,
+on "the English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century." There was no one
+better fitted to write such a course; he felt with them and was of them.
+But if this enabled him to present them sympathetically, it also caused
+him to overrate them, and in some cases to descend to the standpoint of
+their own partial views. He is wrong in his estimate of Swift, and too
+eulogistic of Addison; but he is thoroughly English in both.
+
+
+HENRY ESMOND.--The study of history necessary to prepare these led to his
+undertaking a novel on the time of Queen Anne, entitled _The History of
+Henry Esmond, Esq., written by himself_. His appreciation of the age is
+excellent; but the book, leaving for the most part the comic field in
+which he was most at home, is drier and less read than his others; as an
+historical presentation a great success, with rare touches of pathos; as a
+work of fiction not equal to his other stories. The comic muse assumes a
+tragic, or at least a very sombre, dress. We have a portraiture of Queen
+Anne in her last days, and a sad picture of him who, to the Protestant
+succession, was the pretender, and to the hopeful Jacobites, James III.
+The character of Marlborough is given with but little of what was really
+meritorious in that great captain.
+
+His novel of _Pendennis_ gave him, after the manner of Bulwer's _Caxton_,
+an editor in _Arthur Pendennis_, who presents us _The Newcomes, Memoirs of
+a Most Respectable Family_, which he published in a serial form,
+completing it in 1855.
+
+
+THE NEWCOMES.--In that work we have the richest culture, the finest
+satire, and the rarest social philosophy. The character--the hero by
+pre-eminence--is Colonel Newcome, a nobleman of nature's creation,
+generous, simple, a yearningly affectionate father, a friend to all the
+poor and afflicted, one of the best men ever delineated by a novelist; few
+hearts are so hard as not to be touched by the story of his death in his
+final retirement at the Charter House. When, surrounded by weeping
+friends, he heard the bell, "a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face,
+and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said 'Adsum,' and fell
+back: it was the word we used at school when names were called; and, lo!
+he, whose heart was that of a little child, had answered to his name, and
+stood in the presence of the Master."
+
+
+THE GEORGES.--While he was writing _The Newcomes_, he had prepared a
+course of four lectures on the _Four Georges_, kings of England, with
+which he made his second visit to the United States, and which he
+delivered in the principal cities, to make a fund for his daughters and
+for his old age. It was entirely successful, and he afterwards read them
+in England and Scotland. They are very valuable historically, as they give
+us the truth with regard to men whose reigns were brilliant and on the
+whole prosperous, but who themselves, with the exception of the third of
+the name, were as bad men as ever wore crowns. George III. was continent
+and honest, but a maniac, and Mr. Thackeray has treated him with due
+forbearance and eulogy.
+
+In 1857, Mr. Thackeray was a candidate for Parliament from Oxford, but
+was defeated by a small majority; his conduct in the election was so
+magnanimous, that his defeat may be regarded as an advantage to his
+reputation.
+
+In the same year he began _The Virginians_, which may be considered his
+failure; it is historically a continuation of _Esmond_,--some of the
+English characters, the Esmonds in Virginia, being the same as in that
+work. But his presentation and estimate of Washington are a caricature,
+and his sketch of General James Wolfe, the hero of Quebec, is tame and
+untrue to life. His descriptions of Virginia colonial life are unlike the
+reality; but where he is on his own ground, describing English scenes and
+customs in that day, he is more successful. To paint historical characters
+is beyond the power of his pencil, and his Doctor Johnson is not the man
+whom Boswell has so successfully presented.
+
+In 1860 he originated the _Cornhill Magazine_, to which his name gave
+unusual popularity: it attained a circulation of one hundred
+thousand--unprecedented in England. In that he published _Lovel the
+Widower_, which was not much liked, and a charming reproduction of the
+Newcomes,--for it is nothing more,--entitled _The Adventures of Philip on
+His Way through the World_. Philip is a more than average Englishman, with
+a wicked father and rather a stupid wife; but "the little sister" is a
+star--there is no finer character in any of his works. _Philip_, in spite
+of its likeness to _The Newcomes_, is a delightful book.
+
+With an achieved fame, a high position, a home which he had just built at
+Kensington, a large income, he seemed to have before him as prosperous an
+old age as any one could desire, when, such are the mysteries of
+Providence, he was found dead in his room on the morning of December 24,
+1863.
+
+
+ESTIMATE OF HIS POWERS.--Thackeray's excellences are manifest: he was the
+master of idiomatic English, a great moralist and reformer, and the king
+of satire, all the weapons of which he managed with perfect skill. He had
+a rapier for aristocratic immunities of evil, arrows to transfix
+prescriptions and shams; and with snobs (we must change the figure) he
+played as a cat does with a mouse, torturing and then devouring. In the
+words of Miss Bronté, "he was the first social regenerator of the day, the
+very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the
+warped system of things." But this was his chief and glorious strength: in
+the truest sense, he was a satirist and a humorist, but not a novelist; he
+could not create character. His dramatic persons do not speak for
+themselves; he tells us what they are and do. His mission seems to have
+been to arraign and demolish evil rather than to applaud good, and thus he
+enlists our sinless anger as crusaders rather than our sympathy as
+philanthropists. In Dickens we are sometimes disposed to skip a little, in
+our ardor, to follow the plot and find the dénouement. In Thackeray we
+read every word, for it is the philosophy we want; the plot and personages
+are secondary, as indeed he considered them; for he often tells us, in the
+time of greatest depression of his hero, that it will all come out right
+at the end,--that Philip will marry Charlotte, and have a good income,
+while the poor soul is wrestling with the _res augusta domi_. Dickens and
+Thackeray seemed to draw from each other in their later works; the former
+philosophizing more in his _Little Dorrit_ and _Our Mutual Friend_, and
+the latter attempting more of the descriptive in _The Newcomes_ and
+_Philip_. Of minor pieces we may mention his _Rebecca_ and _Rowena_, and
+his _Kickleburys on the Rhine_; his _Essay on Thunder_ and _Small Beer_;
+his _Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo_, in 1846, and his
+published collection of smaller sketches called _The Roundabout Papers_.
+That Thackeray was fully conscious of the dignity of his functions may be
+gathered from his own words in _Henry Esmond_. "I would have history
+familiar rather than heroic, and think Mr. Hogarth and Mr. Fielding.
+[and, we may add, Mr. Thackeray,] will give our children a much better
+idea of the manners of that age in England than the _Court Gazette_ and
+the newspapers which we get thence." At his death he left an unfinished
+novel, entitled _Dennis Duval_. A gifted daughter, who was his kind
+amanuensis. Miss ANNE E. THACKERAY, has written several interesting tales,
+among which are _The Village on the Cliff_ and _The Story of Elizabeth_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+THE LATER WRITERS.
+
+
+   Charles Lamb. Thomas Hood. Thomas de Quincey. Other Novelists. Writers
+   on Science and Philosophy.
+
+
+CHARLES LAMB.--This distinguished writer, although not a novelist like
+Dickens and Thackeray, in the sense of having produced extensive works of
+fiction, was, like them, a humorist and a satirist, and has left
+miscellaneous works of rare merit. He was born in London, and was the son
+of a servant to one of the Benches of the Inner Temple; he was educated at
+Christ's Hospital, where he became the warm friend of Coleridge. In 1792
+he received an appointment as clerk in the South Sea House, which he
+retained until 1825, when, owing to the distinction he had obtained in the
+world of letters, he was permitted to retire with a pension of £450. He
+describes his feelings on this happy release from business, in his essay
+on _The Superannuated Man_. He was an eccentric man, a serio-comic
+character, whose sad life is singularly contrasted with his irrepressible
+humor. His sister, whom he has so tenderly described as Bridget Elia, in a
+fit of insanity killed their mother with a carving-knife, and Lamb devoted
+himself to her care.
+
+He was a poet, and left quaint and beautiful album verses and minor
+pieces. As a dramatist, he is known by his tragedy _John Woodvil_, and the
+farce _Mr. H----_, neither of which was a success. But he has given us in
+his _Specimens of Old English Dramatists_ the result of great reading and
+rare criticism.
+
+But it is chiefly as a writer of essays and short stories that he is
+distinguished. The _Essays of Elia_, in their vein, mark an era in the
+literature; they are light, racy, seemingly dashed off, but really full of
+his reading of the older English authors. Indeed, he is so quaint in
+thought and style, that he seems an anachronism--a writer of the
+Elizabethan period returned to life in this century. He bubbles over with
+puns, jests, and repartees; and although not popular in the sense of
+reaching the multitude, he is the friend and companion of congenial
+readers. Among his essays, we may mention the stories of _Rosamund Gray_
+and _Old Blind Margaret_. _Dream Children_ and _The Child Angel_ are those
+of greatest power; but every one he has written is charming. His sly hits
+at existing abuses are designed to laugh them away. He was the favorite of
+his literary circle, and as a talker had no superior. After a life of
+care, not unmingled with pleasures, he died in 1834. Lamb's letters are
+racy, witty, idiomatic, and unlabored; and, as most of them are to
+colleagues in literature and on subjects of social and literary interest,
+they are important aids in studying the history of his period.
+
+
+THOMAS HOOD.--The greatest humorist, the best punster, and the ablest
+satirist of his age, Hood attacked the social evils around him with such
+skill and power that he stands forth as a philanthropist. He was born in
+London in 1798, and, after a limited education, he began to learn the art
+of engraving; but his pen was more powerful than his burin. He soon began
+to contribute to the _London Magazine_ his _Whims and Oddities_; and, in
+irregular verse, satirized the would-be great men of the time, and the
+eccentric legislation they proposed in Parliament. These short poems are
+full of puns and happy _jeux de mots_, and had a decided effect in
+frustrating the foolish plans. After this he published _National Tales_,
+in the same comic vein; but also produced his exquisite serious pieces,
+_The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies_, _Hero and Leander_, and others, all
+of which are striking and tasteful. In 1838 he commenced _The Comic
+Annual_, which appeared for several years, brimful of mirth and fun. He
+was editor of various magazines,--_The New Monthly_, and _Hood's
+Magazine_. For _Punch_ he wrote _The Song of the Shirt_, and _The Bridge
+of Sighs_. No one can compute the good done by both; the hearts touched;
+the pockets opened. The sewing women were better paid, more cared for,
+elevated in the social scale; and many of them saved from that fate which
+is so touchingly chronicled in _The Bridge of Sighs_. Hood was a true poet
+and a great poet. _Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg_ is satire, story,
+epic, comedy, in one.
+
+If he owed to Smollett's _Humphrey Clinker_ the form of his _Up the
+Rhine_, he has equalled Smollett in the narrative, in the variety of
+character, and in the admirable cacography of Martha Penny. His
+caricatures fasten facts in the memory, and every tourist up the Rhine
+recognizes Hood's personages wherever he lands.
+
+After a life of ill-health and pecuniary struggle, Hood died, greatly
+lamented, on the 3d of May, 1845, and left no successor to wield his
+subtle pen.
+
+
+THOMAS DE QUINCEY (1785-1859).--This singular author, and very learned and
+original thinker, owes much of his reputation to the evil habit of
+opium-eating, which affected his personal life and authorship. His most
+popular work is _The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_, which
+interests the reader by its curious pictures of the abnormal conditions in
+which he lived and wrote. He abandoned this noxious practice in the year
+1820. He produced much which he did not publish; and his writings all
+contain a suggestion of strength and scholarship, a surplus beyond what he
+has given to the world. There are numerous essays and narratives, among
+which his paper entitled _Murder considered as One of the Fine Arts_ is
+especially notable. His prose is considered a model of good English.
+
+The death of Dickens and Thackeray left England without a novelist of
+equal fame and power, but with a host of scholarly and respectable pens,
+whose productions delight the popular taste, and who are still in the tide
+of busy authorship.
+
+Our purpose is already accomplished, and we might rest without the
+proceeding beyond the middle of the century; but it will be proper to make
+brief mention of those, some of whom have already departed, but many of
+whom still remain, and are producing new works, who best illustrate the
+historical value and teachings of English literature, and whose writings
+will be read in the future for their delineations of the habits and
+conditions of the present period.
+
+
+
+OTHER NOVELISTS.
+
+
+_Captain Frederick Marryat_, of the Royal Navy, 1792-1848: in his sea
+novels depicts naval life with rare fidelity, and with, a roystering
+joviality which makes them extremely entertaining. The principal of these
+are _Frank Mildmay_, _Newton Forster_, _Peter Simple_, and _Midshipman
+Easy_. His works constitute a truthful portrait of the British Navy in the
+beginning of the eighteenth century, and have influenced many
+high-spirited youths to choose a maritime profession.
+
+_George P. R. James_, 1806-1860: is the author of nearly two hundred
+novels, chiefly historical, which have been, in their day, popular. It was
+soon found, however, that he repeated himself, and the sameness of
+handling began to tire his readers. His "two travellers," with whom he
+opens his stories, have become proverbially ridiculous. But he has
+depicted scenes in modern history with skill, and especially in French
+history. His _Richelieu_ is a favorite; and in his _Life of Charlemagne_
+he has brought together the principal events in the career of that
+distinguished monarch with logical force and historical accuracy.
+
+_Benjamin d'Israeli_, born 1805: is far more famous as a persevering,
+acute, and able statesman than as a novelist. In proof of this, having
+surmounted unusual difficulties, he has been twice Chancellor of the
+Exchequer and once Prime Minister of England. Among his earlier novels,
+which are pictures of existing society, are: _Vivian Gray_, _Contarini
+Fleming_, _Coningsby_, and _Henrietta Temple_. In _The Wondrous Tale of
+Alroy_ he has described the career of that singular claimant to the
+Jewish Messiahship. _Lothair_, which was published in 1869, is the story
+of a young nobleman who was almost enticed to enter the Roman Catholic
+Church. The descriptions of society are either very much overwrought or
+ironical; but his knowledge of State craft and Church craft renders the
+book of great value to the history of religious polemics. His father,
+_Isaac d'Israeli_, is favorably known as the author of _The Curiosities of
+Literature_, _The Amenities of Literature_, and _The Quarrels of Authors_.
+
+_Charles Lever_, 1806-1872: he was born in Dublin, and, after a partial
+University career, studied medicine. He has embodied his experience of
+military life in several striking but exaggerated works,--among these are:
+_The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer_, _Charles O'Malley_, and _Jack
+Hinton_. He excels in humor and in picturesque battle-scenes, and he has
+painted the age in caricature. Of its kind, _Charles O'Malley_ stands
+pre-eminent: the variety of character is great; all classes of military
+men figure in the scenes, from the Duke of Wellington to the inimitable
+Mickey Free. He was for some time editor of the _Dublin University
+Magazine_, and has written numerous other novels, among which are: _Roland
+Cashel_, _The Knight of Gwynne_, and _The Dodd Family Abroad_; and, last
+of all, _Lord Kilgobbin_.
+
+_Charles Kingsley_, born 1809: this accomplished clergyman, who is a canon
+of Chester, is among the most popular English writers,--a poet, a
+novelist, and a philosopher. He was first favorably known by a poetical
+drama on the story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, entitled _The Saint's
+Tragedy_. Among his other works are: _Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet_;
+_Hypatia, the Story of a Virgin Martyr_; _Andromeda; Westward Ho! or the
+Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh_; _Two Years Ago_; and _Hereward, the Last
+of the English_. This last is a very vivid historical picture of the way
+in which the man of the fens, under the lead of this powerful outlaw, held
+out against William the Conqueror. The busy pen of Kingsley has produced
+numerous lectures, poems, reviews, essays, and some plain and useful
+sermons. He is now Professor of Modern History at Cambridge.
+
+_Charlotte Bronté_, 1816-1855: if of an earlier period, this gifted woman
+would demand a far fuller mention and a more critical notice than can be
+with justice given of a contemporary. She certainly wrote from the depths
+of her own consciousness. _Jane Eyre_, her first great work, was received
+with intense interest, and was variously criticized. The daughter of a
+poor clergyman at Haworth, and afterwards a teacher in a school at
+Brussels, with little knowledge of the world, she produced a powerful book
+containing much curious philosophy, and took rank at once among the first
+novelists of the age. Her other works, if not equal to _Jane Eyre_, are
+still of great merit, and deal profoundly with the springs of human
+action. They are: _The Professor_, _Villette_, and _Shirley_. Her
+characters are portraits of the men and women around her, painted from
+life; and she speaks boldly of motives and customs which other novelists
+have touched very delicately. She had two gifted sisters, who were also
+successful novelists; but who died young. Miss Bronté died a short time
+after her marriage to Mr. Nichol, her father's curate. _Mrs. Elizabeth
+Gaskell_, her near friend, and the author of a successful novel called
+_Mary Barton_, has written an interesting biography of Mrs. Nichol.
+
+_George Eliot_, born 1820: under this pseudonym, Miss Evans has written
+several works of great interest. Among these are: _Adam Bede_; _The Mill
+on the Floss_; _Romola_, an Italian story; _Felix Holt_; and _Silas
+Marner_. Simple, and yet eminently dramatic in scene, character, and
+interlocution, George Eliot has painted pictures from middle and common
+life, and is thus the exponent of a large humanity. She is now the wife of
+the popular author, G. H. Lewes.
+
+_Dinah Maria Muloch_ (Mrs. Craik), born 1826: a versatile writer. She is
+best known by her novels entitled _John Halifax_ and _The Ogilvies_.
+
+_Wilkie Collins_, born 1824: he is the son of a landscape-painter, and is
+renowned for his curious and well-concealed plots, phantom-like
+characters, and striking effects. Among his novels the best known are:
+_Antonina_, _The Dead Secret_, _The Woman in White_, _No Name_,
+_Armadale_, _The Moonstone_, and _Man and Wife_. There is a sameness in
+these works; and yet it is evident that the author has put his invention
+on the rack to create new intrigues, and to mystify his reader from the
+beginning to the end of each story.
+
+_Charles Reade_, born 1814: he is one of the most prolific writers of the
+day, as well as one of the most readable in all that he has written. He
+draws many impassioned scenes, and is as sensuous in literature as Rubens
+in art. Among his principal works are: _White Lies_, _Love Me Little, Love
+Me Long_; _The Cloister and The Hearth_; _Hard Cash_, and _Griffith
+Gaunt_, which convey little, if any, practical instruction. His _Never Too
+Late to Mend_ is of great value in displaying the abuses of the prison
+system in England; and his _Put Yourself in His Place_ is a very powerful
+attack upon the Trades' Unions. A singular epigrammatic style keeps up the
+interest apart from the story.
+
+_Mary Russell Mitford_, 1786-1855: she was a poet and a dramatist, but is
+chiefly known by her stories. In the collection called _Our Village_, she
+has presented beautiful and simple pictures of English country life which
+are at once touching and instructive.
+
+_Charlotte Mary Yonge_, born 1823: among the many interesting works of
+this author, _The Heir of Redclyff_ is the first and best. This was
+followed by _Daisy Chain_, _Heartsease_, _The Clever Woman of the Family_,
+and numerous other works of romance and of history,--all of which are
+valuable for their high tone of moral instruction and social manners.
+
+_Anthony Trollope_, born 1815: he and his brother, Thomas Adolphus
+Trollope, are sons of that Mrs. Frances Trollope who abused our country in
+her work entitled _The Domestic Manners of the Americans_, in terms that
+were distasteful even to English critics. Anthony Trollope is a successful
+writer of society-novels, which, without being of the highest order, are
+faithful in their portraitures. Among those which have been very popular
+are: _Barchester Towers_, _Framley Parsonage_, _Doctor Thorne_, and _Orley
+Farm_, He travelled in the United States, and has published a work of
+discernment entitled _North America_. His brother Thomas is best known by
+his _History of Florence to the Fall of the Republic_.
+
+
+_Thomas Hughes_, born 1823: the popular author of _Tom Brown's School-Days
+at Rugby_, and _Tom Brown at Oxford_,--books which display the workings of
+these institutions, and set up a standard for English youth. The first is
+the best, and has made him famous.
+
+
+
+WRITERS ON SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.
+
+
+Although these do not come strictly within the scope of English
+literature, they are so connected with it in the composition of general
+culture, and give such a complexion to the age, that it is well to mention
+the principal names.
+
+_Sir William Hamilton_, 1788-1856: for twenty years Professor of Logic and
+Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. His voluminous lectures on
+both these subjects were edited, after his death, by Mansel and Veitch,
+and have been since of the highest authority.
+
+_William Whewell_, 1795-1866: for some time Master of Trinity College,
+Cambridge. He has written learnedly on many subjects: his most valuable
+works are: _A History of the Inductive Sciences_, _The Elements of
+Morality_, and _The Plurality of Worlds_. Of Whewell it has been pithily
+said, that "science was his forte, and omniscience his foible."
+
+_Richard Whately, D.D._, 1787-1863: he was appointed in 1831 Archbishop
+of Dublin and Kildare, in Ireland. His chief works are: _Elements of
+Logic_, _Elements of Rhetoric_, and _Lectures on Political Economy_. He
+gave a new impetus to the study of Logic and Rhetoric, and presented the
+formal logic of Aristotle anew to the world; thus marking a distinct epoch
+in the history of that much controverted science.
+
+_John Ruskin_, born 1819: he ranks among the most original critics in art;
+but is eccentric in his opinions. His powers were first displayed in his
+_Modern Painters_. In his _Seven Lamps of Architecture_ he has laid down
+the great fundamental principles of that art, among the forms of which the
+Gothic claims the pre-eminence. These are further carried out in _The
+Stones of Venice_. He is a transcendentalist and a pre-Raphaelite, and
+exceedingly dogmatic in stating his views. His descriptive powers are very
+great.
+
+_Hugh Miller_, 1802-1856: an uneducated mechanic, he was a brilliant
+genius and an observant philosopher. His best works are: _The Old Red
+Sandstone_, _Footprints of the Creator_, and _The Testimonies of the
+Rocks_. He shot himself in a fit of insanity.
+
+_John Stuart Mill_, born 1806: the son of James Mill, the historian of
+India. He was carefully educated, and has written on many subjects. He is
+best known by his _System of Logic_; his work on _Political Economy_; and
+his _Treatise on Liberty_. Each of these topics being questions of
+controversy, Mr. Mill states his views strongly in respect to opposing
+systems, and is very clear in the expression of his own dogmas.
+
+_Thomas Chalmers, D.D._, 1780-1847: this distinguished divine won his
+greatest reputation as an eloquent preacher. He was for some time
+Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of St. Andrew's, and wrote
+on _Natural Theology_, _The Evidences of Christianity_, and some lectures
+on _Astronomy_. But all his works are glowing sermons rather than
+philosophical treatises.
+
+_Richard Chevenix Trench, D.D._, born 1807: the present Archbishop of
+Dublin. He has written numerous theological works of popular value, among
+which are _Notes on the Parables, and on Miracles_. He has also published
+two series of charming lectures on English philology, entitled _The Study
+of Words_ and _English Past and Present_. They are suggestive and
+discursive rather than philosophical, but have incited many persons to
+pursue this delightful study.
+
+_Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D._, born 1815: Dean of Westminster. He was
+first known by his excellent biography of Dr. Arnold of Rugby; but has
+since enriched biblical literature by his lectures on _The Eastern Church_
+and on _The Jewish Church_. He accompanied the Prince of Wales on his
+visit to Palestine, and was not only eager in collecting statistics, but
+has reproduced them with poetic power.
+
+_Nicholas Wiseman, D.D._, 1802-1865: the head of the Roman Catholic Church
+in England. Cardinal Wiseman has written much on theological and
+ecclesiastical questions; but he is best known to the literary world by
+his able lectures on _The Connection between Science and Revealed
+Religion_, which are additionally valuable because they have no sectarian
+character.
+
+_Charles Darwin_, born 1809: although he began his career at an early age,
+his principal works are so immediately of the present time, and his
+speculations are so involved in serious controversies, that they are not
+within the scope of this work. His principal works are: _The Origin of
+Species by means of Natural Selection_, and _The Descent of Man_. His
+facts are curious and very carefully selected; but his conclusions have
+been severely criticized.
+
+_Frederick Max Müller_, born 1823: a German by birth. He is a professional
+Oxford, and has done more to popularize the Science of Language than any
+other writer. He has written largely on Oriental linguistics, and has
+given two courses of lectures on _The Science of Language_, which have
+been published, and are used as text-books. His _Chips from a German
+Workshop_ is a charming book, containing his miscellaneous articles in
+reviews and magazines.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+ENGLISH JOURNALISM.
+
+
+   Roman News Letters. The Gazette. The Civil War. Later Divisions. The
+   Reviews. The Monthlies. The Dailies. The London Times. Other
+   Newspapers.
+
+
+ROMAN NEWS LETTERS.--English serials and periodicals, from the very time
+of their origin, display, in a remarkable manner, the progress both of
+English literature and of English history, and form the most striking
+illustration that the literature interprets the history. In using the
+caption, "journalism," we include all forms of periodical
+literature--reviews, magazines, weekly and daily papers. The word
+journalism is, in respect to many of them, a misnomer, etymologically
+considered: it is a French corruption of _diurnal_, which, from the Latin
+_dies_, should mean a daily paper; but it is now generally used to include
+all periodicals. The origin of newspapers is quite curious, and antedates
+the invention of printing. The _acta diurna_, or journals of public
+events, were the daily manuscript reports of the Roman Government during
+the later commonwealth. In these, among other matters of public interest,
+every birth, marriage, and divorce was entered. As an illustration of the
+character of these brief entries, we have the satire of Petronius, which
+he puts in the mouth of the freed man Trimalchio: "The seventh of the
+Kalends of Sextilis, on the estate at Cumæ, were born thirty boys, twenty
+girls; were carried from the floor to the barn, 500,000 bushels of wheat;
+were broke 500 oxen. The same day the slave Mithridates was crucified for
+blasphemy against the Emperor's genius; the same day was placed in the
+chest the sum of ten millions sesterces, which could not be put out to
+use." Similar in character were the _Acta Urbana_, or city register, the
+_Acta Publica_, and the _Acta Senatus_, whose names indicate their
+contents. They were brief, almost tabular, and not infrequently
+sensational.
+
+
+THE GAZETTE.--After the downfall of Rome, and during the Dark Ages, there
+are few traces of journalism. When Venice was still in her palmy days, in
+1563, during a war with the Turks, printed bulletins were issued from time
+to time, the price for reading which was a coin of about three farthings'
+value called a _gazetta_; and so the paper soon came to be called a
+gazette. Old files, to the amount of thirty volumes, of great historical
+value, may be found in the Magliabecchian Library at Florence.
+
+Next in order, we find in France _Affiches_, or _placards_, which were
+soon succeeded by regular sheets of advertisement, exhibited at certain
+offices.
+
+As early as the time of the intended invasion of England by the Spanish
+Armada, about the year 1588, we find an account of its defeat and
+dispersion in the _Mercurie_, issued by Queen Elizabeth's own printer. In
+another number is the news of a plot for killing the queen, and a
+statement that instruments of torture were on board the vessels, to set up
+the Inquisition in London. Whether true or not, the newspaper said it; and
+the English people believed it implicitly.
+
+About 1600, with the awakening spirit of the people, there began to appear
+periodical papers containing specifically news from Germany, from Italy,
+&c. And during the Thirty Years' War there was issued a weekly paper
+called _The Certain News of the Present Week_. Although the word _news_ is
+significant enough, many persons considered it as made up of the initial
+letters representing the cardinal points of the compass, _N.E.W.S._, from
+which the curious people looked for satisfying intelligence.
+
+
+THE CIVIL WAR.--The progress of English journalism received a great
+additional impetus when the civil war broke out between Charles I. and his
+Parliament, in 1642. To meet the demands of both parties for intelligence,
+numbers of small sheets were issued: _Truths from York_ told of the rising
+in the king's favor there. There were: _Tidings from Ireland_, _News from
+Hull_, telling of the siege of that place in 1643; _The Dutch Spy_; _The
+Parliament Kite_; _The Secret Owl_; _The Scot's Dove_, with the
+olive-branch. Then flourished the _Weekly Discoverer_, and _The Weekly
+Discoverer Stripped Naked_. But these were only bare and partial
+statements, which excited rancor without conveying intelligence. "Had
+there been better vehicles for the expression of public opinion," says the
+author of the Student's history of England, "the Stuarts might have been
+saved from some of those schemes which proved so fatal to themselves."
+
+In the session of Parliament held in 1695, there occurred a revolution of
+great moment. There had been an act, enforced for a limited time, to
+restrain unlicensed printing, and under it censors had been appointed;
+but, in this year, the Parliament refused to re-enact or continue it, and
+thus the press found itself comparatively free.
+
+We have already referred to the powerful influence of the essayists in
+_The Tatler_, _Spectator_, _Guardian_, and _Rambler_, which may be called
+the real origin of the present English press.
+
+
+LATER DIVISIONS.--Coming down to the close of the eighteenth century, we
+find the following division of English periodical literature:
+_Quarterlies_, usually called _Reviews_; _Monthlies_, generally entitled
+_Magazines_; _Weeklies_, containing digests of news; and _Dailies_, in
+which are found the intelligence and facts of the present moment; and in
+this order, too, were the intellectual strength and learning of the time
+at first employed. The _Quarterlies_ contained the articles of the great
+men--the acknowledged critics in politics, literature, and art; the
+_Magazines_, a current literature of poetry and fiction; the _Weeklies_
+and _Dailies_, reporters' facts and statistics; the latter requiring
+activity rather than cleverness, and beginning to be a vehicle for
+extensive advertisements.
+
+This general division has been since maintained; but if the order has not
+been reversed, there can be no doubt that the great dailies have steadily
+risen; on most questions of popular interest in all departments, long and
+carefully written articles in the dailies, from distinguished pens,
+anticipate the quarterlies, or force them to seek new grounds and forms of
+presentation after forestalling their critical opinions. Not many years
+ago, the quarterlies subsidized the best talent; now the men of that class
+write for _The Times_, _Standard_, _Telegraph_, &c.
+
+Let us look, in the order we have mentioned, at some representatives of
+the press in its various forms.
+
+Each of the principal reviews represents a political party, and at the
+same time, in most cases, a religious denomination; and they owe much of
+their interest to the controversial spirit thus engendered.
+
+
+REVIEWS.--First among these, in point of origin, is the _Edinburgh
+Review_, which was produced by the joint efforts of several young, and
+comparatively unknown, gentlemen, among whom were Francis (afterwards)
+Lord Jeffrey, Lord Murray, Mr. (since Lord) Brougham, and the Rev. Sydney
+Smith. The latter gentleman was appointed first editor, and remained long
+enough in Edinburgh to edit the first number. Thereafter Jeffrey conducted
+it. The men were clever, witty, studious, fearless; and the Review was not
+only from the first a success, but its fiat was looked for by authors with
+fear and trembling. It became a vehicle for the efforts of the best minds.
+Macaulay wrote for it those brilliant miscellanies which at once
+established his fame, and gave it much of its popularity. In it Jeffrey
+attacked the Lake poetry, and incurred the hatred of Byron. Its
+establishment, in 1803, was an era in the world of English letters. The
+papers were not merely reviews, but monographs on interesting subjects--a
+new anatomy of history; it was in a general way an exponent, but quite an
+independent one, of the Whig party, or those who would liberally construe
+the Constitution,--putting Churchmen and Dissenters on the same platform;
+although published in Edinburgh, it was neither Scotch nor Presbyterian.
+It attacked ancient prescriptions and customs; agitated questions long
+considered settled both of present custom and former history; and thus
+imitated the champion knights who challenged all comers, and sustained no
+defeats.
+
+Occupying opposite ground to this is the great English review called the
+_London Quarterly_: it was established in 1809; is an uncompromising
+Tory,--entirely conservative as to monarchy, aristocracy, and Established
+Church. Its first editor was William Gifford; but it attained its best
+celebrity under the charge of John Gibson Lockhart, the son-in-law of Sir
+Walter Scott, a man of singular critical power. Among its distinguished
+contributors were Southey, Scott, Canning, Croker, and Wordsworth.
+
+The _North British Review_, which never attained the celebrity of either
+of these, and which has at length, in 1871, been discontinued, occupied
+strong Scottish and Presbyterian ground, and had its respectable
+supporters.
+
+But besides the parties mentioned, there is a floating one, growing by
+slow but sure accretion, know as the _Radical_. It includes men of many
+stamps, mainly utilitarian,--radical in politics, innovators, radical in
+religion, destructive as to systems of science and arts, a learned and
+inquisitive class,--rational, transcendental, and intensely dogmatic. As a
+vent for this varied party, the _Westminster Review_ was founded by Mr
+Bentham, in 1824. Its articles are always well written, and sometimes
+dangerous, according to our orthodox notions. It is supported by such
+writers as Mill, Bowring, and Buckle.
+
+Besides these there are numerous quarterlies of more or less limited
+scope, as in science or art, theology or law; such as _The Eclectic, The
+Christian Observer, The Dublin_, and many others.
+
+
+THE MONTHLIES.--Passing from the reviews to the monthlies, we find the
+range and number of these far greater, and the matter lighter. The first
+great representative of the modern series, and one that has kept its issue
+up to the present day, is Cave's _Gentleman's Magazine_, which commenced
+its career in 1831, and has been continued, after Cave's death, by Henry &
+Nichols, who wrote under the pseudonym of _Sylvanus Urban_. It is a strong
+link between past and present. Johnson sent his _queries_ to it while
+preparing his dictionary, and at the present day it is the favorite
+vehicle of antiquarians and historians. Passing by others, we find
+Blackwood's _Edinburgh Magazine_, first published in 1817. Originally a
+strong and bitter conservative, it kept up its popularity by its fine
+stories and poems. Among the most notable papers in Blackwood are the
+_Noctes Ambrosianæ_, in which Professor Wilson, under the pseudonym of
+_Christopher North_, took the greater part.
+
+Most of the magazines had little or no political proclivity, but were
+chiefly literary. Among them are _Fraser's_, begun in 1830, and the
+_Dublin University_, in 1832.
+
+A charming light literature was presented by the _New Monthly_: in
+politics it was a sort of set-off to Blackwood: in it Captain Marryat
+wrote his famous sea stories; and among other contributors are the ever
+welcome names of Hood, Lytton, and Campbell. The _Penny Magazine_, of
+Knight, was issued from 1832 to 1845.
+
+Quite a new era dawned upon the magazine world in the establishment of
+several new ones, under the auspices of famous authors; among which we
+mention _The Cornhill_, edited by Thackeray, in 1859, with unprecedented
+success, until his tender heart compelled him to resign it; _Temple Bar_,
+by Sala, in 1860, is also very successful.
+
+In 1850 Dickens began the issue of _Household Words_, and in 1859 this was
+merged into _All the Year Round_, which owed its great popularity to the
+prestige of the same great writer.
+
+Besides these, devoted to literature and criticism, there are also many
+monthlies issued in behalf of special branches of knowledge, art, and
+science, which we have not space to refer to.
+
+Descending in the order mentioned, we come to the weeklies, which, besides
+containing summaries of daily intelligence, also share the magazine field
+in brief descriptive articles, short stories, and occasional poems.
+
+A number of these are illustrated journals, and are of great value in
+giving us pictorial representations of the great events and scenes as they
+pass, with portraits of men who have become suddenly famous by some
+special act or appointment. Their value cannot be too highly appreciated;
+they supply to the mind, through the eye, what the best descriptions in
+letter-press could not give; and in them satire uses comic elements with
+wonderful effect. Among the illustrated weeklies, the _Illustrated London
+News_ has long held a high place; and within a short period _The Graphic_
+has exhibited splendid pictures of men and things of timely interest. Nor
+must we forget to mention _Punch_, which has been the grand jester of the
+realm since its origin. The best humorous and witty talent of England has
+found a vent in its pages, and sometimes its pathos has been productive of
+reform. Thackeray, Cuthbert Bede, Mark Lemon, Hood, have amused us in its
+pages, and the clever pencil of Leech has made a series of etching which
+will never grow tiresome. To it Thackeray contributed his _Snob Papers_,
+and Hood _The Song of the Shirt_.
+
+
+THE DAILIES.--But the great characteristic of the age is the daily
+newspaper, so common a blessing that we cease to marvel at it, and yet
+marvellous as it is common. It is the product of quick intelligence, of
+great energy, of concurrent and systematized labor, and, in order to
+fulfil its mission, it seems to subsidize all arts and invade all
+subjects--steam, mechanics, photography, phonography, and electricity. The
+news which it prints and scatters comes to it on the telegraph; long
+orations are phonographically reported; the very latest mechanical skill
+is used in its printing; and the world is laid at our feet as we sit at
+the breakfast-table and read its columns.
+
+I shall not go back to the origin of printing, to show the great progress
+that has been made in the art from that time to the present; nor shall I
+attempt to explain the present process, which one visit to a press-room
+would do far better than any description; but I simply refer to the fact
+that fifty years ago newspapers were still printed with the hand-press,
+giving 250 impressions per hour--no cylinder, no flying Hoe, (that was
+patented only in 1847.) Now, the ten-cylinder Hoe, steam driven, works off
+20,000 sheets in an hour, and more, as the stereotyper may multiply the
+forms. What an emblem of art-progress is this! Fifty years ago
+mail-coaches carried them away. Now, steamers and locomotives fly with
+them all over the world, and only enlarge and expand the story, the great
+facts of which have been already sent in outline by telegraph.
+
+Nor is it possible to overrate the value of a good daily paper: as the
+body is strengthened by daily food, so are we built up mentally and
+spiritually for the busy age in which we live by the world of intelligence
+contained in the daily journal. A great book and a good one is offered for
+the reading of many who have no time to read others, and a great culture
+in morals, religion, politics, is thus induced. Of course it would be
+impossible to mention all the English dailies. Among them _The London
+Times_ is pre-eminent, and stands highest in the opinion of the
+ministerial party, which fears and uses it.
+
+There was a time when the press was greatly trammelled in England, and
+license of expression was easily charged with constructive treason; but at
+present it is remarkably free, and the great, the government, and existing
+abuses, receive no soft treatment at its hands.
+
+_The London Times_ was started by John Walter, a printer, in 1788, there
+having been for three years before a paper called the _London Daily
+Universal Register_. In 1803 his son, John, went into partnership, when
+the circulation was but 1,000. Within ten years it was 5,000. In 1814,
+cleverly concealing the purpose from his workmen, he printed the first
+sheet ever printed by steam, on Koenig's press. The paper passed, at his
+death, into the hands of his son, the third John, who is a scholar,
+educated at Eton and Oxford, like his father a member of Parliament, and
+who has lately been raised to the peerage. The _Times_ is so influential
+that it may well be called a third estate in the realm: its writers are
+men of merit and distinction; its correspondence secures the best foreign
+intelligence; and its travelling agents, like Russell and others, are the
+true historians of a war. English journalism, it is manifest, is eminently
+historical. The files of English newspapers are the best history of the
+period, and will, by their facts and comments, hereafter confront specious
+and false historians. Another thing to be observed is the impersonality of
+the British press, not only in the fact that names are withheld, but that
+the articles betray no authorship; that, in short, the paper does not
+appear as the glorification of one man or set of men, but like an
+unprejudiced relator, censor, and judge.
+
+Of the principal London papers, the _Morning Post_ (Liberal, but not
+Radical,) was begun in 1772. The _Globe_ (at first Liberal, but within a
+short time Tory), in 1802. The _Standard_ (Conservative), in 1827. The
+_Daily News_ (high-class Liberal), in 1846. The _News_ announced itself as
+pledged to _Principles of Progress and Improvement_. _The Daily Telegraph_
+was started in 1855, and claims the largest circulation. It is also a
+_Liberal_ paper.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX OF AUTHORS
+
+
+
+Addison, Joseph, 258.
+Akenside, Mark, 351.
+Alcuin, 40.
+Aldhelm, Abbot, 40.
+Alfred the Great, 42.
+Alfric, surnamed Germanicus, 40.
+Alison, Sir Archibald, 447.
+Alured of Rievaux, 49.
+Arbuthnot, John, 252.
+Arnold, Matthew, 438.
+Arnold, Thomas, 448.
+Ascham, Roger, 103.
+Ashmole, Elias, 232.
+Aubrey, John, 232.
+Austen, Jane, 411.
+
+Bacon, Francis, 156.
+Bacon, Roger, 59.
+Bailey, Philip James, 437.
+Baillie, Joanna, 368.
+Barbauld, Anne Letitia, 359.
+Barbour, John, 89.
+Barclay, Robert, 228.
+Barham, Richard Harris, 437.
+Barklay, Alexander, 102.
+Barrow, Isaac, 230.
+Baxter, Richard, 226.
+Beattie, James, 356.
+Beaumont, Francis, 154.
+Beckford, William, 412.
+Bede the Venerable, 37.
+Benoit, 52.
+Berkeley, George, 278.
+Blair, Hugh, 369.
+Blind Harry, 89.
+Bolingbroke, Viscount, (Henry St. John,) 278.
+Boswell, James, 321.
+Browne, Sir Thomas, 225.
+Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 432.
+Browning, Robert, 434.
+Buchanan, George, 126.
+Buckle, Henry Thomas, 447.
+Bulwer, Edward George Earle Lytton, 450.
+Bunyan, John, 228.
+Burke, Edmund, 369.
+Burnet, Gilbert, 231.
+Burney, Frances, 368.
+Burns, Robert, 397.
+Burton, Robert, 125.
+Butler, Samuel, 198.
+Byron, Rt. Hon. George Gordon, 384
+
+Caedmon, 34.
+Cambrensis, Giraldus, 49.
+Camden, William, 126.
+Campbell, Thomas, 401.
+Carlyle, Thomas, 444.
+Cavendish, George, 102.
+Caxton, William, 92.
+Chapman, George, 127.
+Chatterton, Thomas, 340.
+Chaucer, Geoffrey, 60.
+Chillingworth, William, 222.
+Coleridge, Hartley, 427.
+Coleridge, Henry Nelson, 427.
+Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 424.
+Collier, John Payne, 153.
+Collins, William, 357.
+Colman, George, 366.
+Colman, George, (The Younger,) 366.
+Congreve, William, 236.
+Cornwall, Barry, 436.
+Colton, Charles, 205.
+Coverdale, Miles, 170.
+Cowley, Abraham, 195.
+Cowper, William, 353.
+Crabbe, George, 400.
+Cumberland, Richard, 363.
+Cunningham, Allan, 412.
+
+Daniel, Samuel, 127.
+Davenant, Sir William, 205.
+Davies, Sir John, 127.
+Defoe, Daniel, 282.
+Dekker, Thomas, 154.
+De Quincey, Thomas, 468.
+Dickens, Charles, 452.
+Dixon, William Hepworth, 449.
+Donne, John, 127.
+Drayton, Michael, 127.
+Dryden, John, 207.
+Dunbar, William, 90.
+Dunstan, (called Saint,) 41.
+
+Eadmer, 49.
+Edgeworth, Maria, 410.
+Erigena, John Scotus, 40.
+Etherege, Sir George, 238.
+Evelyn, John, 231.
+
+Falconer, William, 357.
+Farquhar, George, 238.
+Ferrier, Mary, 411.
+Fielding, Henry, 288.
+Fisher, John, 102.
+Florence of Worcester, 49.
+Foote, Samuel, 363.
+Ford, John, 154.
+Fox, George, 226.
+Froissart, Sire Jean, 58.
+Fronde, James Anthony, 448.
+Fuller, Thomas, 224.
+
+Gaimar, Geoffrey, 52.
+Garrick, David, 361.
+Gay, John, 252.
+Geoffrey, 52.
+Geoffrey of Monmouth, 48.
+Gibbon, Edward, 317
+Gillies, John, 441.
+Goldsmith, Oliver, 301.
+Gowen, John, 86.
+Gray, Thomas, 351.
+Greene, Robert, 136.
+Greville, Sir Fulke, 127.
+Grostête, Robert, 59.
+Grote, George, 440.
+
+Hakluyt, Richard, 126.
+Hall, Joseph, 221.
+Hallam, Henry, 448.
+Harvey, Gabriel, 110.
+Heber, Reginald, 436.
+Hemans, Mrs. Felicia Dorothea, 409.
+Henry of Huntingdon, 49.
+Hennyson, Robert, 90.
+Herbert, George, 203.
+Herrick, Robert, 204.
+Heywood, John, 131.
+Higden, Ralph, 50.
+Hobbes, Thomas, 125.
+Hogg, James, 412.
+Hollinshed, Raphael, 126.
+Hood, Thomas, 467.
+Hooker, Richard, 125.
+Hope, Thomas, 412.
+Hume, David, 311.
+Hunt, Leigh, 411.
+Hyde, Edward, Earl of Clarendon, 205.
+
+Ingelow, Jean, 437.
+Ingulphus, Abbot of Croyland, 49.
+Ireland, Samuel, 153.
+
+James I, (of Scotland,) 89.
+Johnson, Doctor Samuel, 324.
+Jonson, Ben, 153.
+Junius, 331.
+
+Keats, John, 407.
+Keble, John, 437.
+Knowles, James Sheridan, 436.
+Kyd, Thomas, 136.
+
+Lamb, Charles, 466.
+Landon, Letitia Elizabeth, 410.
+Langland, 56.
+Latimer, Hugh, 102.
+Layamon, 53.
+Lee, Nathaniel, 240.
+Leland, John, 102.
+Lingard, John, 446.
+Locke, John, 231.
+Lodge, Thomas, 135.
+Luc de la Barre, 52.
+Lydgate, John, 90.
+Lyly, John, 136.
+
+Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 441.
+Mackay, Charles, 437.
+Mackenzie, Henry, 307.
+Macpherson, Doctor James, 336.
+Mahon, Lord, 447.
+Mandevil, Sir John, 58.
+Manning, Robert, 59.
+Marlowe, Christopher, 134.
+Marston, John, 136.
+Massinger, 154.
+Matthew of Westminster, 49.
+Mestre, Thomas, 32.
+Milton, John, 174.
+Mitford, William, 444.
+Moore, Thomas, 390.
+More, Hannah, 367.
+More, Sir Thomas, 99.
+
+Napier. Sir William Francis Patrick, 447.
+Nash, Thomas, 136.
+Newton, Sir Isaac, 278.
+Norton, Mrs. Caroline Elizabeth, 410.
+
+Occleve, Thomas, 89.
+Ormulum, 54.
+Otway, Thomas, 239.
+
+Paley, William, 370.
+Paris, Matthew, 49.
+Parnell, Thomas, 252.
+Pecock, Reginald, 102.
+Peele, George, 136.
+Penn, William, 227.
+Pepys, Samuel, 232.
+Percy, Dr. Thomas, (Bishop,) 358.
+Philip de Than, 52.
+Pollok, Robert, 411.
+Pope, Alexander, 241.
+Prior, Matthew, 251.
+Purchas, Samuel, 126.
+
+Quarles, Francis, 203.
+
+Raleigh, Sir Walter, 126.
+Richard I., (Coeur de Lion,) 52.
+
+Richardson, Samuel, 285.
+Robert of Gloucester, 55.
+Robertson, William, 315.
+Roger de Hovedin, 49.
+Rogers, Samuel, 403.
+Roscoe, William, 413.
+Rowe, Nicholas, 240.
+
+Sackville, Thomas, 127.
+Scott, Sir Michael, 59.
+Scott, Walter, 371.
+Shakspeare, William, 137.
+Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 405.
+Shenstone, William, 357.
+Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 364.
+Sherlock, William, 230.
+Shirley, 154.
+Sidney, Sir Philip, 107.
+Skelton, John, 95.
+Smollett, Tobias George, 292.
+South, Robert, 230.
+Southern, Thomas, 240.
+Southey, Robert, 421.
+Spencer, Edmund, 104.
+Steele, Sir Richard, 264.
+Sterne, Lawrence, 296.
+Still, John, 132.
+Stillingfleet, Edward, 230.
+Stow, John, 126.
+Strickland, Agnes, 447.
+Suckling, Sir John, 204.
+Surrey, Earl of, 98.
+Swift, Jonathan, 268.
+Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 437.
+
+Tailor, Robert, 136.
+Taylor, Jeremy, 223.
+Temple, Sir William, 277.
+Tennyson, Alfred, 428.
+Thackeray, Anne E., 465.
+Thackeray, William Makepeace, 459.
+Thirlwall, Connop, 441.
+Thomas of Ercildoun, 59.
+Thomson, James, 347.
+Tickell, Thomas, 252.
+Tupper, Martin Farquhar, 437.
+Turner, Sharon, 448.
+Tusser, Thomas, 102.
+Tyndale, William, 169.
+Tytler, Patrick Frazer, 446.
+
+Udall, Nicholas, 132.
+
+Vanbrugh, Sir John, 237.
+Vaughan, Henry, 205.
+Vitalis, Ordericus, 49.
+
+Wace, Richard, 51.
+Waller, Edmund, 204.
+Walpole, Horace, 321.
+Walton, Izaak, 202.
+Warton, Joseph, 368.
+Warton, Thomas, 368.
+Watts, Isaac, 252.
+
+Webster, 154.
+White, Henry Kirke, 358.
+Wiclif, John, 77.
+William of Jumièges, 49.
+William of Malmsbury, 47.
+William of Poictiers, 49.
+Wither, George, 203.
+Wolcot, John, 367.
+Wordsworth, William, 415.
+Wyat, Sir Thomas, 97.
+Wycherley, William, 235.
+
+Young, Edward, 253.
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+
+[1] His jurisdiction extended from Norfolk around to Sussex.
+
+[2] This is the usually accepted division of tribes; but Dr. Latham denies
+that the Jutes, or inhabitants of Jutland, shared in the invasion. The
+difficult question does not affect the scope of our inquiry.
+
+[3] Gibbon's Decline and Fall, c. lv.
+
+[4] H. Martin, Histoire de France, i. 53.
+
+[5] Vindication of the Ancient British Poems.
+
+[6] Craik's English Literature, i. 37.
+
+[7] Sharon Turner, History of the Anglo-Saxons, book ix., c. i.
+
+[8] Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary.
+
+[9] Kemble ("Saxon in England") suggests the resemblance between the
+fictitious landing of Hengist and Horsa "in three keels," and the Gothic
+tradition of the migration of Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Gepidæ to the
+mouth of the Vistula in the same manner. Dr. Latham (English Language)
+fixes the Germanic immigration into Britain at the middle of the fourth,
+instead of the middle of the fifth century.
+
+[10] Lectures on Modern History, lect, ii.
+
+[11] Sharon Turner.
+
+[12] Turner, ch. xii.
+
+[13] For the discussion of the time and circumstances of the introduction
+of French into law processes, see Craik, i. 117.
+
+[14] Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, i. 199. For an admirable
+summary of the bardic symbolisms and mythological types exhibited in the
+story of Arthur, see H. Martin, Hist. de France, liv. xx.
+
+[15] Craik says, (i. 198,) "Or, as he is also called, _Lawemon_--for the
+old character represented in this instance by our modern _y_ is really
+only a guttural, (and by no means either a _j_ or a _z_,) by which it is
+sometimes rendered." Marsh says, "Or, perhaps, _Lagamon_, for we do not
+know the sound of _y_ in this name."
+
+[16] Introduction to the Poets of Queen Elizabeth's Age.
+
+[17] So called from his having a regular district or _limit_ in which to
+beg.
+
+[18] Spelled also Wycliffe, Wicliff, and Wyklyf.
+
+[19] Am. ed., i. 94.
+
+[20] Wordsworth, Ecc. Son., xvii.
+
+[21] "The Joyous Science, as the profession of minstrelsy was termed, had
+its various ranks, like the degrees in the Church and in chivalry."--_Sir
+Walter Scott_, (_The Betrothed_.)
+
+[22] 1st, the real presence; 2d, celibacy; 3d, monastic vows; 4th, low
+mass; 5th, auricular confession; 6th, withholding the cup from the laity.
+
+[23] "The Earl of Surrey is said to have translated one of Virgil's books
+without rhyme, and, besides our tragedies, a few short poems had appeared
+in blank verse.... These petty performances cannot be supposed to have
+much influenced Milton; ... finding blank verse easier than rhyme, he was
+desirous of persuading himself that it is better."--_Lives of the
+Poets--Milton_.
+
+[24] From this dishonor Mr. Froude's researches among the statute books
+have not been able to lift him, for he gives system to horrors which were
+before believed to be eccentric; and, while he fails to justify the
+monarch, implicates a trembling parliament and a servile ministry, as if
+their sharing the crime made it less odious.
+
+[25] The reader's attention is called--or recalled--to the masterly
+etching of Sir Philip Sidney, in Motley's History of the United
+Netherlands. The low chant of the _cuisse rompue_ is especially pathetic.
+
+[26] This last claim of title was based upon the voyages of the Cabots,
+and the unsuccessful colonial efforts of Raleigh and Gilbert.
+
+[27] Froude, i. 65.
+
+[28] Introduction to fifth canto of Marmion.
+
+[29] Froude, i. 73.
+
+[30] Opening scene of The Merry Wives of Windsor.
+
+[31] Rev. A. Dyce attributes this play to Marlowe or Kyd.
+
+[32] The dates as determined by Malone are given: many of them differ from
+those of Drake and Chalmers.
+
+[33]
+
+    If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined
+    The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.
+
+_Pope, Essay on Man_.
+
+[34] Life of Addison.
+
+[35] Macaulay: Art. on Warren Hastings.
+
+[36] The handwriting of Junius professionally investigated by Mr. Charles
+P. Chabot. London, 1871.
+
+[37] H. C. Robinson, Diary II., 79.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of English Literature, Considered as an
+Interpreter of English History, by Henry Coppée
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+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
+<title>English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History, by Henry Copp&eacute;e</title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of English Literature, Considered as an
+Interpreter of English History, by Henry Coppee
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History
+       Designed as a Manual of Instruction
+
+Author: Henry Coppee
+
+Release Date: February 26, 2005 [EBook #15176]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH LITERATURE, ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div id="tp">
+
+<h1 class="title">English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History.</h1>
+
+<h2 class="subtitle">Designed as a <i>Manual of Instruction</i>.</h2>
+
+<p class="byline">By</p>
+
+<h2 class="author">Henry Copp&eacute;e, LL.D.,<br />
+President of the Lehigh University.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   The Roman Epic abounds in moral and poetical defects; nevertheless it
+   remains the most complete picture of the national mind at its highest
+   elevation, the most precious document of national history, if the
+   history of an age is revealed in its ideas, no less than in its events
+   and incidents.&mdash;Rev. C. Merivale.</p>
+
+   <p><cite><i>History of the Romans under the Empire</i>, c. xli.</cite></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<h4>
+Second Edition.<br />
+Philadelphia:<br />
+Claxton, Remsen &amp; Haffelfinger.<br />
+1873.</h4>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<div id="verso">
+<p id="p2">Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by<br /> Claxton,
+Remsen &amp; Haffelfinger,<br /> in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at
+Washington.</p>
+
+
+<p>Stereotyped by J. Fagan &amp; Son, Philadelphia.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="dedication">
+<h2 id="pi">To the Right Reverend William Bacon Stevens, D.D., LL.D.,<br /> Bishop Of
+Pennsylvania.</h2>
+
+<p>My Dear Bishop:</p>
+
+<p>I desire to connect your name with whatever may be useful and valuable in
+this work, to show my high appreciation of your fervent piety, varied
+learning, and elegant literary accomplishments; and, also, far more than
+this, to record the personal acknowledgment that no man ever had a more
+constant, judicious, generous and affectionate brother, than you have been
+to me, for forty years of intimate and unbroken association.</p>
+
+<p>Most affectionately and faithfully yours,</p>
+
+<p>Henry Copp&eacute;e.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p id="pii"></p>
+
+<div class="chapter" id="preface">
+<h2 id="piii">Preface</h2>
+
+
+
+<p>It is not the purpose of the author to add another to the many volumes
+containing a chronological list of English authors, with brief comments
+upon each. Such a statement of works, arranged according to periods, or
+reigns of English monarchs, is valuable only as an abridged dictionary of
+names and dates. Nor is there any logical pertinence in clustering
+contemporary names about a principal author, however illustrious he may
+be. The object of this work is to present prominently the historic
+connections and teachings of English literature; to place great authors in
+immediate relations with great events in history; and thus to propose an
+important principle to students in all their reading. Thus it is that
+Literature and History are reciprocal: they combine to make eras.</p>
+
+<p>Merely to establish this historic principle, it would have been sufficient
+to consider the greatest authors, such as Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare,
+Milton, Dryden, and Pope; but it occurred to me, while keeping this
+principle before me, to give also a connected view of the course of
+English literature, which might, in an academic curriculum, show students
+how and what to read for themselves. Any attempt beyond this in so
+condensed a work must prove a failure, and so it may well happen that some
+readers will fail to find a full notice, or even a mention, of some
+favorite author.</p>
+
+<p>English literature can only be studied in the writings of the authors here
+only mentioned; but I hope that the work will be found to contain
+suggestions for making such extended reading profitable; and that teachers
+will find it valuable as a syllabus for fuller courses of lectures.</p>
+
+<p>To those who would like to find information as to the best editions of the
+authors mentioned, I can only say that I at first intended and began to
+note editions: I soon saw that I could not do this with any degree of
+uniformity, and therefore determined to refer all who desire this
+bibliographic assistance, to <i>The Dictionary<a id="piv"></a> of Authors</i>, by my friend S.
+Austin Allibone, LL.D., in which bibliography is a strong feature. I am
+not called upon to eulogize that noble work, but I cannot help saying that
+I have found it invaluable, and that whether mentioned or not, no writer
+can treat of English authors without constant recurrence to its accurate
+columns: it is a literary marvel of our age.</p>
+
+<p>It will be observed that the remoter periods of the literature are those
+in which the historic teachings are the most distinctly visible; we see
+them from a vantage ground, in their full scope, and in the interrelations
+of their parts. Although in the more modern periods the number of writers
+is greatly increased, we are too near to discern the entire period, and
+are in danger of becoming partisans, by reason of our limited view.
+Especially is this true of the age in which we live. Contemporary history
+is but party-chronicle: the true philosophic history can only be written
+when distance and elevation give due scope to our vision.</p>
+
+<p>The principle I have laid down is best illustrated by the great literary
+masters. Those of less degree have been treated at less length, and many
+of them will be found in the smaller print, to save space. Those who study
+the book should study the small print as carefully as the other.</p>
+
+<p>After a somewhat elaborate exposition of English literature, I could not
+induce myself to tack on an inadequate chapter on American literature;
+and, besides, I think that to treat the two subjects in one volume would
+be as incongruous as to write a joint biography of Marlborough and
+Washington. American literature is too great and noble, and has had too
+marvelous a development to be made an appendix to English literature.</p>
+
+<p>If time shall serve, I hope to prepare a separate volume, exhibiting the
+stages of our literature in the Colonial period, the Revolutionary epoch,
+the time of Constitutional establishment, and the present period. It will
+be found to illustrate these historical divisions in a remarkable manner.</p>
+
+<p>H. C.</p>
+
+<p>The Lehigh University, <i>October</i>, 1872.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="toc">
+<h2 id="pv">Contents</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>Chapter I.</h3>
+
+<h4>The Historical Scope of the Subject.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Literature and Science&mdash;English Literature&mdash;General Principle&mdash;Celts
+   and Cymry&mdash;Roman Conquest&mdash;Coming of the Saxons&mdash;Danish Invasions&mdash;The
+   Norman Conquest&mdash;Changes in Language
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter II.</h3>
+
+<h4>Literature a Teacher of History. Celtic Remains.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   The Uses of Literature&mdash;Italy, France, England&mdash;Purpose of the
+   Work&mdash;Celtic Literary Remains&mdash;Druids and Druidism&mdash;Roman
+   Writers&mdash;Psalter of Cashel&mdash;Welsh Triads and Mabinogion&mdash;Gildas and St.
+   Colm
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter III.</h3>
+
+<h4>Anglo-Saxon Literature and History.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   The Lineage of the Anglo-Saxon&mdash;Earliest Saxon Poem&mdash;Metrical
+   Arrangement&mdash;Periphrasis and Alliteration&mdash;Beowulf&mdash;Caedmon&mdash;Other
+   Saxon Fragments&mdash;The Appearance of Bede
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter IV.</h3>
+
+<h4>The Venerable Bede and the Saxon Chronicle.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Biography&mdash;Ecclesiastical History&mdash;The Recorded Miracles&mdash;Bede's
+   Latin&mdash;Other Writers&mdash;The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: its Value&mdash;Alfred the
+   Great&mdash;Effect of the Danish Invasions
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3 id="pvi">Chapter V.</h3>
+
+<h4>The Norman Conquest and Its Earliest Literature.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Norman Rule&mdash;Its Oppression&mdash;Its Benefits&mdash;William of
+   Malmesbury&mdash;Geoffrey of Monmouth&mdash;Other Latin Chronicles&mdash;Anglo-Norman
+   Poets&mdash;Richard Wace&mdash;Other Poets
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter VI.</h3>
+
+<h4>The Morning Twilight of English Literature.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Semi-Saxon Literature&mdash;Layamon&mdash;The Ormulum&mdash;Robert of
+   Gloucester&mdash;Langland. Piers Plowman&mdash;Piers Plowman's Creed&mdash;Sir Jean
+   Froissart&mdash;Sir John Mandevil
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter VII.</h3>
+
+<h4>Chaucer, and the Early Reformation.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   A New Era: Chaucer&mdash;Italian Influence&mdash;Chaucer as a Founder&mdash;Earlier
+   Poems&mdash;The Canterbury Tales&mdash;Characters&mdash;Satire&mdash;Presentations of
+   Woman&mdash;The Plan Proposed
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter VIII.</h3>
+
+<h4>Chaucer (Continued).&mdash;Reforms in Religion and Society.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Historical Facts&mdash;Reform in Religion&mdash;The Clergy, Regular and
+   Secular&mdash;The Friar and the Sompnour&mdash;The Pardonere&mdash;The Poure
+   Persone&mdash;John Wiclif&mdash;The Translation of the Bible&mdash;The Ashes of Wiclif
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter IX.</h3>
+
+<h4>Chaucer (Continued).&mdash;Progress of Society, and of Language.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Social Life&mdash;Government&mdash;Chaucer's English&mdash;His Death&mdash;Historical
+   Facts&mdash;John Gower&mdash;Chaucer and Gower&mdash;Gower's Language&mdash;Other Writers
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3 id="pvii">Chapter X.</h3>
+
+<h4>The Barren Period Between Chaucer and Spenser.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Greek Literature&mdash;Invention of Printing. Caxton&mdash;Contemporary
+   History&mdash;Skelton&mdash;Wyatt&mdash;Surrey&mdash;Sir Thomas Moore&mdash;Utopia, and other
+   Works&mdash;Other Writers
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XI.</h3>
+
+<h4>Spenser and the Elizabethan Age.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   The Great Change&mdash;Edward VI. and Mary&mdash;Sidney&mdash;The Arcadia&mdash;Defence of
+   Poesy&mdash;Astrophel and Stella&mdash;Gabriel Harvey&mdash;Edmund Spenser: Shepherd's
+   Calendar&mdash;His Great Work
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XII.</h3>
+
+<h4>Illustrations of the History in the Faerie Queene.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   The Faerie Queene&mdash;The Plan Proposed&mdash;Illustrations of the History&mdash;The
+   Knight and the Lady&mdash;The Wood of Error and the Hermitage&mdash;The
+   Crusades&mdash;Britomartis and Sir Artegal&mdash;Elizabeth&mdash;Mary Queen of
+   Scots&mdash;Other Works&mdash;Spenser's Fate&mdash;Other Writers
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XIII.</h3>
+
+<h4>The English Drama.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Origin of the Drama&mdash;Miracle Plays&mdash;Moralities&mdash;First Comedy&mdash;Early
+   Tragedies&mdash;Christopher Marlowe&mdash;Other Dramatists&mdash;Playwrights and
+   Morals
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XIV.</h3>
+
+<h4>William Shakspeare.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   The Power of Shakspeare&mdash;Meagre Early History&mdash;Doubts of his
+   Identity&mdash;What is known&mdash;Marries and goes to London&mdash;&quot;Venus&quot; and
+   &quot;Lucrece&quot;&mdash;Retirement and Death&mdash;Literary Habitudes&mdash;Variety of the
+   Plays&mdash;Table of Dates and Sources
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3 id="pviii">Chapter XV.</h3>
+
+<h4>William Shakspeare (Continued).</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   The Grounds of his Fame&mdash;Creation of Character&mdash;Imagination and
+   Fancy&mdash;Power of Expression&mdash;His Faults&mdash;Influence of
+   Elizabeth&mdash;Sonnets&mdash;Ireland and Collier&mdash;Concordance&mdash;Other Writers
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XVI.</h3>
+
+<h4>Bacon, and the Rise of the New Philosophy.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Birth and Early Life&mdash;Treatment of Essex&mdash;His Appointments&mdash;His
+   Fall&mdash;Writes Philosophy&mdash;Magna Instauratio&mdash;His Defects&mdash;His Fame&mdash;His
+   Essays
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XVII.</h3>
+
+<h4>The English Bible.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Early Versions&mdash;The Septuagint&mdash;The Vulgate&mdash;Wiclif;
+   Tyndale&mdash;Coverdale; Cranmer&mdash;Geneva; Bishop's Bible&mdash;King James's
+   Bible&mdash;Language of the Bible&mdash;Revision
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XVIII.</h3>
+
+<h4>John Milton, and the English Commonwealth.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Historical Facts&mdash;Charles I.&mdash;Religious Extremes&mdash;Cromwell&mdash;Birth and
+   Early Works&mdash;Views of Marriage&mdash;Other Prose Works&mdash;Effects of the
+   Restoration&mdash;Estimate of his Prose
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XIX.</h3>
+
+<h4>The Poetry of Milton.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   The Blind Poet&mdash;Paradise Lost&mdash;Milton and Dante&mdash;His
+   Faults&mdash;Characteristics of the Age&mdash;Paradise Regained&mdash;His
+   Scholarship&mdash;His Sonnets&mdash;His Death and Fame
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XX.</h3>
+
+<h4>Cowley, Butler, and Walton.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Cowley and Milton&mdash;Cowley's Life and Works&mdash;His Fame&mdash;Butler's
+   Career&mdash;Hudibras&mdash;His Poverty and Death&mdash;Izaak Walton&mdash;The Angler; and
+   Lives&mdash;Other Writers
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3 id="pix">Chapter XXI.</h3>
+
+<h4>Dryden, and the Restored Stuarts.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   The Court of Charles II.&mdash;Dryden's Early Life&mdash;The Death of
+   Cromwell&mdash;The Restoration&mdash;Dryden's Tribute&mdash;Annus Mirabilis&mdash;Absalom
+   and Achitophel&mdash;The Death of Charles&mdash;Dryden's Conversion&mdash;Dryden's
+   Fall&mdash;His Odes 207
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XXII.</h3>
+
+<h4>The Religious Literature of the Great Rebellion and of the Restoration.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   The English Divines&mdash;Hall&mdash;Chillingsworth&mdash;Taylor&mdash;Fuller&mdash;Sir T.
+   Browne&mdash;Baxter&mdash;Fox&mdash;Bunyan&mdash;South&mdash;Other Writers 221
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XXIII.</h3>
+
+<h4>The Drama of the Restoration.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   The License of the Age&mdash;Dryden&mdash;Wycherley&mdash;Congreve&mdash;Vanbrugh&mdash;
+   Farquhar&mdash;Etherege&mdash;Tragedy&mdash;Otway&mdash;Rowe&mdash;Lee&mdash;Southern 233
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XXIV.</h3>
+
+<h4>Pope, and the Artificial School.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Contemporary History&mdash;Birth and Early Life&mdash;Essay, on Criticism&mdash;Rape
+   of the Lock&mdash;The Messiah&mdash;The Iliad&mdash;Value of the Translation&mdash;The
+   Odyssey&mdash;Essay on Man&mdash;The Artificial School&mdash;Estimate of Pope&mdash;Other
+   Writers 241
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XXV.</h3>
+
+<h4>Addison, and the Reign of Queen Anne.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   The Character of the Age&mdash;Queen Anne&mdash;Whigs and Tories&mdash;George
+   I.&mdash;Addison: The Campaign&mdash;Sir Roger de Coverley&mdash;The Club&mdash;Addison's
+   Hymns&mdash;Person and Literary Character 254
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3 id="px">Chapter XXVI.</h3>
+
+<h4>Steele and Swift.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Sir Richard Steele&mdash;Periodicals&mdash;The Crisis&mdash;His Last Days&mdash;Jonathan
+   Swift: Poems&mdash;The Tale of a Tub&mdash;Battle of the Books&mdash;Pamphlets&mdash;M. B.
+   Drapier&mdash;Gulliver's Travels&mdash;Stella and Vanessa&mdash;His Character and
+   Death 264
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XXVII.</h3>
+
+<h4>The Rise and Progress of Modern Fiction.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   The New Age&mdash;Daniel Defoe&mdash;Robinson Crusoe&mdash;Richardson&mdash;Pamela, and
+   Other Novels&mdash;Fielding&mdash;Joseph Andrews&mdash;Tom Jones&mdash;Its
+   Moral&mdash;Smollett&mdash;Roderick Random&mdash;Peregrine Pickle 280
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XXVIII.</h3>
+
+<h4>Sterne, Goldsmith, and Mackenzie.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   The Subjective School&mdash;Sterne: Sermons&mdash;Tristram Shandy&mdash;Sentimental
+   Journey&mdash;Oliver Goldsmith&mdash;Poems: The Vicar&mdash;Histories, and Other
+   Works&mdash;Mackenzie&mdash;The Man of Feeling 296
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XXIX.</h3>
+
+<h4>The Historical Triad in the Sceptical Age.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   The Sceptical Age&mdash;David Hume&mdash;History of England&mdash;Metaphysics&mdash;Essay
+   on Miracles&mdash;Robertson&mdash;Histories&mdash;Gibbon&mdash;The Decline and Fall 309
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XXX.</h3>
+
+<h4>Samuel Johnson and His Times.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Early Life and Career&mdash;London&mdash;Rambler and Idler&mdash;The Dictionary&mdash;Other
+   Works&mdash;Lives of the Poets&mdash;Person and Character&mdash;Style&mdash;Junius 324
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XXXI.</h3>
+
+<h4>The Literary Forgers in the Antiquarian Age.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   The Eighteenth Century&mdash;James Macpherson&mdash;Ossian&mdash;Thomas
+   Chatterton&mdash;His Poems&mdash;The Verdict&mdash;Suicide&mdash;The Cause 334
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3 id="pxi">Chapter XXXII.</h3>
+
+<h4>Poetry of the Transition School.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   The Transition Period&mdash;James Thomson&mdash;The Seasons&mdash;The Castle of
+   Indolence&mdash;Mark Akenside&mdash;Pleasures of the Imagination&mdash;Thomas
+   Gray&mdash;The Elegy. The Bard&mdash;William Cowper&mdash;The Task&mdash;Translation of
+   Homer&mdash;Other Writers 347
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XXXIII.</h3>
+
+<h4>The Later Drama.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   The Progress of the Drama&mdash;Garrick&mdash;Foote&mdash;Cumberland&mdash;Sheridan&mdash;George
+   Colman&mdash;George Colman, the Younger&mdash;Other Dramatists and
+   Humorists&mdash;Other Writers on Various Subjects 360
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XXXIV.</h3>
+
+<h4>The New Romantic Poetry: Scott.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Walter Scott&mdash;Translations and Minstrelsy&mdash;The Lay of the Last
+   Minstrel&mdash;Other Poems&mdash;The Waverley Novels&mdash;Particular
+   Mention&mdash;Pecuniary Troubles&mdash;His Manly Purpose&mdash;Powers
+   Overtasked&mdash;Fruitless Journey&mdash;Return and Death&mdash;His Fame 371
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XXXV.</h3>
+
+<h4>The New Romantic Poetry: Byron and Moore.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Early Life of Byron&mdash;Childe Harold and Eastern Tales&mdash;Unhappy
+   Marriage&mdash;Philhellenism and Death&mdash;Estimate of his Poetry&mdash;Thomas
+   Moore&mdash;Anacreon&mdash;Later Fortunes&mdash;Lalla Rookh&mdash;His Diary&mdash;His Rank as
+   Poet 384
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XXXVI.</h3>
+
+<h4>The New Romantic Poetry (Continued).</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Robert Burns&mdash;His Poems&mdash;His Career&mdash;George Crabbe&mdash;Thomas
+   Campbell&mdash;Samuel Rogers&mdash;P. B. Shelley&mdash;John Keats&mdash;Other Writers 397
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3 id="pxii">Chapter XXXVII.</h3>
+
+<h4>Wordsworth, and the Lake School.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   The New School&mdash;William Wordsworth&mdash;Poetical Canons&mdash;The Excursion and
+   Sonnets&mdash;An Estimate&mdash;Robert Southey&mdash;His Writings&mdash;Historical
+   Value&mdash;S. T. Coleridge&mdash;Early Life&mdash;His Helplessness&mdash;Hartley and H. N.
+   Coleridge 414
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XXXVIII.</h3>
+
+<h4>The Reaction in Poetry.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Alfred Tennyson&mdash;Early Works&mdash;The Princess&mdash;Idyls of the
+   King&mdash;Elizabeth B. Browning&mdash;Aurora Leigh&mdash;Her Faults&mdash;Robert
+   Browning&mdash;Other Poets 428
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XXXIX.</h3>
+
+<h4>The Later Historians.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   New Materials&mdash;George Grote&mdash;History of Greece&mdash;Lord Macaulay&mdash;History
+   of England&mdash;Its Faults&mdash;Thomas Carlyle&mdash;Life of Frederick II.&mdash;Other
+   Historians 439
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XL.</h3>
+
+<h4>The Later Novelists as Social Reformers.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Bulwer&mdash;Changes in Writers&mdash;Dickens's Novels&mdash;American Notes&mdash;His
+   Varied Powers&mdash;Second Visit to America&mdash;Thackeray&mdash;Vanity Fair&mdash;Henry
+   Esmond&mdash;The Newcomes&mdash;The Georges&mdash;Estimate of his Powers 450
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XLI.</h3>
+
+<h4>The Later Writers.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Charles Lamb&mdash;Thomas Hood&mdash;Thomas de Quincey&mdash;Other Novelists&mdash;Writers
+   on Science and Philosophy 466
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Chapter XLII.</h3>
+
+<h4>English Journalism.</h4>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Roman News Letters&mdash;The Gazette&mdash;The Civil War&mdash;Later Divisions&mdash;The
+   Reviews&mdash;The Monthlies&mdash;The Dailies&mdash;The London Times&mdash;Other Newspapers
+   475
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>Alphabetical Index of Authors</p>
+</div>
+
+<h1 class="title" id="p13">English Literature</h1>
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch1">
+<h2>Chapter I.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Historical Scope of the Subject.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch1-1">Literature and Science</a>. <a href="#ch1-2">English Literature</a>. <a href="#ch1-3">General Principle</a>. <a href="#ch1-4">Celts
+   and Cymry</a>. <a href="#ch1-5">Roman Conquest</a>. <a href="#ch1-6">Coming of the Saxons</a>. <a href="#ch1-7">Danish Invasions</a>. <a href="#ch1-8">The
+   Norman Conquest</a>. <a href="#ch1-9">Changes in Language</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch1-1">Literature and Science.</h4>
+
+
+<p>There are two words in the English language which are now used to express
+the two great divisions of mental production&mdash;<i>Science</i> and <i>Literature</i>;
+and yet, from their etymology, they have so much in common, that it has
+been necessary to attach to each a technical meaning, in order that we may
+employ them without confusion.</p>
+
+<p><i>Science</i>, from the participle <i>sciens</i>, of <i>scio, scire</i>, to know, would
+seem to comprise all that can be known&mdash;what the Latins called the <i>omne
+scibile</i>, or all-knowable.</p>
+
+<p><i>Literature</i> is from <i>litera</i>, a letter, and probably at one remove from
+<i>lino, litum</i>, to anoint or besmear, because in the earlier times a tablet
+was smeared with wax, and letters were traced upon it with a graver.
+Literature, in its first meaning, would, therefore, comprise all that can
+be conveyed by the use of letters.</p>
+
+<p>But language is impatient of retaining two words which convey the same
+meaning; and although science had at first <a id="p14"></a>to do with the fact of knowing
+and the conditions of knowledge in the abstract, while literature meant
+the written record of such knowledge, a far more distinct sphere has been
+given to each in later times, and special functions assigned them.</p>
+
+<p>In general terms, Science now means any branch of knowledge in which men
+search for principles reaching back to the ultimate, or for facts which
+establish these principles, or are classified by them in a logical order.
+Thus we speak of the mathematical, physical, metaphysical, and moral
+sciences.</p>
+
+<p>Literature, which is of later development as at present used, comprises
+those subjects which have a relation to human life and human nature
+through the power of the imagination and the fancy. Technically,
+literature includes <i>history, poetry, oratory, the drama</i>, and <i>works of
+fiction</i>, and critical productions upon any of these as themes.</p>
+
+<p>Such, at least, will be a sufficiently exact division for our purpose,
+although the student will find them overlapping each other's domain
+occasionally, interchanging functions, and reciprocally serving for each
+other's advantage. Thus it is no confusion of terms to speak of the poetry
+of science and of the science of poetry; and thus the great functions of
+the human mind, although scientifically distinct, co-operate in harmonious
+and reciprocal relations in their diverse and manifold productions.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch1-2"><span class="sc">English Literature.</span>&mdash;English Literature may then be considered as
+comprising the progressive productions of the English mind in the paths of
+imagination and taste, and is to be studied in the works of the poets,
+historians, dramatists, essayists, and romancers&mdash;a long line of brilliant
+names from the origin of the language to the present day.</p>
+
+<p>To the general reader all that is profitable in this study dates from the
+appearance of Chaucer, who has been justly styled the Father of English
+Poetry; and Chaucer even re<a id="p15"></a>quires a glossary, as a considerable portion
+of his vocabulary has become obsolete and much of it has been modified;
+but for the student of English literature, who wishes to understand its
+philosophy and its historic relations, it becomes necessary to ascend to a
+more remote period, in order to find the origin of the language in which
+Chaucer wrote, and the effect produced upon him by any antecedent literary
+works, in the root-languages from which the English has sprung.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch1-3"><span class="sc">General Principle.</span>&mdash;It may be stated, as a general principle, that to
+understand a nation's literature, we must study the history of the people
+and of their language; the geography of the countries from which they
+came, as well as that in which they live; the concurrent historic causes
+which have conspired to form and influence the literature. We shall find,
+as we advance in this study, that the life and literature of a people are
+reciprocally reflective.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch1-4"><span class="sc">I. Celts and Cymry.</span>&mdash;Thus, in undertaking the study of English literature,
+we must begin with the history of the Celts and Cymry, the first
+inhabitants of the British Islands of whom we have any record, who had
+come from Asia in the first great wave of western migration; a rude,
+aboriginal people, whose languages, at the beginning of the Christian era,
+were included in one family, the <i>Celtic</i>, comprising the <i>British</i> or
+<i>Cambrian</i>, and the <i>Gadhelic</i> classes. In process of time these were
+subdivided thus:</p>
+
+<ul>
+    <li>The British into <ul>
+      <li><i>Welsh</i>, at present spoken in Wales.</li>
+      <li><i>Cornish</i>, extinct only within a century.</li>
+      <li><i>Armorican</i>, Bas Breton, spoken in French Brittany.</li></ul></li>
+    <li>The Gadhelic into <ul>
+      <li><i>Gaelic</i>, still spoken in the Scottish Highlands.</li>
+      <li><i>Irish</i>, or <i>Erse</i>, spoken in Ireland.</li>
+      <li><i>Manx</i>, spoken in the Isle of Man.</li>
+</ul></li></ul>
+
+<p><a id="p16"></a>Such are the first people and dialects to be considered as the antecedent
+occupants of the country in which English literature was to have its
+birth.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch1-5"><span class="sc">II. Roman Conquest.</span>&mdash;But these Celtic peoples were conquered by the Romans
+under C&aelig;sar and his successors, and kept in a state of servile thraldom
+for four hundred and fifty years. There was but little amalgamation
+between them and their military masters. Britain was a most valuable
+northern outpost of the Roman Empire, and was occupied by large garrisons,
+which employed the people in hard labors, and used them for Roman
+aggrandizement, but despised them too much to attempt to elevate their
+condition. Elsewhere the Romans depopulated, where they met with barbarian
+resistance; they made a solitude and called it peace&mdash;for which they gave
+a triumph and a cognomen to the conqueror; but in Britain, although
+harassed and endangered by the insurrections of the natives, they bore
+with them; they built fine cities like London and York, originally
+military outposts, and transformed much of the country between the Channel
+and the Tweed from pathless forest into a civilized residence.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch1-6"><span class="sc">III. Coming Of The Saxons.</span>&mdash;Compelled by the increasing dangers and
+troubles immediately around the city of Rome to abandon their distant
+dependencies, the Roman legions evacuated Britain, and left the people,
+who had become enervated, spiritless, and unaccustomed to the use of arms,
+a prey to their fierce neighbors, both from Scotland and from the
+continent.</p>
+
+<p>The Saxons had already made frequent incursions into Britain, while rival
+Roman chieftains were contesting for pre-eminence, and, as early as the
+third century, had become so troublesome that the Roman emperors were
+obliged to ap<a id="p17"></a>point a general to defend the eastern coast, known as <i>comes
+litoris Saxonici</i>, or count of the Saxon shore.<sup><a href="#fn-1" id="fna-1">1</a></sup></p>
+
+<p>These Saxons, who had already tested the goodliness of the land, came when
+the Romans departed, under the specious guise of protectors of the Britons
+against the inroads of the Picts and Scots; but in reality to possess
+themselves of the country. This was a true conquest of race&mdash;Teutons
+overrunning Celts. They came first in reconnoitring bands; then in large
+numbers, not simply to garrison, as the Romans had done, but to occupy
+permanently. From the less attractive seats of Friesland and the basin of
+the Weser, they came to establish themselves in a charming country,
+already reclaimed from barbarism, to enslave or destroy the inhabitants,
+and to introduce their language, religion, and social institutions. They
+came as a confederated people of German race&mdash;Saxons, Angles, Jutes, and
+Frisians;<sup><a href="#fn-2" id="fna-2">2</a></sup> but, as far as the results of their conquest are concerned,
+there was entire unity among them.</p>
+
+<p>The Celts, for a brief period protected by them from their fierce northern
+neighbors, were soon enslaved and oppressed: those who resisted were
+driven slowly to the Welsh mountains, or into Cornwall, or across the
+Channel into French Brittany. Great numbers were destroyed. They left few
+traces of their institutions and their language. Thus the Saxon was
+established in its strength, and has since remained the strongest element
+of English ethnography.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch1-7"><span class="sc">IV. Danish Invasions.</span>&mdash;But Saxon Britain was also to suffer from
+continental incursions. The Scandinavians&mdash;inhabitants of Norway, Sweden,
+and Denmark&mdash;impelled by the same spirit of piratical adventure which had
+actuated the<a id="p18"></a> Saxons, began to leave their homes for foreign conquest.
+&quot;Impatient of a bleak climate and narrow limits, they started from the
+banquet, grasped their arms, sounded their horn, ascended their ships, and
+explored every coast that promised either spoil or settlement.&quot;<sup><a href="#fn-3" id="fna-3">3</a></sup> To
+England they came as Danes; to France, as Northmen or Normans. They took
+advantage of the Saxon wars with the British, of Saxon national feuds, and
+of that enervation which luxurious living had induced in the Saxon kings
+of the octarchy, and succeeded in occupying a large portion of the north
+and east of England; and they have exerted in language, in physical type,
+and in manners a far greater influence than has been usually conceded.
+Indeed, the Danish chapter in English history has not yet been fairly
+written. They were men of a singularly bold and adventurous spirit, as is
+evinced by their voyages to Iceland, Greenland, and thence to the Atlantic
+coast of North America, as early as the tenth and eleventh centuries. It
+is more directly to our purpose to observe their character as it is
+displayed in their conquest of the Frankish kingdom of Neustria, in their
+facile reception and ready assimilation of the Roman language and arts
+which they found in Gaul, and in their forcible occupancy, under William
+the Conqueror, of Saxon England, in 1066.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch1-8"><span class="sc">V. The Norman Conquest.</span>&mdash;The vigor of the Normans had been trained, but
+not weakened by their culture in Normandy. They maintained their supremacy
+in arms against the efforts of the kings of France. They had long
+cultivated intimate relations with England, and their dukes had long
+hankered for its possession. William, the natural son of Duke
+Robert&mdash;known to history and musical romance as Robert le Diable&mdash;was a
+man of strong mind, tenacious purpose, and powerful hand. He had obtained,
+by promise of Edward the Confessor, the reversion of the crown upon the
+<a id="p19"></a>death of that monarch; and when the issue came, he availed himself of
+that reversion and the Pope's sanction, and also of the disputed
+succession between Harold, the son of Godwin, and the true Saxon heir,
+Edgar Atheling, to make good his claim by force of arms.</p>
+
+<p>Under him the Normans were united, while divisions existed in the Saxon
+ranks. Tostig, the brother of Harold, and Harald Hardrada, the King of
+Norway, combined against Harold, and, just before the landing of Duke
+William at Pevensey, on the coast of Sussex, Harold was obliged to march
+rapidly northward to Stanford bridge, to defeat Tostig and the Norwegians,
+and then to return with a tired army of uncertain <i>morale</i>, to encounter
+the invading Normans. Thus it appears that William conquered the land,
+which would have been invincible had the leaders and the people been
+united in its defence.</p>
+
+<p>As the Saxons, Danes, and Normans were of the same great Teutonic family,
+however modified by the different circumstances of movement and residence,
+there was no new ethnic element introduced; and, paradoxical as it may
+seem, the fusion of these peoples was of great benefit, in the end, to
+England. Though the Saxons at first suffered from Norman oppression, the
+kingdom was brought into large inter-European relations, and a far better
+literary culture was introduced, more varied in subject, more developed in
+point of language, and more artistic.</p>
+
+<p>Thus much, in a brief historical summary, is necessary as an introduction
+to our subject. From all these contests and conquests there were wrought
+in the language of the country important changes, which are to be studied
+in the standard works of its literature.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch1-9"><span class="sc">Changes in Language.</span>&mdash;The changes and transformations of language may be
+thus briefly stated:&mdash;In the Celtic period, before the arrival of the
+Romans, the people spoke <a id="p20"></a>different dialects of the Celtic and Gadhelic
+languages, all cognate and radically similar.</p>
+
+<p>These were not much affected by the occupancy of the Romans for about four
+hundred and fifty years, although, doubtless, Latin words, expressive of
+things and notions of which the British had no previous knowledge, were
+adopted by them, and many of the Celtic inhabitants who submitted to these
+conquerors learned and used the Latin language.</p>
+
+<p>When the Romans departed, and the Saxons came in numbers, in the fifth and
+sixth centuries, the Saxon language, which is the foundation of English,
+became the current speech of the realm; adopting few Celtic words, but
+retaining a considerable number of the Celtic names of places, as it also
+did of Latin terminations in names.</p>
+
+<p>Before the coming of the Normans, their language, called the <i>Langue
+d'oil</i>, or Norman French, had been very much favored by educated
+Englishmen; and when William conquered England, he tried to supplant the
+Saxon entirely. In this he was not successful; but the two languages were
+interfused and amalgamated, so that in the middle of the twelfth century,
+there had been thus created the <i>English language</i>, formed but still
+formative. The Anglo-Saxon was the foundation, or basis; while the Norman
+French is observed to be the principal modifying element.</p>
+
+<p>Since the Norman conquest, numerous other elements have entered, most of
+them quietly, without the concomitant of political revolution or foreign
+invasion.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the Latin, being used by the Church, and being the language of
+literary and scientific comity throughout the world, was constantly adding
+words and modes of expression to the English. The introduction of Greek
+into Western Europe, at the fall of Constantinople, supplied Greek words,
+and induced a habit of coining English words from the Greek. The
+establishment of the Hanoverian succession, after the fall of the Stuarts,
+brought in the practice and study<a id="p21"></a> of German, and somewhat of its
+phraseology; and English conquests in the East have not failed to
+introduce Indian words, and, what is far better, to open the way for a
+fuller study of comparative philology and linguistics.</p>
+
+<p>In a later chapter we shall reconsider the periods referred to, in an
+examination of the literary works which they contain, works produced by
+historical causes, and illustrative of historical events.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch2">
+<h2 id="p22">Chapter II.</h2>
+
+<h3>Literature a Teacher of History. Celtic Remains.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch2-1">The Uses of Literature</a>. <a href="#ch2-2">Italy, France</a>, <a href="#ch2-3">England</a>. <a href="#ch2-4">Purpose of the Work</a>. <a href="#ch2-5">Celtic Literary Remains. Druids and Druidism</a>. <a href="#ch2-6">Roman Writers</a>. <a href="#ch2-7">Psalter of
+   Cashel</a>. <a href="#ch2-8">Welsh Triads</a> and <a href="#ch2-9">Mabinogion</a>. <a href="#ch2-10">Gildas</a> and <a href="#ch2-11">St. Colm</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch2-1">The Uses of Literature.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Before examining these periods in order to find the literature produced in
+them, it will be well to consider briefly what are the practical uses of
+literature, and to set forth, as a theme, that particular utility which it
+is the object of these pages to inculcate and apply.</p>
+
+<p>The uses of literature are manifold. Its study gives wholesome food to the
+mind, making it strong and systematic. It cultivates and delights the
+imagination and the taste of men. It refines society by elevating the
+thoughts and aspirations above what is sensual and sordid, and by checking
+the grosser passions; it makes up, in part, that &quot;multiplication of
+agreeable consciousness&quot; which Dr. Johnson calls happiness. Its
+adaptations in religion, in statesmanship, in legislative and judicial
+inquiry, are productive of noble and beneficent results. History shows us,
+that while it has given to the individual man, in all ages, contemplative
+habits, and high moral tone, it has thus also been a powerful instrument
+in producing the brilliant civilization of mighty empires.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec"><span class="sc">A Teacher of History.</span>&mdash;But apart from these its subjective benefits, it
+has its highest and most practical utility as a <span class="sc">teacher of history</span>.
+Ballads, more powerful than laws, <a id="p23"></a>shouted forth from a nation's heart,
+have been in part the achievers, and afterward the victorious hymns, of
+its new-born freedom, and have been also used in after ages to reinspire
+the people with the spirit of their ancestors. Immortal epics not only
+present magnificent displays of heroism for imitation, but, like the Iliad
+and Odyssey, still teach the theogony, national policy, and social history
+of a people, after the Bema has long been silent, the temples in ruin, and
+the groves prostrate under the axe of repeated conquests.</p>
+
+<p>Satires have at once exhibited and scourged social faults and national
+follies, and remained to after times as most essential materials for
+history.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, it was a quaint but just assertion of Hare, in his &quot;Guesses at
+Truth,&quot; that in Greek history there is nothing truer than Herodotus except
+Homer.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch2-2"><span class="sc">Italy and France.</span>&mdash;Passing by the classic periods, which afford abundant
+illustration of the position, it would be easy to exhibit the clear and
+direct historic teachings in purely literary works, by a reference to the
+literature of Italy and France. The history of the age of the Guelphs and
+Ghibellines is clearly revealed in the vision of Dante: the times of Louis
+XIV. are amply illustrated by the pulpit of Massillon, Bourdaloue, and
+Bridaine, and by the drama of Corneille, Racine, and Moli&egrave;re.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch2-3"><span class="sc">English Literature the Best Illustration.</span>&mdash;But in seeking for an
+illustration of the position that literature is eminently a teacher and
+interpreter of history, we are fortunate in finding none more striking
+than that presented by English literature itself. All the great events of
+English history find complete correspondent delineation in English
+literature, so that, were the purely historical record lost, we should
+have in the works of poetry, fiction, and the drama, correct portraitures
+of the character, habits, manners and customs, political sentiments, and
+modes and forms of religious belief among the <a id="p24"></a>English people; in a word,
+the philosophy of English history.</p>
+
+<p>In the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Dryden, and Addison, are to
+be found the men and women, kings, nobles, and commons, descriptions of
+English nature, hints of the progress of science and advancement in art;
+the conduct of government, the force of prevailing fashions&mdash;in a word,
+the moving life of the time, and not its dry historic record.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Authors,&quot; says the elder D'Israeli, &quot;are the creators or creatures of
+opinion: the great form the epoch; the many reflect the age.&quot;
+Chameleon-like, most of them take the political, social, and religious
+hues of the period in which they live, while a few illustrate it perhaps
+quite as forcibly by violent opposition and invective.</p>
+
+<p>We shall see that in Chaucer's <i>Canterbury Tales</i> and in Gower's <i>Vox
+Clamantis</i> are portrayed the political ferments and theological
+controversies of the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. Spenser decks
+the history of his age in gilded mantle and flowing plumes, in his tribute
+to Gloriana, The Faery Queen, who is none other than Elizabeth herself.
+Literature partakes of the fierce polemic and religious enthusiasm which
+mark the troublous times of the Civil War; it becomes tawdry, tinselled,
+and licentious at the Restoration, and develops into numerous classes and
+more serious instruction, under the constitutional reigns of the house of
+Hanover, in which the kings were bad, but the nation prosperous because
+the rights of the people were guaranteed.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the finest works of English literature are <i>purely and directly
+historical</i>; what has been said is intended to refer more particularly to
+those that are not&mdash;the unconscious, undesigned teachers of history, such
+as fiction, poetry, and the drama.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch2-4"><span class="sc">Purpose of the Work.</span>&mdash;Such, then, is the purpose of <a id="p25"></a>this volume&mdash;to
+indicate the teachings of history in the principal productions of English
+literature. Only the standard authors will be considered, and the student
+will not be overburdened with statistics, which it must be a part of his
+task to collect for himself. And now let us return to the early literature
+embodied in those languages which have preceded the English on British
+soil; or which, by their combination, have formed the English language.
+For, the English language may be properly compared to a stream, which,
+rising in a feeble source, receives in its seaward flow many tributaries,
+large and small, until it becomes a lordly river. The works of English
+literature may be considered as the ships and boats which it bears upon
+its bosom: near its source the craft are small and frail; as it becomes
+more navigable, statelier vessels are launched upon it, until, in its
+majestic and lakelike extensions, rich navies ride, freighted with wealth
+and power&mdash;the heavy ordnance of defence and attack, the products of
+Eastern looms, the precious metals and jewels from distant mines&mdash;the best
+exponents of the strength and prosperity of the nation through which flows
+the river of speech, bearing the treasures of mind.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch2-5"><span class="sc">Celtic Literary Remains. The Druids.</span>&mdash;Let us take up the consideration of
+literature in Britain in the order of the conquests mentioned in the first
+chapter.</p>
+
+<p>We recur to Britain while inhabited by the Celts, both before and after
+the Roman occupation. The extent of influence exercised by the Latin
+language upon the Celtic dialects cannot be determined; it seems to have
+been slight, and, on the other hand, it may be safely assumed that the
+Celtic did not contribute much to the world-absorbing Latin.</p>
+
+<p>The chief feature, and a very powerful one, of the Celtic polity, was
+<i>Druidism</i>. At its head was a priesthood, not in the present meaning of
+the word, but in the <a id="p26"></a>more extended acceptation which it received in the
+middle ages, when it embraced the whole class of men of letters. Although
+we have very few literary remains, the system, wisdom, and works of the
+Druids form one of the strong foundation-stones of English literature and
+of English national customs, and should be studied on that account. The
+<i>Druid</i> proper was governor, judge, philosopher, expounder, and
+executioner. The <i>ovaidd</i>, or <i>ovates</i>, were the priests, chiefly
+concerned in the study of theology and the practice of religion. The
+<i>bards</i> were heroic poets of rare lyric power; they kept the national
+traditions in trust, and claimed the second sight and the power of
+prophecy. Much has been said of their human sacrifices in colossal images
+of wicker-work&mdash;the &quot;<i>immani magnitudine simulacra</i>&quot; of C&aelig;sar&mdash;which were
+filled with human victims, and which crackled and disappeared in towering
+flame and columns of smoke, amid the loud chantings of the bards. The most
+that can be said in palliation of this custom is, that almost always such
+a scene presented the judicial execution of criminals, invested with the
+solemnities of religion.</p>
+
+<p>In their theology, <i>Esus</i>, the God Force&mdash;the Eternal Father&mdash;has for his
+agents the personification of spiritual light, of immortality, of nature,
+and of heroism; <i>Camul</i> was the war-god; <i>Tarann</i> the thunder-god; <i>Heol</i>,
+the king of the sun, who inflames the soldier's heart, and gives vitality
+to the corn and the grape.<sup><a href="#fn-4" id="fna-4">4</a></sup></p>
+
+<p>But Druidism, which left its monuments like Stonehenge, and its strong
+traces in English life, now especially found in Wales and other
+mountainous parts of the kingdom, has not left any written record.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch2-6"><span class="sc">Roman Writers.</span>&mdash;Of the Roman occupancy we have Roman and Greek accounts,
+many of them by those who took part in the doings of the time. Among the
+principal <a id="p27"></a>writers are <i>Julius C&aelig;sar</i>, <i>Tacitus</i>, <i>Diodorus Siculus</i>,
+<i>Strabo</i>, and <i>Suetonius</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch2-7"><span class="sc">Psalter of Cashel.</span>&mdash;Of the later Celtic efforts, almost all are in Latin:
+the oldest Irish work extant is called the <i>Psalter of Cashel</i>, which is a
+compilation of the songs of the early bards, and of metrical legends, made
+in the ninth century by <i>Cormac Mac Culinan</i>, who claimed to be King of
+Munster and Bishop of Cashel.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch2-8"><span class="sc">The Welsh Triads.</span>&mdash;The next of the important Celtic remains is called <i>The
+Welsh Triads</i>, an early but progressive work of the Cymbric Celts. Some of
+the triads are of very early date, and others of a much later period. The
+work is said to have been compiled in its present form by <i>Caradoc of
+Nantgarvan</i> and <i>Jevan Brecha</i>, in the thirteenth century. It contains a
+record of &quot;remarkable men and things which have been in the island of
+Britain, and of the events which befell the race of the Cymri from the age
+of ages,&quot; i.e. from the beginning. It has also numerous moral proverbs. It
+is arranged in <i>triads</i>, or sets of three.</p>
+
+<p>As an example, we have one triad giving &quot;The three of the race of the
+island of Britain: <i>Hu Gadarn</i>, (who first brought the race into Britain;)
+<i>Prydain</i>, (who first established regal government,) and <i>Dynwal Moelmud</i>,
+(who made a system of laws.)&quot; Another triad presents &quot;The three benevolent
+tribes of Britain: the <i>Cymri</i>, (who came with Hu Gadarn from
+Constantinople;) the <i>Lolegrwys</i>, (who came from the Loire,) and the
+<i>Britons</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then are mentioned the tribes that came with consent and under protection,
+viz., the <i>Caledonians</i>, the <i>Gwyddelian race</i>, and the men of <i>Galedin</i>,
+who came from the continent &quot;when their country was drowned;&quot; the last
+inhabited the Isle of Wight. Another mentions the three usurping tribes;
+the <i>Coranied</i>, the <i>Gwydel-Fichti</i>, (from Denmark,) <a id="p28"></a>and the <i>Saxons</i>.
+Although the <i>compilation</i> is so modern, most of the triads date from the
+sixth century.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch2-9"><span class="sc">The Mabinogion.</span>&mdash;Next in order of importance of the Celtic remains must be
+mentioned the Mabinogion, or <i>Tales for Youth</i>, a series of romantic
+tales, illustrative of early British life, some of which have been
+translated from the Celtic into English. Among these the most elaborate is
+the <i>Tale of Peredur</i>, a regular Romance of Arthur, entirely Welsh in
+costume and character.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec"><span class="sc">British Bards.</span>&mdash;A controversy has been fiercely carried on respecting the
+authenticity of poems ascribed to <i>Aneurin</i>, <i>Taliesin</i>, <i>Llywarch Hen</i>,
+and <i>Merdhin</i>, or <i>Merlin</i>, four famous British bards of the fifth and
+sixth centuries, who give us the original stories respecting Arthur,
+representing him not as a &quot;miraculous character,&quot; as the later histories
+do, but as a courageous warrior worthy of respect but not of wonder. The
+burden of the evidence, carefully collected and sifted by Sharon
+Turner,<sup><a href="#fn-5" id="fna-5">5</a></sup> seems to be in favor of the authenticity of these poems.</p>
+
+<p>These works are fragmentary and legendary: they have given few elements to
+the English language, but they show us the condition and culture of the
+British mind in that period, and the nature of the people upon whom the
+Saxons imposed their yoke. &quot;The general spirit [of the early British
+poetry] is much more Druidical than Christian,&quot;<sup><a href="#fn-6" id="fna-6">6</a></sup> and in its mysterious
+and legendary nature, while it has been not without value as a historical
+representation of that early period, it has offered rare material for
+romantic poetry from that day to the present time. It is on this account
+especially that these works should be studied.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch2-10"><span class="sc">Gildas.</span>&mdash;Among the writers who must be considered as belonging to the
+Celtic race, although they wrote in Latin, the most prominent is <i>Gildas</i>.
+He was the son of Caw, (Al<a id="p29"></a>cluyd, a British king,) who was also the father
+of the famous bard Aneurin. Many have supposed Gildas and Aneurin to be
+the same person, so vague are the accounts of both. If not, they were
+brothers. Gildas was a British bard, who, when converted to Christianity,
+became a Christian priest, and a missionary among his own people. He was
+born at Dumbarton in the middle of the sixth century, and was surnamed
+<i>the Wise</i>. His great work, the History of the Britons, is directly
+historical: his account extends from the first invasion of Britain down to
+his own time.</p>
+
+<p>A true Celt, he is a violent enemy of the Roman conquerors first, and then
+of the Saxon invaders. He speaks of the latter as &quot;the nefarious Saxons,
+of detestable name, hated alike by God and man; ... a band of devils
+breaking forth from the den of the barbarian lioness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The history of Gildas, although not of much statistical value, sounds a
+clear Celtic note against all invaders, and displays in many parts
+characteristic outlines of the British people.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch2-11"><span class="sc">St. Columbanus.</span>&mdash;St. Colm, or Columbanus, who was born in 521, was the
+founder and abbot of a monastery in Iona, one of the Hebrides, which is
+also called Icolmkill&mdash;the Isle of Colm's Cell. The Socrates of that
+retreat, he found his Plato in the person of a successor, St. Adamnan,
+whose &quot;Vita Sancti Columbae&quot; is an early work of curious historical
+importance. St. Adamnan became abbot in 679.</p>
+
+<p>A backward glance at the sparse and fragmentary annals of the Celtic
+people, will satisfy us that they have but slight claims to an original
+share in English literature. Some were in the Celtic dialects, others in
+Latin. They have given themes, indeed, to later scholars, but have left
+little trace in form and language. The common Celtic words retained in
+English are exceedingly few, although their number has not been decided.
+They form, in some sense, a portion of the foundation on which the
+structure of our literature has been erected, without being in any manner
+a part of the building itself.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch3">
+<h2 id="p30">Chapter III.</h2>
+
+<h3>Anglo-Saxon Literature and History.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch3-1">The Lineage of the Anglo-Saxon</a>. <a href="#ch3-2">Earliest Saxon Poem</a>. <a href="#ch3-3">Metrical
+   Arrangement</a>. <a href="#ch3-4">Periphrasis</a> and <a href="#ch3-5">Alliteration</a>. <a href="#ch3-6">Beowulf</a>. <a href="#ch3-7">Caedmon</a>. <a href="#ch3-8">Other
+   Saxon Fragments</a>. <a href="#ch3-9">The Appearance of Bede</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch3-1">The Lineage of the Anglo-Saxon.</h4>
+
+
+<p>The true origin of English literature is Saxon. Anglo-Saxon is the mother
+tongue of the English language, or, to state its genealogy more
+distinctly, and to show its family relations at a glance, take the
+following divisions and subdivisions of the</p>
+
+<pre>
+                          Teutonic Class.
+                                |
+           .----------------------------------------.
+           |                    |                   |
+   High German branch.  Low German branch.  Scandinavian branch.
+                                |
+                        Dead    |  Languages.
+      .----------------------------------------------------.
+      |          |              |             |            |
+   Gothic.   Old Dutch.    Anglo-Saxon.  Old Frisian.  Old Saxon.
+                                |
+                             English.
+</pre>
+
+<p>Without attempting an analysis of English to find the exact proportion of
+Saxon words, it must be observed that Saxon is the root-language of
+English; it might with propriety be called the oldest English; it has been
+manipulated, modified, and developed in its contact with other
+languages&mdash;remaining, however, <i>radically</i> the same&mdash;to become our present
+spoken language.</p>
+
+<p>At this period of our inquiry, we have to do with the Saxon itself,
+premising, however, that it has many elements from the Dutch, and that its
+Scandinavian relations are found in<a id="p31"></a> many Danish words. The progress and
+modifications of the language in that formative process which made it the
+English, will be mentioned as we proceed in our inquiries.</p>
+
+<p>In speaking of the Anglo-Saxon literature, we include a consideration also
+of those works written in Latin which are products of the times, and bear
+a part in the progress of the people and their literature. They are
+exponents of the Saxon mind, frequently of more value than the vernacular
+writings.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch3-2"><span class="sc">Earliest Saxon Poem.</span>&mdash;The earliest literary monument in the Saxon language
+is the poem called Beowulf, the author and antiquity of which are alike
+unknown. It is at once a romantic legend and an instructive portraiture of
+the earliest Saxon period&mdash;&quot;an Anglo-Saxon poetical romance,&quot; says Sharon
+Turner, &quot;true in costume and manners, but with an invented story.&quot; Before
+proceeding to a consideration of this poem, let us look for a moment at
+some of the characteristics of Saxon poetry. As to its subject-matter, it
+is not much of a love-song, that sentiment not being one of its chief
+inspirations. The Saxon imagination was inflamed chiefly by the religious
+and the heroic in war. As to its handling, it abounded in metaphor and
+periphrasis, suggestive images, and parables instead of direct narrative.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch3-3"><span class="sc">Metrical Arrangement.</span>&mdash;As to metrical arrangement, Saxon poetry differed
+from our modern English as well as from the classical models, in that
+their poets followed no laws of metre, but arranged their vernacular
+verses without any distinct rules, but simply to please the ear. &quot;To such
+a selection and arrangement of words as produced this effect, they added
+the habit of frequently omitting the usual particles, and of conveying
+their meaning in short and contracted phrases. The only artifices they
+used were those of inversion and transition.&quot;<sup><a href="#fn-7" id="fna-7">7</a></sup> It is difficult to give
+examples to those unacquainted <a id="p32"></a>with the language, but the following
+extract may serve to indicate our meaning: it is taken from Beowulf:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="line">    Crist waer a cennijd</div>
+<div class="line">    C&yacute;ninga wuldor</div>
+<div class="line">    On midne winter:</div>
+<div class="line">    M&aelig;re theoden!</div>
+<div class="line">    Ece almihtig!</div>
+<div class="line">    On thij eahteothan daeg</div>
+<div class="line">    Hael end gehaten</div>
+<div class="line">    Heofon ricet theard.</div>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<div class="line">    Christ was born</div>
+<div class="line">    King of glory</div>
+<div class="line">    In mid-winter:</div>
+<div class="line">    Illustrious King!</div>
+<div class="line">    Eternal, Almighty!</div>
+<div class="line">    On the eighth day</div>
+<div class="line">    Saviour was called,</div>
+<div class="line">    Of Heaven's kingdom ruler.</div>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch3-4"><span class="sc">Periphrasis.</span>&mdash;Their periphrasis, or finding figurative names for persons
+and things, is common to the Norse poetry. Thus Caedmon, in speaking of
+the ark, calls it the <i>sea-house, the palace of the ocean, the wooden
+fortress</i>, and by many other periphrastic names.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch3-5"><span class="sc">Alliteration.</span>&mdash;The Saxons were fond of alliteration, both in prose and
+verse. They used it without special rules, but simply to satisfy their
+taste for harmony in having many words beginning with the same letter; and
+thus sometimes making an arbitrary connection between the sentences or
+clauses in a discourse, e.g.:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="line">    Firum foldan;</div>
+<div class="line">    Frea almihtig;</div>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<div class="line">    The ground for men</div>
+<div class="line">    Almighty ruler.</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The nearest approach to a rule was that three words in close connection
+should begin with the same letter. The habit of ellipsis and transposition
+is illustrated by the following sentence in Alfred's prose: &quot;So doth the
+moon with his pale light, that the bright stars he obscures in the
+heavens;&quot; which he thus renders in poetry:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="line">    With pale light</div>
+<div class="line">    Bright stars</div>
+<div class="line">    Moon lesseneth.</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><a id="p33"></a>With this brief explanation, which is only intended to be suggestive to
+the student, we return to Beowulf.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch3-6"><span class="sc">The Plot of Beowulf.</span>&mdash;The poem contains six thousand lines, in which are
+told the wonderful adventures of the valiant viking Beowulf, who is
+supposed to have fallen in Jutland in the year 340. The Danish king
+Hrothgar, in whose great hall banquet, song, and dance are ever going on,
+is subjected to the stated visits of a giant, Grendel, a descendant of
+Cain, who destroys the Danish knights and people, and against whom no
+protection can be found.</p>
+
+<p>Beowulf, the hero of the epic, appears. He is a great chieftain, the
+<i>heorth-geneat</i> (hearth-companion, or vassal) of a king named Higelac. He
+assembles his companions, goes over the road of the swans (the sea) to
+Denmark, or Norway, states his purpose to Hrothgar, and advances to meet
+Grendel. After an indecisive battle with the giant, and a fierce struggle
+with the giant's mother, who attacks him in the guise of a sea-wolf, he
+kills her, and then destroys Grendel. Upon the death of Hrothgar he
+receives his reward in being made King of the Danes.</p>
+
+<p>With this occurrence the original poem ends: it is the oldest epic poem in
+any modern language. At a later day, new cantos were added, which,
+following the fortunes of the hero, record at length that he was killed by
+a dragon. A digest and running commentary of the poem may be found in
+Turner's Anglo-Saxons; and no one can read it without discerning the
+history shining clearly out of the mists of fable. The primitive manners,
+modes of life, forms of expression, are all historically delineated. In it
+the intimate relations between the <i>king</i> and his people are portrayed.
+The Saxon <i>cyning</i> is compounded of <i>cyn</i>, people, and <i>ing</i>, a son or
+descendant; and this etymology gives the true conditions of their rule:
+they were popular leaders&mdash;<i>elected</i> in the witena<a id="p34"></a>gemot on the death of
+their predecessors.<sup><a href="#fn-8" id="fna-8">8</a></sup> We observe, too, the spirit of adventure&mdash;a rude
+knight-errantry&mdash;which characterized these northern sea-kings</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="line">    that with such profit and for deceitful glory</div>
+<div class="line">    labor on the wide sea explore its bays</div>
+<div class="line">    amid the contests of the ocean in the deep waters</div>
+<div class="line">    there they for riches till they sleep with their elders.</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>We may also notice the childish wonder of a rude, primitive, but brave
+people, who magnified a neighboring monarch of great skill and strength,
+or perhaps a malarious fen, into a giant, and who were pleased with a poem
+which caters to that heroic mythus which no civilization can root out of
+the human breast, and which gives at once charm and popularity to every
+epic.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch3-7"><span class="sc">Caedmon.</span>&mdash;Next in order, we find the paraphrase of Scripture by <i>Caedmon</i>,
+a monk of Whitby, who died about the year 680. The period in which he
+lived is especially marked by the spread of Christianity in Britain, and
+by a religious zeal mingled with the popular superstitions. The belief was
+universal that holy men had the power to work miracles. The Bible in its
+entire canon was known to few even among the ecclesiastics: treasure-house
+as it was to the more studious clerics, it was almost a sealed book to the
+common people. It would naturally be expected, then, that among the
+earliest literary efforts would be found translations and paraphrases of
+the most interesting portions of the Scripture narrative. It was in
+accordance with the spirit of the age that these productions should be
+attended with something of the marvellous, to give greater effect to the
+doctrine, and be couched in poetic language, the especial delight of
+people in the earlier ages of their history. Thus the writings of Caedmon
+are explained: he was a poor serving-brother in the <a id="p35"></a>monastery of Whitby,
+who was, or feigned to be, unable to improvise Scripture stories and
+legends of the saints as his brethren did, and had recourse to a vision
+before he exhibited his fluency.</p>
+
+<p>In a dream, in a stall of oxen of which he was the appointed night-guard,
+an angelic stranger asked him to sing. &quot;I cannot sing,&quot; said Caedmon.
+&quot;Sing the creation,&quot; said the mysterious visitant. Feeling himself thus
+miraculously aided, Caedmon paraphrased in his dream the Bible story of
+the creation, and not only remembered the verses when he awoke, but found
+himself possessed of the gift of song for all his days.</p>
+
+<p>Sharon Turner has observed that the paraphrase of Caedmon &quot;exhibits much
+of a Miltonic spirit; and if it were clear that Milton had been familiar
+with Saxon, we should be induced to think that he owed something to
+Caedmon.&quot; And the elder D'Israeli has collated and compared similar
+passages in the two authors, in his &quot;Amenities of Literature.&quot;</p>
+
+<p id="ch3-8">Another remarkable Anglo-Saxon fragment is called <i>Judith</i>, and gives the
+story of Judith and Holofernes, rendered from the Apocrypha, but with
+circumstances, descriptions, and speeches invented by the unknown author.
+It should be observed, as of historical importance, that the manners and
+characters of that Anglo-Saxon period are applied to the time of Judith,
+and so we have really an Anglo-Saxon romance, marking the progress and
+improvement in their poetic art.</p>
+
+<p>Among the other remains of this time are the death of <i>Byrhtnoth</i>, <i>The
+Fight of Finsborough</i>, and the <i>Chronicle of King Lear and his Daughters</i>,
+the last of which is the foundation of an old play, upon which
+Shakspeare's tragedy of Lear is based.</p>
+
+<p>It should here be noticed that Saxon literature was greatly influenced by
+the conversion of the realm at the close of the sixth century from the
+pagan religion of Woden to Christianity. It displayed no longer the fierce
+genius of the Scalds, <a id="p36"></a>inculcating revenge and promising the rewards of
+Walhalla; in spirit it was changed by the doctrine of love, and in form it
+was softened and in some degree&mdash;but only for a time&mdash;injured by the
+influence of the Latin, the language of the Church. At this time, also,
+there was a large adoption of Latin words into the Saxon, especially in
+theology and ecclesiastical matters.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch3-9"><span class="sc">The Advent of Bede.</span>&mdash;The greatest literary character of the Anglo-Saxon
+period, and the one who is of most value in teaching us the history of the
+times, both directly and indirectly, is the man who has been honored by
+his age as the <i>venerable Bede</i> or <i>Beda</i>. He was born at Yarrow, in the
+year 673; and died, after a retired but active, pious, and useful life, in
+735. He wrote an Ecclesiastical history of the English, and dedicated it
+to the most glorious King Ceowulph of Northumberland, one of the monarchs
+of the Saxon Heptarchy. It is in matter and spirit a Saxon work in a Latin
+dress; and, although his work was written in Latin, he is placed among the
+Anglo-Saxon authors because it is as an Englishman that he appears to us
+in his subject, in the honest pride of race and country which he
+constantly manifests, and in the historical information which he has
+conveyed to us concerning the Saxons in England: of a part of the history
+which he relates he was an <i>eye-witness</i>; and besides, his work soon
+called forth several translations into Anglo-Saxon, among which that of
+Alfred the Great is the most noted, and would be taken for an original
+Saxon production.</p>
+
+<p>It is worthy of remark, that after the decline of the Saxon literature,
+Bede remained for centuries, both in the original Latin and in the Saxon
+translations, a sealed and buried book; but in the later days, students of
+English literature and history began to look back with eager pleasure to
+that formative period prior to the Norman conquest, when English polity
+and institutions were simple and few, and when their Saxon progenitors
+were masters in the land.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch4">
+<h2 id="p37">Chapter IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Venerable Bede and the Saxon Chronicle.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch4-1">Biography</a>. <a href="#ch4-2">Ecclesiastical History</a>. <a href="#ch4-3">The Recorded Miracles</a>. <a href="#ch4-4">Bede's Latin</a>.
+   <a href="#ch4-5">Other Writers</a>. <a href="#ch4-6">The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle</a>: <a href="#ch4-7">its Value</a>. <a href="#ch4-8">Alfred the Great</a>.
+   <a href="#ch4-9">Effect of the Danish Invasions</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch4-1">Biography.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Bede was a precocious youth, whose excellent parts commended him to Bishop
+Benedict. He made rapid progress in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; was a deacon
+at the unusual age of nineteen, and a priest at thirty. It seems probable
+that he always remained in his monastery, engaged in literary labor and
+offices of devotion until his death, which happened while he was dictating
+to his boy amanuensis, &quot;Dear master,&quot; said the boy, &quot;there is yet one
+sentence not written.&quot; He answered, &quot;Write quickly.&quot; Soon after, the boy
+said, &quot;The sentence is now written.&quot; He replied. &quot;It is well; you have
+said the truth. Receive my head into your hands, for it is a great
+satisfaction to me to sit facing my holy place where I was wont to pray,
+that I may also sitting, call upon my Father.&quot; &quot;And thus, on the pavement
+of his little cell, singing 'Glory be unto the Father, and unto the Son,
+and unto the Holy Ghost,' when he had named the Holy Ghost he breathed his
+last, and so departed to the heavenly kingdom.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch4-2"><span class="sc">His Ecclesiastical History.</span>&mdash;His ecclesiastical history opens with a
+description of Britain, including what was known of Scotland and Ireland.
+With a short preface concerning <a id="p38"></a>the Church in the earliest times, he
+dwells particularly upon the period, from the arrival of St. Augustine, in
+597, to the year 731, a space of one hundred and thirty-four years, during
+nearly one-half of which the author lived. The principal written works
+from which he drew were the natural history of Pliny, the Hormesta of the
+Spanish priest <i>Paulus Orosius</i>, and the history of Gildas. His account of
+the coming of the Anglo-Saxons, &quot;being the traditions of the Kentish
+people concerning Hengist and Horsa,&quot; has since proved to be fabulous, as
+the Saxons are now known to have been for a long period, during the Roman
+occupancy, making predatory incursions into Britain before the time of
+their reputed settlement.<sup><a href="#fn-9" id="fna-9">9</a></sup></p>
+
+<p>For the materials of the principal portions of his history, Bede was
+indebted to correspondence with those parts of England which he did not
+visit, and to the lives of saints and contemporary documents, which
+recorded the numerous miracles and wonders with which his pages are
+filled.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch4-3"><span class="sc">Bede's Recorded Miracles.</span>&mdash;The subject of these miracles has been
+considered at some length by Dr. Arnold,<sup><a href="#fn-10" id="fna-10">10</a></sup> in a very liberal spirit; but
+few readers will agree with him in concluding that with regard to some
+miracles, &quot;there is no strong <i>a priori</i> improbability in their
+occurrence, but rather the contrary.&quot; One of the most striking of the
+historical lessons contained in this work, is the credulity and
+superstition which mark the age; and we reason justly and conclusively
+from the denial of the most palpable and absurd, to <a id="p39"></a>the repudiation of
+the lesser demands on our credulity. It is sufficient for us that both
+were eagerly believed in his day, and thus complete a picture of the age
+which such a view would only serve to impair, if not destroy. The theology
+of the age is set forth with wonderful clearness, in the numerous
+questions propounded by Augustine to Gregory I., the Bishop of Rome, and
+in the judicious answers of that prelate; in which may also be found the
+true relation which the Church of Rome bore to her English mission.</p>
+
+<p>We have also the statement of the establishment of the archbishoprics of
+Canterbury and York, the bishopric of London, and others.</p>
+
+<p>The last chapter but one, the twenty-third, gives an important account &quot;of
+the present state of the English nation, or of all Britain;&quot; and the
+twenty-fourth contains a chronological recapitulation, from the beginning
+of the year 731, and a list of the author's works. Bede produced, besides
+his history, translations of many books in the Bible, several histories of
+abbots and saints, books of hymns and epigrams, a treatise on orthography,
+and one on poetry.</p>
+
+<p>To point the student to Bede's works, and to indicate their historic
+teachings, is all that can be here accomplished. A careful study of his
+Latin History, as the great literary monument of the Anglo-Saxon period,
+will disclose many important truths which lie beneath the surface, and
+thus escape the cursory reader. Wars and politics, of which the
+Anglo-Saxon chronicle is full, find comparatively little place in his
+pages. The Church was then peaceful, and not polemic; the monasteries were
+sanctuaries in which quiet, devotion, and order reigned. Another phase of
+the literature shows us how the Gentiles raged and the people were
+imagining a vain thing; but Bede, from his undisturbed cell, scarcely
+heard the howlings of the storm, as he wrote of that kingdom which
+promised peace and good-will.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch4-4"><span class="sc">Bede's Latin.</span>&mdash;To the classical student, the language of <a id="p40"></a>Bede offers an
+interesting study. The Latin had already been corrupted, and a nice
+discrimination will show the causes of this corruption&mdash;the effects of the
+other living languages, the ignorance of the clergy, and the new subjects
+and ideas to which it was applied.</p>
+
+<p>Bede was in the main more correct than his age, and his vocabulary has few
+words of barbarian origin. He arose like a luminary, and when the light of
+his learning disappeared, but one other star appeared to irradiate the
+gloom which followed his setting; and that was in the person and the reign
+of Alfred.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch4-5"><span class="sc">Other Writers of This Age.</span>&mdash;Among names which must pass with the mere
+mention, the following are, after Bede, the most illustrious in this time.
+<i>Aldhelm</i>, Abbot of Malmesbury, who died in the year 709, is noted for his
+scientific computations, and for his poetry: he is said to have translated
+the Psalms into Anglo-Saxon poetry.</p>
+
+<p><i>Alcuin</i>, the pride of two countries, England and France, was born in the
+year of Bede's death: renowned as an Englishman for his great learning, he
+was invited by Charlemagne to his court, and aided that distinguished
+sovereign in the scholastic and literary efforts which render his reign so
+illustrious. Alcuin died in 804.</p>
+
+<p>The works of Alcuin are chiefly theological treatises, but he wrote a life
+of Charlemagne, which has unfortunately been lost, and which would have
+been invaluable to history in the dearth of memorials of that emperor and
+his age.</p>
+
+<p><i>Alfric</i>, surnamed Grammaticus, (died 1006,) was an Archbishop of
+Canterbury, in the tenth century, who wrote eighty homilies, and was, in
+his opposition to Romish doctrine, one of the earliest English reformers.</p>
+
+<p><i>John Scotus Erigena</i>, who flourished at the beginning of the ninth
+century, in the brightest age of Irish learning, settled in France, and is
+known as a subtle and learned scholastic philosopher. His principal work
+is a treatise &quot;On the Division of Nature,&quot; Both names, <i>Scotus</i> and
+<i>Erigena</i>, in<a id="p41"></a>dicate his Irish origin; the original <i>Scoti</i> being
+inhabitants of the North of Ireland.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dunstan</i>, (925-988,) commonly called Saint Dunstan, was a powerful and
+dictatorial Archbishop of Canterbury, who used the superstitions of
+monarch and people to enable him to exercise a marvellous supremacy in the
+realm. He wrote commentaries on the Benedictine rule.</p>
+
+<p>These writers had but a remote and indirect bearing upon the progress of
+literature in England, and are mentioned rather as contemporary, than as
+distinct subjects of our study.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch4-6"><span class="sc">The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.</span>&mdash;We now reach the valuable and purely
+historical compilation known as the <i>Anglo-Saxon Chronicle</i>, which is a
+chronological arrangement of events in English history, from the birth of
+Christ to the year 1154, in the reign of Henry the Second. It is the most
+valuable epitome of English history during that long period.</p>
+
+<p>It is written in Anglo-Saxon, and was begun soon after the time of Alfred,
+at least as a distinct work. In it we may trace the changes in the
+language from year to year, and from century to century, as it passed from
+unmixed Saxon until, as the last records are by contemporary hands, it
+almost melted into modern English, which would hardly trouble an
+Englishman of the present day to read.</p>
+
+<p>The first part of the Chronicle is a table of events, many of them
+fabulous, which had been originally jotted down by Saxon monks, abbots,
+and bishops. To these partial records, King Alfred furnished additional
+information, as did also, in all probability, Alfric and Dunstan. These
+were collected into permanent form by Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury,
+who brought the annals up to the year 891; from that date they were
+continued in the monasteries. Of the Saxon Chronicle there are no less
+than seven accredited ancient copies, of which the shortest extends to the
+year 977, and the longest to 1154; the others extend to intermediate
+dates.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch4-7"><a id="p42"></a><span class="sc">Its Value.</span>&mdash;The value of the Chronicle as a statistic record of English
+history cannot be over-estimated; it moves before the student of English
+literature like a diorama, picturing the events in succession, not without
+glimpses of their attendant philosophy. We learn much of the nation's
+thoughts, troubles, mental, moral, and physical conditions, social laws,
+and manners. As illustrations we may refer to the romantic adventures of
+King Alfred; and to the conquest of Saxon England by William of
+Normandy&mdash;&quot;all as God granted them,&quot; says the pious chronicler, &quot;for the
+people's sins.&quot; And he afterward adds, &quot;Bishop Odo and William the Earl
+built castles wide throughout the nation, and poor people distressed; and
+ever after it greatly grew in evil: may the end be good when God will.&quot;
+Although for the most part written in prose, the annals of several years
+are given in the alliterative Saxon verse.</p>
+
+<p>A good English translation of Bede's history, and one of the Chronicle,
+edited by Dr. Giles, have been issued together by Bohn in one volume of
+his Antiquarian library. To the student of English history and of English
+literature, the careful perusal of both, in conjunction, is an imperative
+necessity.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch4-8"><span class="sc">Alfred the Great.</span>&mdash;Among the best specimens of Saxon prose are the
+translations and paraphrases of King <i>Alfred</i>, justly called the Great and
+the Truth-teller, the noblest monarch of the Saxon period. The kingdoms of
+the heptarchy, or octarchy, had been united under the dominion of Egbert,
+the King of Wessex, in the year 827, and thus formed the kingdom of
+England. But this union of the kingdoms was in many respects nominal
+rather than really complete; as Alfred frequently subscribes himself <i>King
+of the West Saxons</i>. It was a confederation to gain strength against their
+enemies. On the one hand, the inhabitants of North, South, and West Wales
+were constantly rising against Wessex and Mercia; and on the other, until
+the accession of Alfred upon the death of his brother Ethelred, in 871,
+every year of the <a id="p43"></a>Chronicle is marked by fierce battles with the troops
+and fleets of the Danes on the eastern and southern coasts.</p>
+
+<p>It redounds greatly to the fame of Alfred that he could find time and
+inclination in his troubled and busy reign, so harassed with wars by land
+and sea, for the establishment of wise laws, the building or rebuilding of
+large cities, the pursuit of letters, and the interest of education. To
+give his subjects, grown-up nobles as well as children, the benefits of
+historical examples, he translated the work of Orosius, a compendious
+history of the world, a work of great repute; and to enlighten the
+ecclesiastics, he made versions of parts of Bede; of the Pastorale of
+Gregory the First; of the Soliloquies of St. Augustine, and of the work of
+Boethius, <i>De Consolatione Philosophi&aelig;</i>. Beside these principal works are
+other minor efforts. In all his writings, he says he &quot;sometimes interprets
+word for word, and sometimes meaning for meaning.&quot; With Alfred went down
+the last gleams of Saxon literature. Troubles were to accumulate steadily
+and irresistibly upon the soil of England, and the sword took the place of
+the pen.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch4-9"><span class="sc">The Danes.</span>&mdash;The Danes thronged into the realm in new incursions, until
+850,000 of them were settled in the North and East of England. The
+Danegelt or tribute, displaying at once the power of the invaders and the
+cowardice and effeminacy of the Saxon monarchs, rose to a large sum, and
+two millions<sup><a href="#fn-11" id="fna-11">11</a></sup> of Saxons were powerless to drive the invaders away. In
+the year 1016, after the weak and wicked reign of the besotted <i>Ethelred</i>,
+justly surnamed the <i>Unready</i>, who to his cowardice in paying tribute
+added the cruelty of a wholesale massacre on St. Brice's Eve&mdash;since called
+the Danish St. Bartholomew&mdash;the heroic Edmund Ironsides could not stay the
+storm, but was content to divide the kingdom with <i>Knud</i> (Canute) the
+Great. Literary efforts were at an end. For twenty-two years the Danish
+kings sat upon the throne <a id="p44"></a>of all England; and when the Saxon line was
+restored in the person of Edward the Confessor, a monarch not calculated
+to restore order and impart strength, in addition to the internal sources
+of disaster, a new element of evil had sprung up in the power and cupidity
+of the Normans.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the death of Edward the Confessor, the claimants to the throne were
+<i>Harold</i>, the son of Godwin, and <i>William of Normandy</i>, both ignoring the
+claims of the Saxon heir apparent, Edgar Atheling. Harold, as has been
+already said, fell a victim to the dissensions in his own ranks, as well
+as to the courage and strength of William, and thus Saxon England fell
+under Norman rule.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec"><span class="sc">The Literary Philosophy.</span>&mdash;The literary philosophy of this period does not
+lie far beneath the surface of the historic record. Saxon literature was
+expiring by limitation. During the twelfth century, the Saxon language was
+completely transformed into English. The intercourse of many previous
+years had introduced a host of Norman French words; inflections had been
+lost; new ideas, facts, and objects had sprung up, requiring new names.
+The dying Saxon literature was overshadowed by the strength and growth of
+the Norman, and it had no royal patron and protector since Alfred. The
+superior art-culture and literary attainments of the South, had long been
+silently making their impression in England; and it had been the custom to
+send many of the English youth of noble families to France to be educated.</p>
+
+<p>Saxon chivalry<sup><a href="#fn-12" id="fna-12">12</a></sup> was rude and unattractive in comparison with the
+splendid armor, the gay tournaments, and the witching minstrelsy which
+signalized French chivalry; and thus the peaceful elements of conquest
+were as seductive as the force of arms was potent. A dynasty which had
+ruled for more than six hundred years was overthrown; a great chapter in
+English history was closed. A new order was established, and a new chapter
+in England's annals was begun.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch5">
+<h2 id="p45">Chapter V.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Norman Conquest and Its Earliest Literature.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch5-1">Norman Rule</a>. <a href="#ch5-2">Its Oppression</a>. <a href="#ch5-3">Its Benefits</a>. <a href="#ch5-4">William of Malmesbury</a>.
+   <a href="#ch5-5">Geoffrey of Monmouth</a>. <a href="#ch5-6">Other Latin Chronicles</a>. <a href="#ch5-7">Anglo-Norman Poets</a>.
+   <a href="#ch5-8">Richard Wace</a>. <a href="#ch5-9">Other Poets</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch5-1">Norman Rule.</h4>
+
+
+<p>With the conquest of England, and as one of the strongest elements of its
+permanency, the feudal system was brought into England; the territory was
+surveyed and apportioned to be held by military tenure; to guard against
+popular insurrections, the curfew rigorously housed the Saxons at night; a
+new legislature, called a parliament, or talking-ground, took the place of
+the witenagemot, or assembly of the wise: it was a conquest not only in
+name but in truth; everything was changed by the conqueror's right, and
+the Saxons were entirely subjected.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch5-2"><span class="sc">Its Oppression.</span>&mdash;In short, the Norman conquest, from the day of the battle
+of Hastings, brought the Saxon people under a galling yoke. The Norman was
+everywhere an oppressor. Besides his right as a conqueror, he felt a
+contempt for the rudeness of the Saxon. He was far more able to govern and
+to teach. He founded rich abbeys; schools like those of Oxford and
+Cambridge he expanded into universities like that of Paris. He filled all
+offices of profit and trust, and created many which the Saxons had not. In
+place of the Saxon English, which, however vigorous, was greatly wanting
+in what may be called the vocabulary of pro<a id="p46"></a>gress, the Norman French,
+drawing constantly upon the Latin, enriched by the enactments of
+Charlemagne and the tributes of Italy, even in its infancy a language of
+social comity in Western Europe, was spoken at court, introduced into the
+courts of law, taught in the schools, and threatened to submerge and drown
+out the vernacular.<sup><a href="#fn-13" id="fna-13">13</a></sup> All inducements to composition in English were
+wanting; delicious songs of Norman Trouv&egrave;res chanted in the <i>Langue
+d'oil</i>, and stirring tales of Troubadours in the <i>Langue d'oc</i>, carried
+the taste captive away from the Saxon, as a regal banquet lures from the
+plain fare of the cottage board, more wholesome but less attractive.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch5-3"><span class="sc">Its Benefits.</span>&mdash;Had this progress continued, had this grasp of power
+remained without hinderance or relaxation, the result would have been the
+destruction or amalgamation of the vigorous English, so as to form a
+romance language similar to the French, and only different in the amount
+of Northern and local words. But the Norman power, without losing its
+title, was to find a limit to its encroachments. This limit was fixed,
+<i>first</i>, by the innate hardihood and firmness of the Saxon character,
+which, though cast down and oppressed, retained its elasticity; which
+cherished its language in spite of Norman threats and sneers, and which
+never lost heart while waiting for better times; <i>secondly</i>, by the
+insular position of Great Britain, fortified by the winds and waves, which
+enabled her to assimilate and mould anew whatever came into her borders,
+to the discomfiture of further continental encroachments; constituting
+her, in the words of Shakspeare,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="line">    &quot;... that pale, that white-faced shore,</div>
+<div class="line">    Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides,</div>
+<div class="line">    And coops from other lands her islanders;&quot;</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and, <i>thirdly</i>, to the Crusades, which, attracting the nobles to
+<a id="p47"></a>adventures in Palestine, lifted the heel of Norman oppression off the
+Saxon neck, and gave that opportunity, which alone was needed, to make
+England in reality, if not in name&mdash;in thews, sinews, and mental strength,
+if not in regal state and aristocratic privilege&mdash;Saxon-England in all its
+future history. Other elements are still found, but the Saxon greatly
+predominates.</p>
+
+<p>The historian of that day might well bemoan the fate of the realm, as in
+the Saxon Chronicle already quoted. To the philosopher of to-day, this
+Norman conquest and its results were of incalculable value to England, by
+bringing her into relations with the continent, by enduing her with a
+weight and influence in the affairs of Europe which she could never
+otherwise have attained, and by giving a new birth to a noble literature
+which has had no superior in any period of the world's history.</p>
+
+<p>As our subject does not require, and our space will not warrant the
+consideration of the rise and progress of French literature, before its
+introduction with the Normans into England, we shall begin with the first
+fruits after its transplantation into British soil. But before doing so,
+it becomes necessary to mention certain Latin chronicles which furnished
+food for these Anglo-Norman poets and legendists.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch5-4"><span class="sc">William of Malmesbury.</span>&mdash;<i>William of Malmesbury</i>, the first Latin historian
+of distinction, who is contemporary with the Norman conquest, wrote a work
+called the &quot;Heroic Deeds of the English Kings,&quot; (<i>Gesta Regum Anglorum</i>,)
+which extends from the arrival of the Saxons to the year 1120; another,
+&quot;The New History,&quot; (<i>Historia Novella</i>,) brings the history down to 1142.
+Notwithstanding the credulity of the age, and his own earnest recital of
+numerous miracles, these works are in the main truthful, and of real value
+to the historical student. In the contest between Matilda and Stephen for
+the succession of the English crown, <a id="p48"></a>William of Malmesbury is a strong
+partisan of the former, and his work thus stands side by side, for those
+who would have all the arguments, with the <i>Gesta Stephani</i>, by an unknown
+contemporary, which is written in the interest of Stephen.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch5-5"><span class="sc">Geoffrey of Monmouth.</span>&mdash;More famous than the monk of Malmesbury, but by no
+means so truthful, stands <i>Geoffrey of Monmouth</i>, Archdeacon of Monmouth
+and Bishop of St. Asaph's, a writer to whom the rhyming chronicles and
+Anglo-Norman poets have owed so much. Walter, a Deacon of Oxford, it is
+said, had procured from Brittany a Welsh chronicle containing a history of
+the Britons from the time of one Brutus, a great-grandson of &AElig;neas, down
+to the seventh century of our era. From this, partly in translation and
+partly in original creation, Geoffrey wrote his &quot;History of the Britons.&quot;
+Catering to the popular prejudice, he revived, and in part created, the
+deeds of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table&mdash;fabulous heroes who
+have figured in the best English poetry from that day to the present,
+their best presentation having been made in the Idyls of the King,
+(Arthur,) by Tennyson.</p>
+
+<p>The popular philosophy of Geoffrey's work is found in the fact, that while
+in Bede and in the Saxon Chronicle the Britons had not been portrayed in
+such a manner as to flatter the national vanity, which seeks for remote
+antecedents of greatness; under the guise of the Chronicle of Brittany,
+Geoffrey undertook to do this. Polydore Virgil distinctly condemns him for
+relating &quot;many fictitious things of King Arthur and the ancient Britons,
+invented by himself, and pretended to be translated by him into Latin,
+which he palms on the world with the sacred name of true history;&quot; and
+this view is substantiated by the fact that the earlier writers speak of
+Arthur as a prince and a warrior, of no colossal fame&mdash;&quot;well known, but
+not idolized.... That he was a courage<a id="p49"></a>ous warrior is unquestionable; but
+that he was the miraculous Mars of the British history, from whom kings
+and nations shrunk in panic, is completely disproved by the temperate
+encomiums of his contemporary bards.&quot;<sup><a href="#fn-14" id="fna-14">14</a></sup></p>
+
+<p>It is of great historical importance to observe the firm hold taken by
+this fabulous character upon the English people, as evinced by the fact
+that he has been a popular hero of the English epic ever since. Spenser
+adopted him as the presiding genius of his &quot;Fairy Queen,&quot; and Milton
+projected a great epic on his times, before he decided to write the
+Paradise Lost.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch5-6">Other Principal Latin Chroniclers of the Early Norman Period.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Ingulphus, Abbot of Croyland, 1075-1109: History of Croyland. Authenticity
+disputed.</p>
+
+<p>William of Poictiers, 1070: Deeds of William the Conqueror, (Gesta
+Gullielmi Ducis Normannorum et Regis Anglorum.)</p>
+
+<p>Ordericus Vitalis, born about 1075: general ecclesiastical history.</p>
+
+<p>William of Jumi&egrave;ges: History of the Dukes of Normandy.</p>
+
+<p>Florence of Worcester, died 1118: (Chronicon ex Chronicis,) Chronicle from
+the Chronicles, from the Creation to 1118, (with two valuable additions to
+1141, and to 1295.)</p>
+
+<p>Matthew of Westminster, end of thirteenth century (probably a fictitious
+name): Flowers of the Histories, (Flores Historiarum.)</p>
+
+<p>Eadmer, died about 1124: history of his own time, (Historia Novorum, sive
+sui seculi.)</p>
+
+<p>Giraldus Cambrensis, born 1146, known as Girald Barry: numerous histories,
+including Topographia Hiberni&aelig;, and the Norman conquest of Ireland; also
+several theological works.</p>
+
+<p>Henry of Huntingdon, first half of the twelfth century: History of
+England.</p>
+
+<p>Alured of Rievaux, 1109-66: The Battle of the Standard.</p>
+
+<p>Roger de Hoveden, end of twelfth century: Annales, from the end of Bede's
+history to 1202.</p>
+
+<p>Matthew Paris, monk of St. Alban's, died 1259: Historia Major, from the
+Norman conquest to 1259, continued by William Rishanger to 1322.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p50"></a>Ralph Higden, fourteenth century: Polychronicon, or Chronicle of Many
+Things; translated in the fifteenth century, by John de Trevisa; printed
+by Caxton in 1482, and by Wynken de Worde in 1485.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch5-7"><span class="sc">The Anglo-Norman Poets and Chroniclers.</span>&mdash;Norman literature had already
+made itself a name before William conquered England. Short jingling tales
+in verse, in ballad style, were popular under the name of <i>fabliaux</i>, and
+fuller epics, tender, fanciful, and spirited, called Romans, or Romaunts,
+were sung to the lute, in courts and camps. Of these latter, Alexander the
+Great, Charlemagne, and Roland were the principal heroes.</p>
+
+<p>Strange as it may seem, this <i>langue d'oil</i>, in which they were composed,
+made more rapid progress in its poetical literature, in the period
+immediately after the conquest, in England than at home: it flourished by
+the transplantation. Its advent was with an act of heroism. Taillefer, the
+standard-bearer of William at Seulac, marched in advance of the army,
+struck the first blow, and met his death while chanting the song of
+Roland:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="line">    Of Charlemagne and Roland,</div>
+<div class="line">    Of Oliver and his vassals,</div>
+<div class="line">    Who died at Roncesvalles.</div>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<div class="line">    De Karlemaine e de Reliant,</div>
+<div class="line">    Et d'Olivier et des vassals,</div>
+<div class="line">    Ki moururent en Renchevals.</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Each stanza ended with the war-shout <i>Aoi</i>! and was responded to by the
+cry of the Normans, <i>Diex aide, God to aid</i>. And this battle-song was the
+bold manifesto of Norman poetry invading England. It found an echo
+wherever William triumphed on English soil, and played an important part
+in the formation of the English language and English literature. New
+scenes and new victories created new inspiration in the poets; monarchs
+like Henry I., called from his scholarship <i>Beauclerc</i>, practised and
+cherished the poetic art, and thus it happened that the Norman poets in
+England produced works of sweeter minstrelsy and greater historical value
+than the <i>fabliaux</i>, <i>Romans</i>, and <i>Chansons de gestes</i> of their brethren
+<a id="p51"></a>on the continent. The conquest itself became a grand theme for their
+muse.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch5-8"><span class="sc">Richard Wace.</span>&mdash;First among the Anglo-Norman poets stands Richard Wace,
+called Maistre Wace, reading clerk, (clerc lisant,) born in the island of
+Jersey, about 1112, died in 1184. His works are especially to be noted for
+the direct and indirect history they contain. His first work, which
+appeared about 1138, is entitled <i>Le Brut d'Angleterre</i>&mdash;The English
+Brutus&mdash;and is in part a paraphrase of the Latin history of Geoffrey of
+Monmouth, who had presented Brutus of Troy as the first in the line of
+British kings. Wace has preserved the fiction of Geoffrey, and has catered
+to that characteristic of the English people which, not content with
+homespun myths, sought for genealogies from the remote classic times.
+Wace's <i>Brut</i> is chiefly in octo-syllabic verse, and extends to fifteen
+thousand lines.</p>
+
+<p>But Wace was a courtier, as well as a poet. Not content with pleasing the
+fancy of the English people with a fabulous royal lineage, he proceeded to
+gratify the pride of their Norman masters by writing, in 1171, his &quot;Roman
+de Rou, et des Ducs de Normandie,&quot; an epic poem on Rollo, the first Duke
+of Normandy&mdash;Rollo, called the Marcher, because he was so mighty of
+stature that no horse could bear his weight. This Rollo compromised with
+Charles the Simple of France by marrying his daughter, and accepting that
+tract of Neustria to which he gave the name of Normandy. He was the
+ancestor, at six removes, of William the Conqueror, and his mighty deeds
+were a pleasant and popular subject for the poet of that day, when a
+great-grandson of William, Henry II., was upon the throne of England. The
+Roman de Rou contains also the history of Rollo's successors: it is in two
+parts; the first extending to the beginning of the reign of the third
+duke, Richard the Fearless, and the second, containing the story of the
+conquest, comes down to the time of Henry II. <a id="p52"></a>himself. The second part he
+wrote rapidly, for fear that he would be forestalled by the king's poet
+<i>Benoit</i>. The first part was written in Alexandrines, but for the second
+he adopted the easier measure of the octo-syllabic verse, of which this
+part contains seventeen thousand lines. In this poem are discerned the
+craving of the popular mind, the power of the subject chosen, and the
+reflection of language and manners, which are displayed on every page.</p>
+
+<p>So popular, indeed, was the subject of the Brut, indigenous as it was
+considered to British soil, that Wace's poem, already taken from Geoffrey
+of Monmouth, as Geoffrey had taken it, or pretended to take it from the
+older chronicle, was soon again, as we shall see, to be versionized into
+English.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch5-9">Other Norman Writers of the Twelfth Century.</h4>
+
+
+
+<p><i>Philip de Than</i>, about 1130, one of the Trouv&egrave;res: <i>Li livre de
+cr&eacute;atures</i> is a poetical study of chronology, and his <i>Bestiarie</i> is a
+sort of natural history of animals and minerals.</p>
+
+<p><i>Benoit</i>: Chroniques des Ducs de Normandie, 1160, written in thirty
+thousand octo-syllabic verses, only worthy of a passing notice, because of
+the appointment of the poet by the king, (Henry II.,) in order to
+forestall the second part of Wace's Roman de Rou.</p>
+
+<p>Geoffrey, died 1146: A miracle play of St. Catherine.</p>
+
+<p>Geoffrey Gaimar, about 1150: Estorie des Engles, (History of the English.)</p>
+
+<p>Luc de la Barre, blinded for his bold satires by the king (Henry I.).</p>
+
+<p>Mestre Thomas, latter part of twelfth century: Roman du Roi Horn. Probably
+the original of the &quot;Geste of Kyng Horn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Richard I., (C&#339;ur de Lion,) died 1199, King of England: <i>Sirventes</i> and
+songs. His antiphonal song with the minstrel Blondel is said to have given
+information of the place of his imprisonment, and procured his release;
+but this is probably only a romantic fiction.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch6">
+<h2 id="p53">Chapter VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Morning Twilight of English Literature.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch6-1">Semi-Saxon Literature</a>. <a href="#ch6-2">Layamon</a>. <a href="#ch6-3">The Ormulum</a>. <a href="#ch6-4">Robert of Gloucester</a>.
+   <a href="#ch6-5">Langland. Piers Plowman</a>. <a href="#ch6-6">Piers Plowman's Creed</a>. <a href="#ch6-7">Sir Jean Froissart</a>. <a href="#ch6-8">Sir
+   John Mandevil</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch6-1">Semi-saxon Literature.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Moore, in his beautiful poem, &quot;The Light of the Harem,&quot; speaks of that
+luminous pulsation which precedes the real, progressive morning:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza">
+<div class="line">             ... that earlier dawn</div>
+<div class="line">    Whose glimpses are again withdrawn,</div>
+<div class="line">    As if the morn had waked, and then</div>
+<div class="line">    Shut close her lids of light again.</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The simile is not inapt, as applied to the first efforts of the early
+English, or Semi-Saxon literature, during the latter part of the twelfth
+and the whole of the thirteenth century. That deceptive dawn, or first
+glimpse of the coming day, is to be found in the work of <i>Layamon</i>. The
+old Saxon had revived, but had been modified and altered by contact with
+the Latin chronicles and the Anglo-Norman poetry, so as to become a
+distinct language&mdash;that of the people; and in this language men of genius
+and poetic taste were now to speak to the English nation.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch6-2"><span class="sc">Layamon.</span>&mdash;Layamon<sup><a href="#fn-15" id="fna-15">15</a></sup> was an English priest of Worcester<a id="p54"></a>shire, who made a
+version of Wace's <i>Brut</i>, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, so
+peculiar, however, in its language, as to puzzle the philologist to fix
+its exact date with even tolerable accuracy. But, notwithstanding the
+resemblance, according to Mr. Ellis, to the &quot;simple and unmixed, though
+very barbarous Saxon,&quot; the character of the alphabet and the nature of the
+rhythm place it at the close of the twelfth century, and present it as
+perhaps the best type of the Semi-Saxon. The poem consists partly of the
+Saxon alliterative lines, and partly of verses which seem to have thrown
+off this trammel; so that a different decision as to its date would be
+reached according as we consider these diverse parts of its structure. It
+is not improbable that, like English poets of a later time, Layamon
+affected a certain archaism in language, as giving greater beauty and
+interest to his style. The subject of the <i>Brut</i> was presented to him as
+already treated by three authors: first, the original Celtic poem, which
+has been lost; second, the Latin chronicle of Geoffrey; and, third, the
+French poem of Wace. Although Layamon's work is, in the main, a
+translation of that of Wace, he has modified it, and added much of his
+own. His poem contains more than thirty thousand lines.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch6-3"><span class="sc">The Ormulum.</span>&mdash;Next in value to the Brut of Layamon, is the Ormulum, a
+series of metrical homilies, in part paraphrases of the gospels for the
+day, with verbal additions and annotations. This was the work of a monk
+named <i>Orm</i> or <i>Ormin</i>, who lived in the beginning of the thirteenth
+century, during the reign of King John and Henry III., and it resembles
+our present English much more nearly than the poem of Layamon. In his
+dedication of the work to his brother Walter, Orm says&mdash;and we give his
+words as an illustration of the language in which he wrote:</p>
+
+<blockquote class="poem">
+<p>    <a id="p55"></a>Ice hafe don swa summ thu bad<br />
+    Annd forthedd te thin wille<br />
+    Ice hafe wennd uintill Ennglissh<br />
+    Goddspelless hallghe lare<br />
+    Affterr thatt little witt tatt me<br />
+    Min Drihhten hafethth lenedd</p>
+
+<p>    I have done so as thou bade,<br />
+    And performed thee thine will;<br />
+    I have turned into English<br />
+    Gospel's holy lore,<br />
+    After that little wit that me<br />
+    My lord hath lent.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The poem is written in Alexandrine verses, which may be divided into
+octosyllabic lines, alternating with those of six syllables, as in the
+extract given above. He is critical with regard to his orthography, as is
+evinced in the following instructions which he gives to his future readers
+and transcriber:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    And whase willen shall this booke<br />
+    Eft other sithe writen,<br />
+    Him bidde ice that he't write right<br />
+    Swa sum this booke him teacheth</p>
+
+<p>    And whoso shall wish this book<br />
+    After other time to write,<br />
+    Him bid I that he it write right,<br />
+    So as this book him teacheth.<br />
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The critics have observed that, whereas the language of Layamon shows that
+it was written in the southwest of England, that of Orm manifests an
+eastern or northeastern origin. To the historical student, Orm discloses
+the religious condition and needs of the people, and the teachings of the
+Church. His poem is also manifestly a landmark in the history of the
+English language.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch6-4"><span class="sc">Robert of Gloucester.</span>&mdash;Among the rhyming chroniclers of this period,
+Robert, a monk of Gloucester Abbey, is noted for his reproduction of the
+history of Geoffrey of Monmouth, already presented by Wace in French, and
+by Layamon in Saxon-English. But he is chiefly valuable in that he carries
+the chronicle forward to the end of the reign of Henry III. Written in
+West-country English, it not only contains a strong infusion of French,
+but distinctly states the prevailing influence of that language in his own
+day:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Vor bote a man couthe French, me tolth of him well lute<br />
+    Ac lowe men holdeth to Englyss, and to her kunde speche zute.</p>
+
+<p>    <a id="p56"></a>For unless a man know French, one talketh of him little;<br />
+    But <i>low</i> men hold to English, and to their natural speech yet.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The chronicle of Robert is written in Alexandrines, and, except for the
+French words incongruously interspersed, is almost as &quot;barbarous&quot; Saxon as
+the Brut of Layamon.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch6-5"><span class="sc">Langland&mdash;Piers Plowman.</span>&mdash;The greatest of the immediate heralds of
+Chaucer, whether we regard it as a work of literary art, or as an historic
+reflector of the age, is &quot;The Vision of Piers Plowman,&quot; by Robert
+Langland, which appeared between 1360 and 1370. It stands between the
+Semi-Saxon and the old English, in point of language, retaining the
+alliterative feature of the former; and, as a teacher of history, it
+displays very clearly the newly awakened spirit of religious inquiry, and
+the desire for religious reform among the English people: it certainly was
+among the means which aided in establishing a freedom of religious thought
+in England, while as yet the continent was bound in the fetters of a
+rigorous and oppressive authority.</p>
+
+<p>Peter, the ploughboy, intended as a representative of the common people,
+drops asleep on Malvern Hills, between Wales and England, and sees in his
+dream an array of virtues and vices pass before him&mdash;such as Mercy, Truth,
+Religion, Covetousness, Avarice, etc. The allegory is not unlike that of
+Bunyan. By using these as the personages, in the manner of the early
+dramas called the Moralities, he is enabled to attack and severely scourge
+the evil lives and practices of the clergy, and the abuses which had
+sprung up in the Church, and to foretell the punishment, which afterward
+fell upon the monasteries in the time of Henry VIII., one hundred and
+fifty years later:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    And then shall the Abbot of Abingdon, and all his issue forever,<br />
+    <i>Have a knock of a king, and incurable the wound</i>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>His attack is not against the Church itself, but against the <a id="p57"></a>clergy. It
+is to be remarked, in studying history through the medium of literature,
+that the works of a certain period, themselves the result of history,
+often illustrate the coming age, by being prophetic, or rather, as
+antecedents by suggesting consequents. Thus, this Vision of Piers Plowman
+indicates the existence of a popular spirit which had been slowly but
+steadily increasing&mdash;which sympathized with Henry II. and the
+priest-trammelling &quot;Constitutions of Clarendon,&quot; even while it was ready
+to go on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas &agrave; Becket, the illustrious
+victim of the quarrel between Henry and his clergy. And it points with no
+uncertain finger to a future of greater light and popular development, for
+this bold spirit of reform was strongly allied to political rights. The
+clergy claimed both spiritualities and temporalities from the Pope, and,
+being governed by ecclesiastical laws, were not like other English
+subjects amenable to the civil code. The king's power was thus endangered;
+a proud and encroaching spirit was fostered, and the clergy became
+dissolute in their lives. In the words of Piers Plowman:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    I found these freres, | For profit of hem selve;<br />
+    All the four orders,  | Closed the gospel,<br />
+    Preaching the people  | As hem good liked.<br />
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>And again:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Ac now is Religion       | And a loud buyer,<br />
+    A rider, a roamer about, | A pricker on a palfrey,<br />
+    A leader of love days    | From manor to manor.<br />
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch6-6"><span class="sc">Piers Plowman's Creed.</span>&mdash;The name of Piers Plowman and the conceit of his
+Vision became at once very popular. He stood as a representative of the
+peasant class rising in importance and in assertion of religious rights.</p>
+
+<p>An unknown follower of Wiclif wrote a poem called &quot;Piers Plowman's Creed,&quot;
+which conveys religious truth in a formula of belief. The language and the
+alliterative feature are similar <a id="p58"></a>to those of the Vision; and the
+invective is against the clergy, and especially against the monks and
+friars.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch6-7"><span class="sc">Froissart.</span>&mdash;Sire Jean Froissart was born about 1337. He is placed here for
+the observance of chronological order: he was not an English writer, but
+must receive special mention because his &quot;Chronicles,&quot; although written in
+French, treat of the English wars in France, and present splendid pictures
+of English chivalry and heroism. He lived, too, for some time in England,
+where he figured at court as the secretary of Philippa, queen of Edward
+III. Although not always to be relied on as an historian, his work is
+unique and charming, and is very truthful in its delineation of the men
+and manners of that age: it was written for courtly characters, and not
+for the common people. The title of his work may be translated &quot;Chronicles
+of France, England, Scotland, Spain, Brittany, Gascony, Flanders, and
+surrounding places.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch6-8"><span class="sc">Sir John Mandevil, (1300-1371.)</span>&mdash;We also place in this general catalogue a
+work which has, ever since its appearance, been considered one of the
+curiosities of English literature. It is a narrative of the travels of
+Mandevil in the East. He was born in 1300; became a doctor of medicine,
+and journeyed in those regions of the earth for thirty-four years. A
+portion of the time he was in service with a Mohammedan army; at other
+times he lived in Egypt, and in China, and, returning to England an old
+man, he brought such a budget of wonders&mdash;true and false&mdash;stories of
+immense birds like the roc, which figure in Arabian mythology and romance,
+and which could carry elephants through the air&mdash;of men with tails, which
+were probably orang-outangs or gorillas.</p>
+
+<p>Some of his tales, which were then entirely discredited, have been
+ascertained by modern travellers to be true. His work was written by him
+first in Latin, and then in French&mdash;Latin for the savans, and French for
+the court&mdash;and <a id="p59"></a>afterward, such was the power and demand of the new
+English tongue, that he presented his marvels to the world in an English
+version. This was first printed by Wynken de Worde, in 1499.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4>Other Writers of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, Who Preceded Chaucer.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Robert Manning, a canon of Bourne&mdash;called also Robert de Brunne:
+Translated a portion of Wace's <i>Brut</i>, and also a chronicle of Piers de
+Langtoft bringing the history down to the death of Edward I. (1307.) He is
+also supposed to be the author of a translation of the &quot;Manuel des P&ecirc;ch&eacute;s,&quot;
+(Handling of Sins,) the original of which is ascribed to Bishop Grost&ecirc;te
+of Lincoln.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Ancren Riwle</i>, or <i>Anchoresses' Rule</i>, about 1200, by an unknown
+writer, sets forth the duties of a monastic life for three ladies
+(anchoresses) and their household in Dorsetshire.</p>
+
+<p>Roger Bacon, (1214-1292,) a friar of Ilchester: He extended the area of
+knowledge by his scientific experiments, but wrote his Opus Magus, or
+<i>greater work</i>, in comparison with the Opus Minus, and numerous other
+treatises in Latin. If he was not a writer in English, his name should be
+mentioned as a great genius, whose scientific knowledge was far in advance
+of his age, and who had prophetic glimpses of the future conquests of
+science.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Grost&ecirc;te, Bishop of Lincoln, died 1253, was probably the author of
+the <i>Manuel des P&ecirc;ch&eacute;s</i>, and also wrote a treatise on the sphere.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Michael Scott: He lived in the latter half of the thirteenth century;
+was a student of the &quot;occult sciences,&quot; and also skilled in theology and
+medicine. He is referred to by Walter Scott as the &quot;wondrous wizard,
+Michael Scott.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Thomas of Ercildoun&mdash;called the Rhymer&mdash;supposed by Sir Walter Scott, but
+erroneously, as is now believed, to be the author of &quot;Sir Tristram.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><i>The King of Tars</i> is the work of an unknown author of this period.</p>
+
+
+<p>In thus disposing of the authors before Chaucer, no attempt has been made
+at a nice subdivision and classification of the character of the works, or
+the nature of the periods, further than to trace the onward movement of
+the language, in its embryo state, in its birth, and in its rude but
+healthy infancy.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch7">
+<h2 id="p60">Chapter VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Chaucer, and the Early Reformation.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch7-1">A New Era&mdash;Chaucer</a>. <a href="#ch7-2">Italian Influence</a>. <a href="#ch7-3">Chaucer as a Founder</a>. <a href="#ch7-4">Earlier
+   Poems</a>. <a href="#ch7-5">The Canterbury Tales</a>. <a href="#ch7-6">Characters</a>. <a href="#ch7-7">Satire</a>. <a href="#ch7-8">Presentations of
+   Woman</a>. <a href="#ch7-9">The Plan Proposed</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch7-1">The Beginning of a New Era.</h4>
+
+
+<p>And now it is evident, from what has been said, that we stand upon the eve
+of a great movement in history and literature. Up to this time everything
+had been more or less tentative, experimental, and disconnected, all
+tending indeed, but with little unity of action, toward an established
+order. It began to be acknowledged that though the clergy might write in
+Latin, and Frenchmen in French, the English should &quot;show their fantasyes
+in such words as we learneden of our dame's tonge,&quot; and it was equally
+evident that that English must be cultivated and formed into a fitting
+vehicle for vigorous English thought. To do this, a master mind was
+required, and such a master mind appeared in the person of Chaucer. It is
+particularly fortunate for our historic theory that his works,
+constituting the origin of our homogeneous English literature, furnish
+forth its best and most striking demonstration.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec"><span class="sc">Chaucer's Birth.</span>&mdash;Geoffrey Chaucer was born at London about the year 1328:
+as to the exact date, we waive all the discussion in which his biographers
+have engaged, and consider this fixed as the most probable time. His
+parentage is unknown, although Leland, the English antiquarian, de<a id="p61"></a>clares
+him to have come of a noble family, and Pitts says he was the son of a
+knight. He died in the year 1400, and thus was an active and observant
+contemporary of events in the most remarkable century which had thus far
+rolled over Europe&mdash;the age of Edward III. and the Black Prince, of Crecy
+and Poitiers, of English bills and bows, stronger than French lances; the
+age of Wiclif, of reformation in religion, government, language, and
+social order. Whatever his family antecedents, he was a courtier, and a
+successful one; his wife was Philippa, a sister of Lady Katherine
+Swinford, first the mistress and then the wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of
+Lancaster.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch7-2"><span class="sc">Italian Influence.</span>&mdash;From a literary point of view, the period of his birth
+was remarkable for the strong influence of Italian letters, which first
+having made its entrance into France, now, in natural course of progress,
+found its way into England. Dante had produced,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+      ... in the darkness prest,<br />
+    From his own soul by worldly weights, ...
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>the greatest poem then known to modern Europe, and the most imaginative
+ever written. Thus the Italian sky was blazing with splendor, while the
+West was still in the morning twilight. The Divina Commedia was written
+half a century before the Canterbury Tales.</p>
+
+<p>Boccaccio was then writing his <i>Filostrato</i>, which was to be Chaucer's
+model in the Troilus and Creseide, and his <i>Decameron</i>, which suggested
+the plan of the Canterbury Tales. His <i>Teseide</i> is also said to be the
+original of the Knight's Tale. Petrarch, &quot;the worthy clerke&quot; from whom
+Chaucer is said to have learned a story or two in Italy for his great
+work, was born in 1304, and was also a star of the first magnitude in that
+Italian galaxy.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, it is here worthy of a passing remark, that from that early time
+to a later period, many of the great products <a id="p62"></a>of English poetry have been
+watered by silver rills of imaginative genius from a remote Italian
+source. Chaucer's indebtedness has just been noticed. Spenser borrowed his
+versification and not a little of his poetic handling in the Faery Queen
+from Ariosto. Milton owes to Dante some of his conceptions of heaven and
+hell in his Paradise Lost, while his Lycidas, Arcades, Allegro and
+Penseroso, may be called Italian poems done into English.</p>
+
+<p>In the time of Chaucer, this Italian influence marks the extended
+relations of English letters; and, serving to remove the trammels of the
+French, it gave to the now vigorous and growing English that opportunity
+of development for which it had so long waited. Out of the serfdom and
+obscurity to which it had been condemned by the Normans, it had sprung
+forth in reality, as in name, the English language. Books, few at the
+best, long used in Latin or French, were now demanded by English mind, and
+being produced in answer to the demand.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch7-3"><span class="sc">The Founder of the Literature.</span>&mdash;But there was still wanted a man who could
+use the elements and influences of the time&mdash;a great poet&mdash;a maker&mdash;a
+creator of literature. The language needed a forming, controlling, fixing
+hand. The English mind needed a leader and master, English imagination a
+guide, English literature a father.</p>
+
+<p>The person who answered to this call, and who was equal to all these
+demands, was Chaucer. But he was something more. He claimed only to be a
+poet, while he was to figure in after times as historian, philosopher, and
+artist.</p>
+
+<p>The scope of this work does not permit an examination of Chaucer's
+writings in detail, but the position we have taken will be best
+illustrated by his greatest work, the Canterbury Tales. Of the others, a
+few preliminary words only need be said. Like most writers in an early
+literary period, Chaucer began with translations, which were extended into
+paraphrases <a id="p63"></a>or versions, and thus his &quot;'prentice hand&quot; gained the
+practice and skill with which to attempt original poems.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch7-4"><span class="sc">Minor Poems.</span>&mdash;His earliest attempt, doubtless, was the <i>Romaunt of the
+Rose</i>, an allegorical poem in French, by William de Lorris, continued,
+after his death in 1260, by Jean de Meun, who figured as a poet in the
+court of Charles le Bel, of France. This poem, esteemed by the French as
+the finest of their old romances, was rendered by Chaucer, with
+considerable alterations and improvements, into octosyllabic verse. The
+Romaunt portrays the trials which a lover meets and the obstacles he
+overcomes in pursuit of his mistress, under the allegory of a rose in an
+inaccessible garden. It has been variously construed&mdash;by theologians as
+the yearning of man for the celestial city; by chemists as the search for
+the philosopher's stone; by jurists as that for equity, and by medical men
+as the attempt to produce a panacea for all human ailments.</p>
+
+<p>Next in order was his <i>Troilus and Creseide</i>, a medi&aelig;val tale, already
+attempted by Boccaccio in his Filostrate, but borrowed by Chaucer,
+according to his own account, from <i>Lollius</i>, a mysterious name without an
+owner. The story is similar to that dramatized by Shakspeare in his
+tragedy of the same title. This is in decasyllabic verse, arranged in
+stanzas of seven lines each.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>House of Fame</i>, another of his principal poems, is a curious
+description&mdash;probably his first original effort&mdash;of the Temple of Fame, an
+immense cage, sixty miles long, and its inhabitants the great writers of
+classic times, and is chiefly valuable as showing the estimation in which
+the classic writers were held in that day. This is also in octosyllabic
+verses, and is further remarkable for the opulence of its imagery and its
+variety of description. The poet is carried in the claws of a great eagle
+into this house, and sees its distinguished occupants standing upon
+columns of different kinds of metal, <a id="p64"></a>according to their merits. The poem
+ends with the third book, very abruptly, as Chaucer awakes from his
+vision.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Legend of Good Women&quot; is a record of the loves and misfortunes of
+celebrated women, and is supposed to have been written to make amends for
+the author's other unjust portraitures of female character.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch7-5"><span class="sc">The Canterbury Tales.</span>&mdash;In order to give system to our historic inquiries,
+we shall now present an outline of the Canterbury Tales, in order that we
+may show&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   I. The indications of a general desire in that period for a reformation
+   in religion.</p>
+
+<p>   II. The social condition of the English people.</p>
+
+<p>   III. The important changes in government.</p>
+
+<p>   IV. The condition and progress of the English language.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Canterbury Tales were begun in 1386, when Chaucer was fifty-eight
+years old, and in a period of comparative quiet, after the minority of
+Richard II. was over, and before his troubles had begun. They form a
+beautiful gallery of cabinet pictures of English society in all its
+grades, except the very highest and the lowest; and, in this respect, they
+supplement in exact lineaments and the freshest coloring those compendiums
+of English history which only present to us, on the one hand, the persons
+and deeds of kings and their nobles, and, on the other, the general laws
+which so long oppressed the lower orders of the people, and the action of
+which is illustrated by disorders among them. But in Chaucer we find the
+true philosophy of English society, the principle of the guilds, or
+fraternities, to which his pilgrims belong&mdash;the character and avocation of
+the knight, squire, yeoman, franklin, bailiff, sompnour, reeve, etc.,
+names, many of them, now obsolete. Who can find these in our compendiums?
+they must be dug&mdash;and dry work it is&mdash;out of profounder histories, or
+found, with greater pleasure, in poems like that of Chaucer.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch7-6"><a id="p65"></a><span class="sc">Characters.</span>&mdash;Let us consider, then, a few of his principal characters
+which most truly represent the age and nation.</p>
+
+<p>The Tabard inn at Southwark, then a suburb of &quot;London borough without the
+walls,&quot; was a great rendezvous for pilgrims who were journeying to the
+shrine of St. Thomas &agrave; Becket, at Canterbury&mdash;that Saxon archbishop who
+had been murdered by the minions of Henry II. Southwark was on the high
+street, the old Roman highway from London to the southeast. A gathering of
+pilgrims here is no uncommon occurrence; and thus numbers and variety make
+a combination of penitence and pleasure. The host of the Tabard&mdash;doubtless
+a true portraiture of the landlord of that day&mdash;counts noses, that he may
+distribute the pewter plates. A substantial supper smokes upon the
+old-fashioned Saxon-English board&mdash;so substantial that the pilgrims are
+evidently about to lay in a good stock, in anticipation of poor fare, the
+fatigue of travel, and perhaps a fast or two not set down in the calendar.
+As soon as they attack the viands, ale and strong wines, hippocras,
+pigment, and claret, are served in bright pewter and wood. There were
+Saxon drinks for the commoner pilgrims; the claret was for the knight.
+Every one drinks at his will, and the miller, as we shall see, takes a
+little more than his head can decently carry.</p>
+
+<p>First in the place of honor is the knight, accompanied by his son, the
+young squire, and his trusty yeoman. Then, in order of social rank, a
+prioress, a nun and three priests, a friar, a merchant, a poor scholar or
+clerk of Oxford, a sergeant of the law, a frankelein, a haberdasher, a
+weaver, a tapster, a dyer, a cook, a shipman, a doctor of physic, a wife
+of Bath, a poor parson, a ploughman, a miller, a manciple or college
+steward, a reeve or bailiff, a sompnour or summoner to the ecclesiastical
+courts, a pardoner or seller of papal indulgences (one hundred and fifty
+years before Luther)&mdash;an essentially English company of many social
+grades, bound to the most popular shrine, that of a Saxon archbishop,
+himself <a id="p66"></a>the son of a London citizen, murdered two hundred years before
+with the connivance of an English king. No one can read this list without
+thinking that if Chaucer be true and accurate in his descriptions of these
+persons, and make them talk as they did talk, his delineations are of
+inestimable value historically. He has been faithfully true. Like all
+great masters of the epic art, he doubtless drew them from the life; each,
+given in the outlines of the prologue, is a speaking portrait: even the
+horses they ride are as true to nature as those in the pictures of Rosa
+Bonheur.</p>
+
+<p>And besides these historic delineations which mark the age and country,
+notwithstanding the loss of local and personal satire with which, to the
+reader of his day, the poem must have sparkled, and which time has
+destroyed for us, the features of our common humanity are so well
+portrayed, that to the latest generations will be there displayed the
+&quot;forth-showing instances&quot; of the <i>Idola Tribus</i> of Bacon, the besetting
+sins, frailties, and oddities of the human race.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch7-7"><span class="sc">Satire.</span>&mdash;His touches of satire and irony are as light as the hits of an
+accomplished master of the small-sword; mere hits, but significant of deep
+thrusts, at the scandals, abuses, and oppressions of the age. Like
+Dickens, he employed his fiction in the way of reform, and helped to
+effect it.</p>
+
+<p>Let us illustrate. While sitting at the table, Chaucer makes his sketches
+for the Prologue. A few of these will serve here as specimens of his
+powers. Take the <i>Doctour of Physike</i> who</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Knew the cause of every maladie,<br />
+    Were it of cold or hote or wet or drie;
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>who also knew</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+      ... the old Esculapius,<br />
+    And Dioscorides and eke Rufus,<br />
+    Old Hippocras, Rasis, and Avicen,
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>and many other classic authorities in medicine.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    <a id="p67"></a>Of his diete mesurable was he,<br />
+    And it was of no superfluite;
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>nor was it a gross slander to say of the many,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    His studie was but litel on the Bible.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It was a suggestive satire which led him to hint that he was</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;    ... but esy of dispense;<br />
+    He kepte that he wan in pestilence;<br />
+    For gold in physike is a cordial;<br />
+    Therefore he loved gold in special.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Chaucer deals tenderly with the lawyers; yet, granting his sergeant of the
+law discretion and wisdom, a knowledge of cases even &quot;from the time of
+King Will,&quot; and fees and perquisites quite proportional, he adds,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Nowher so besy a man as he ther n' as,<br />
+    And yet he seemed besier than he was.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch7-8"><span class="sc">His Presentations of Woman.</span>&mdash;Woman seems to find hard judgment in this
+work. Madame Eglantine, the prioress, with her nasal chanting, her
+English-French, &quot;of Stratford-atte-Bow,&quot; her legion of smalle houndes, and
+her affected manner, is not a flattering type of woman's character, and
+yet no doubt she is a faithful portrait of many a prioress of that day.</p>
+
+<p>And the wife of Bath is still more repulsive. She tells us, in the
+prologue to her story, that she has buried five husbands, and, buxom
+still, is looking for the sixth. She is a jolly <i>compagnon de voyage</i>, had
+been thrice to Jerusalem, and is now seeking assoil for some little sins
+at Canterbury. And the host's wife, as he describes her, is not by any
+means a pleasant helpmeet for an honest man. The host is out of her
+hearing, or he would not be so ready to tell her character:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    <a id="p68"></a>I have a wif, tho' that she poore be;<br />
+    But of her tongue a blabbing shrew is she,<br />
+    And yet she hath a heap of vices mo.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>She is always getting into trouble with the neighbors; and when he will
+not fight in her quarrel, she cries,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;      ... False coward, wreak thy wif;<br />
+    By corpus domini, I will have thy knife,<br />
+    And thou shalt have my distaff and go spin.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The best names she has for him are milksop, coward, and ape; and so we
+say, with him,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Come, let us pass away from this matt&egrave;re.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch7-9"><span class="sc">The Plan Proposed.</span>&mdash;With these suggestions of the nature of the company
+assembled &quot;for to don their pilgrimage,&quot; we come to the framework of the
+story. While sitting at the table, the host proposes</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    That each of you, to shorten with your way,<br />
+    In this viage shall tellen tales twey.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Each pilgrim should tell two stories; one on the way to Canterbury, and
+one returning. As, including Chaucer and the host, there are thirty-one in
+the company, this would make sixty-two stories. The one who told the best
+story should have, on the return of the company to the Tabard inn, a
+supper at the expense of the rest.</p>
+
+<p>The host's idea was unanimously accepted; and in the morning, as they ride
+forth, they begin to put it into execution. Although lots are drawn for
+the order in which the stories shall be told, it is easily arranged by the
+courteous host, who recognizes the difference in station among the
+pilgrims, that the knight shall inaugurate the scheme, which he does by
+telling that beautiful story of <i>Palamon and Arcite</i>, the plot of which is
+taken from <i>Le Teseide</i> of Boccacio. It <a id="p69"></a>is received with cheers by the
+company, and with great delight by the host, who cries out,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    So mote I gon&mdash;this goth aright,<br />
+    Unbockled is the mail.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The next in order is called for, but the miller, who has replenished his
+midnight potations in the morning, and is now rolling upon his horse,
+swears that &quot;he can a noble tale,&quot; and, not heeding the rebuke of the
+host,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Thou art a fool, thy wit is overcome,
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>he shouts out a vulgar story, in all respects in direct contrast to that
+of the knight. As a literary device, this rude introduction of the miller
+breaks the stiffness and monotony of a succession in the order of rank;
+and, as a feature of the history, it seems to tell us something of
+democratic progress. The miller's story ridicules a carpenter, and the
+reeve, who is a carpenter, immediately repays him by telling a tale in
+which he puts a miller in a ludicrous position.</p>
+
+<p>With such a start, the pilgrims proceed to tell their tales; but not all.
+There is neither record of their reaching Canterbury, nor returning. Nor
+is the completion of the number at all essential: for all practical
+purposes, we have all that can be asked; and had the work been completed,
+it would have added little to the historical stores which it now
+indirectly, and perhaps unconsciously, offers. The number of the tales
+(including two in prose) is twenty-four, and great additional value is
+given to them by the short prologue introducing each of them.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch8">
+<h2 id="p70">Chapter VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Chaucer, (Continued.)&mdash;Reforms in Religion and Society.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch8-1">Historical Facts</a>. <a href="#ch8-2">Reform in Religion</a>. <a href="#ch8-3">The Clergy, Regular and Secular</a>.
+   <a href="#ch8-4">The Friar and the Sompnour</a>. <a href="#ch8-5">The Pardonere</a>. <a href="#ch8-6">The Poure Persone</a>. <a href="#ch8-7">John
+   Wiclif</a>. <a href="#ch8-8">The Translation of the Bible</a>. <a href="#ch8-9">The Ashes of Wiclif</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch8-1">Historical Facts.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Leaving the pilgrims' cavalcade for a more philosophical consideration of
+the historical teachings of the subject, it may be clearly shown that the
+work of Chaucer informs us of a wholesome reform in religion, or, in the
+words of George Ellis,<sup><a href="#fn-16" id="fna-16">16</a></sup> &quot;he was not only respected as the father of
+English poetry, but revered as a champion of the Reformation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Let us recur briefly to the history. With William the Conqueror a great
+change had been introduced into England: under him and his immediate
+successors&mdash;his son William Rufus, his nephew Henry I., the usurper
+Stephen, and Henry II.,&mdash;the efforts of the &quot;English kings of Norman race&quot;
+were directed to the establishment of their power on a strong foundation;
+but they began, little by little, to see that the only foundation was that
+of the unconquerable English people; so that popular rights soon began to
+be considered, and the accession of Henry II., the first of the
+Plantagenets, was specially grateful to the English, because he was the
+first since the <a id="p71"></a>Conquest to represent the Saxon line, being the grandson
+of Henry I., and son of <i>Matilda</i>, niece of Edgar Atheling. In the mean
+time, as has been seen, the English language had been formed, the chief
+element of which was Saxon. This was a strong instrument of political
+rights, for community of language tended to an amalgamation of the Norman
+and Saxon peoples. With regard to the Church in England, the insulation
+from Rome had impaired the influence of the Papacy. The misdeeds and
+arrogance of the clergy had arrayed both people and monarch against their
+claims, as several of the satirical poems already mentioned have shown. As
+a privileged class, who used their immunities to do evil and corrupt the
+realm, the clergy became odious to the <i>nobles</i>, whose power they shared
+and sometimes impaired, and to the <i>people</i>, who could now read their
+faults and despise their comminations, and who were unwilling to pay
+hard-earned wages to support them in idleness and vice. It was not the
+doctrine, but the practice which they condemned. With the accession of the
+house of Plantagenet, the people were made to feel that the Norman
+monarchy was a curse, without alloy. Richard I. was a knight-errant and a
+crusader, who cared little for the realm; John was an adulterer, traitor,
+and coward, who roused the people's anger by first quarrelling with the
+Pope, and then basely giving him the kingdom to receive it again as a
+papal fief. The nation, headed by the warlike barons, had forced the great
+charter of popular rights from John, and had caused it to be confirmed and
+supplemented during the long reign of his son, the weak Henry III.</p>
+
+<p>Edward I. was engaged in cruel wars, both in Wales and Scotland, which
+wasted the people's money without any corresponding advantage.</p>
+
+<p>Edward II. was deposed and murdered by his queen and her paramour
+Mortimer; and, however great their crime, he was certainly unworthy and
+unable to control a fierce and turbulent people, already clamorous for
+their rights. These well-<a id="p72"></a>known facts are here stated to show the
+unsettled condition of things during the period when the English were
+being formed into a nation, the language established, and the earliest
+literary efforts made. Materials for a better organization were at hand in
+great abundance; only proper master-builders were needed. We have seen
+that everything now betokened the coming of a new era, in State, Church,
+and literature.</p>
+
+<p>The monarch who came to the throne in 1327, one year before the birth of
+Chaucer, was worthy to be the usher of this new era to England: a man of
+might, of judgment, and of forecast; the first truly <i>English</i> monarch in
+sympathy and purpose who had occupied the throne since the Conquest:
+liberal beyond all former precedent in religion, he sheltered Wiclif in
+his bold invectives, and paved the way for the later encroachments upon
+the papal supremacy. With the aid of his accomplished son, Edward the
+Black Prince, he rendered England illustrious by his foreign wars, and
+removed what remained of the animosity between Saxon and Norman.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch8-2"><span class="sc">Reform in Religion.</span>&mdash;We are so accustomed to refer the Reformation to the
+time of Luther in Germany, as the grand religious turning-point in modern
+history, that we are apt to underrate, if not to forget, the religious
+movement in this most important era of English history. Chaucer and Wiclif
+wrote nearly half a century before John Huss was burned by Sigismond: it
+was a century after that that Luther burned the Pope's decretals at
+Wittenberg, and still later that Henry VIII. threw off the papal dominion
+in England. But great crises in a nation's history never arrive without
+premonition;&mdash;there are no moral earthquakes without premonitory throes,
+and sometimes these are more decisive and destructive than that which
+gives electric publicity. Such distinct signs appeared in the age of
+Chaucer, and the later history of the Church in England cannot be
+distinctly understood without a careful study of this period.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p73"></a>It is well known that Chaucer was an adherent of John of Gaunt; that he
+and his great protector&mdash;perhaps with no very pious intents&mdash;favored the
+doctrines of Wiclif; that in the politico-religious disturbances in 1382,
+incident to the minority of Richard II., he was obliged to flee the
+country. But if we wish to find the most striking religious history of the
+age, we must seek it in the portraitures of religious characters and
+events in his Canterbury Tales. In order to a proper intelligence of
+these, let us look for a moment at the ecclesiastical condition of England
+at that time. Connected with much in doctrine and ritual worthy to be
+retained, and, indeed, still retained in the articles and liturgy of the
+Anglican Church, there was much, the growth of ignorance and neglect, to
+be reformed. The Church of England had never had a real affinity with
+Rome. The gorgeous and sensual ceremonies which, in the indolent airs of
+the Mediterranean, were imposing and attractive, palled upon the taste of
+the more phlegmatic Englishmen. Institutions organized at Rome did not
+flourish in that higher latitude, and abuses were currently discussed even
+before any plan was considered for reforming them.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch8-3"><span class="sc">The Clergy.</span>&mdash;The great monastic orders of St. Benedict, scattered
+throughout Europe, were, in the early and turbulent days, a most important
+aid and protection to Christianity. But by degrees, and as they were no
+longer needed, they had become corrupt, because they had become idle. The
+Cluniacs and Cistercians, branches of the Benedictines, are represented in
+Chaucer's poem by the monk and prioress, as types of bodies which needed
+reform.</p>
+
+<p>The Grandmontines, a smaller branch, were widely known for their foppery:
+the young monks painted their cheeks, and washed and covered their beards
+at night. The cloisters became luxurious, and sheltered, and, what is
+worse, sanctioned lewdness and debauchery.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p74"></a>There was a great difference indeed between the <i>regular</i> clergy, or
+those belonging to orders and monasteries, and the <i>secular</i> clergy or
+parish priests, who were far better; and there was a jealous feud between
+them. There was a lamentable ignorance of the Scripture among the clergy,
+and gross darkness over the people. The paraphrases of Caedmon, the
+translations of Bede and Alfred, the rare manuscripts of the Latin Bible,
+were all that cast a faint ray upon this gloom. The people could not read
+Latin, even if they had books; and the Saxon versions were almost in a
+foreign language. Thus, distrusting their religious teachers, thoughtful
+men began to long for an English version of that Holy Book which contains
+all the words of eternal life. And thus, while the people were becoming
+more clamorous for instruction, and while Wiclif was meditating the great
+boon of a translated Bible, which, like a noonday sun, should irradiate
+the dark places and disclose the loathsome groups and filthy
+manifestations of cell and cloister, Chaucer was administering the
+wholesome medicine of satire and contempt. He displays the typical monk
+given up to every luxury, the costly black dress with fine fur edgings,
+the love-knot which fastens his hood, and his preference for pricking and
+hunting the hare, over poring into a stupid book in a cloister.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch8-4"><span class="sc">The Friar and the Sompnour.</span>&mdash;His satire extends also to the friar, who has
+not even that semblance of virtue which is the tribute of the hypocrite to
+our holy faith. He is not even the demure rascal conceived by Thomson in
+his Castle of Indolence:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;    ... the first amid the fry,</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>    A little round, fat, oily man of God,<br />
+    Who had a roguish twinkle in his eye,<br />
+    When a tight maiden chanced to trippen by,</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>    Which when observed, he shrunk into his mew,<br />
+    And straight would recollect his piety anew.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><a id="p75"></a>But Chaucer's friar is a wanton and merry scoundrel, taking every
+license, kissing the wives and talking love-talk to the girls in his
+wanderings, as he begs for his Church and his order. His hood is stuffed
+with trinkets to give them; he is worthily known as the best beggar of his
+house; his eyes alight with wine, he strikes his little harp, trolls out
+funny songs and love-ditties. Anon, his frolic over, he preaches to the
+collected crowd violent denunciations of the parish priest, within the
+very limits of his parish. The very principles upon which these mendicant
+orders were established seem to be elements of evil. That they might be
+better than the monks, they had no cloisters and magnificent gardens, with
+little to do but enjoy them. Like our Lord, they were generally without a
+place to lay their heads; they had neither purse nor scrip. But instead of
+sanctifying, the itinerary was their great temptation and final ruin.
+Nothing can be conceived better calculated to harden the heart and to
+destroy the fierce sensibilities of our nature than to be a beggar and a
+wanderer. So that in our retrospective glance, we may pity while we
+condemn &quot;the friar of orders gray.&quot; With a delicate irony in Chaucer's
+picture, is combined somewhat of a liking for this &quot;worthy limitour.&quot;<sup><a href="#fn-17" id="fna-17">17</a></sup></p>
+
+<p>In the same category of contempt for the existing ecclesiastical system,
+Chaucer places the sompnour, or summoner to the Church courts. Of his
+fire-red face, scattered beard, and the bilious knobs on his cheeks,
+&quot;children were sore afraid.&quot; The friar, in his tale, represents him as in
+league with the devil, who carries him away. He is a drinker of strong
+wines, a conniver at evil for bribes: for a good sum he would teach &quot;a
+felon&quot;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;               ... not to have none awe<br />
+    In swiche a case of the archdeacon's curse.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>To him the Church system was nothing unless he could make profit of it.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch8-5"><a id="p76"></a><span class="sc">The Pardonere.</span>&mdash;Nor is his picture of the pardoner, or vender of
+indulgences, more flattering. He sells&mdash;to the great contempt of the
+poet&mdash;a piece of the Virgin's veil, a bit of the sail of St. Peter's boat,
+holy pigges' bones, and with these relics he made more money in each
+parish in one day than the parson himself in two months.</p>
+
+<p>Thus taking advantage of his plot to ridicule these characters, and to
+make them satirize each other&mdash;as in the rival stories of the sompnour and
+friar&mdash;he turns with pleasure from these betrayers of religion, to show us
+that there was a leaven of pure piety and devotion left.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch8-6"><span class="sc">The Poor Parson.</span>&mdash;With what eager interest does he portray the lovely
+character of the <i>poor parson</i>, the true shepherd of his little flock, in
+the midst of false friars and luxurious monks!--poor himself, but</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Riche was he of holy thought and work,</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>    That Cristes gospel truely wolde preche,<br />
+    His parishers devoutly wolde teche.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>    Wide was his parish and houses fer asonder,<br />
+    But he left nought for ne rain no thonder,<br />
+    In sickness and in mischief to visite<br />
+    The ferrest in his parish, moche and lite.<br />
+    Upon his fete, and in his hand a staf,<br />
+    This noble example to his shepe he yaf,<br />
+    That first he wrought and afterward he taught.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Chaucer's description of the poor parson, which loses much by being
+curtailed, has proved to be a model for all poets who have drawn the
+likeness of an earnest pastor from that day to ours, among whom are
+Herbert, Cowper, Goldsmith, and Wordsworth; but no imitation has equalled
+this beautiful model. When urged by the host,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Tell us a fable anon, for cocke's bones,
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><a id="p77"></a>he quotes St. Paul to Timothy as rebuking those who tell fables; and,
+disclaiming all power in poetry, preaches them such a stirring discourse
+upon penance, contrition, confession, and the seven deadly sins, with
+their remedies, as must have fallen like a thunderbolt upon this careless,
+motly crew; and has the additional value of giving us Chaucer's epitome of
+sound doctrine in that bigoted and ignorant age: and, eminently sound and
+holy as it is, it rebukes the lewdness of the other stories, and, in point
+of morality, neutralizes if it does not justify the lewd teachings of the
+work, or in other words, the immorality of the age. This is the parson's
+own view: his story is the last which is told, and he tells us, in the
+prologue to his sermon:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    To knitte up all this feste, and make an ende;<br />
+    And Jesu for his grace wit me sende<br />
+    To showen you the way in this viage<br />
+    Of thilke parfit glorious pilgrimage,<br />
+    That hight Jerusalem celestial.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In an addendum to this discourse, which brings the Canterbury Tales to an
+abrupt close, and which, if genuine, as the best critics think it, was
+added some time after, Chaucer takes shame to himself for his lewd
+stories, repudiates all his &quot;translations and enditinges of worldly
+vanitees,&quot; and only finds pleasure in his translations of Boethius, his
+homilies and legends of the saints; and, with words of penitence, he hopes
+that he shall be saved &quot;atte the laste day of dome.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch8-7"><span class="sc">John Wiclif.</span><sup><a href="#fn-18" id="fna-18">18</a></sup>&mdash;The subject of this early reformation so clearly set
+forth in the stories of Chaucer, cannot be fully illustrated without a
+special notice of Chaucer's great contemporary and co-worker, John Wiclif.</p>
+
+<p>What Chaucer hints, or places in the mouths of his characters, with
+apparently no very serious intent, Wiclif, himself a secular priest,
+proclaimed boldly and as of prime import<a id="p78"></a>ance, first from his professor's
+chair at Oxford, and then from his forced retirement at Lutterworth, where
+he may well have been the model of Chaucer's poor parson.</p>
+
+<p>Wiclif was born in 1324, four years before Chaucer. The same abuses which
+called forth the satires of Langland and Chaucer upon monk and friar, and
+which, if unchecked, promised universal corruption, aroused the
+martyr-zeal of Wiclif; and similar reproofs are to be found in his work
+entitled &quot;Objections to Friars,&quot; and in numerous treatises from his pen
+against many of the doctrines and practices of the Church.</p>
+
+<p>Noted for his learning and boldness, he was sent by Edward III. one of an
+embassy to Bruges, to negotiate with the Pope's envoys concerning
+benefices held in England by foreigners. There he met John of Gaunt, the
+Duke of Lancaster. This prince, whose immediate descendants were to play
+so prominent a part in later history, was the fourth son of Edward III. By
+the death of the Black Prince, in 1376, and of Lionel, Duke of Clarence,
+in 1368, he became the oldest remaining child of the king, and the father
+of the man who usurped the throne of England and reigned as Henry IV. The
+influence of Lancaster was equal to his station, and he extended his
+protection to Wiclif. This, combined with the support of Lord Percy, the
+Marshal of England, saved the reformer from the stake when he was tried
+before the Bishop, of London on a charge of heresy, in 1377. He was again
+brought before a synod of the clergy at Lambeth, in 1378, but such was the
+favor of the populace in his behalf, and such, too, the weakness of the
+papal party, on account of a schism which had resulted in the election of
+two popes, that, although his opinions were declared heretical, he was not
+proceeded against.</p>
+
+<p>After this, although almost sick to death, he rose from what his enemies
+had hoped would be his death-bed, to &quot;again declare the evil deeds of the
+friars.&quot; In 1381, he lectured <a id="p79"></a>openly at Oxford against the doctrine of
+transubstantiation; and for this, after a presentment by the Church&mdash;and a
+partial recantation, or explaining away&mdash;even the liberal king thought
+proper to command that he should retire from the university. Thus, during
+his latter years, he lived in retirement at his little parish of
+Lutterworth, escaping the dangers of the troublous time, and dying&mdash;struck
+with paralysis at his chancel&mdash;in 1384, sixteen years before Chaucer.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch8-8"><span class="sc">Translation of the Bible.</span>&mdash;The labors of Wiclif which produced the most
+important results, were not his violent lectures as a reformer, but the
+translation of the Bible into English, the very language of the common
+people, greatly to the wrath of the hierarchy and its political upholders.
+This, too, is his chief glory: as a reformer he went too fast and too far;
+he struck fiercely at the root of authority, imperilling what was good, in
+his attack upon what was evil. In pulling up the tares he endangered the
+wheat, and from him, as a progenitor, came the Lollards, a fanatical,
+violent, and revolutionary sect.</p>
+
+<p>But his English Bible, the parent of the later versions, cannot be too
+highly valued. For the first time, English readers could search the whole
+Scriptures, and judge for themselves of doctrine and authority: there they
+could learn how far the traditions and commandments of men had encrusted
+and corrupted the pure word of truth. Thus the greatest impulsion was
+given to a reformation in doctrine; and thus, too, the exclusiveness and
+arrogance of the clergy received the first of many sledge-hammer blows
+which were to result in their confusion and discomfiture.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If,&quot; says Froude,<sup><a href="#fn-19" id="fna-19">19</a></sup> &quot;the Black Prince had lived, or if Richard II. had
+inherited the temper of the Plantagenets, the ecclesiastical system would
+have been spared the misfortune of a longer reprieve.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch8-9"><span class="sc">The Ashes of Wiclif.</span>&mdash;The vengeance which Wiclif es<a id="p80"></a>caped during his life
+was wreaked upon his bones. In 1428, the Council of Constance ordered that
+if his bones could be distinguished from those of other, faithful people,
+they should &quot;be taken out of the ground and thrown far off from Christian
+burial.&quot; On this errand the Bishop of Lincoln came with his officials to
+Lutterworth, and, finding them, burned them, and threw the ashes into the
+little stream called the Swift. Fuller, in his Church History, adds: &quot;Thus
+this brook has conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into
+the narrow seas, they into the main ocean; and thus the ashes of Wiclif
+are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world
+over;&quot; or, in the more carefully selected words of an English laureate of
+modern days,<sup><a href="#fn-20" id="fna-20">20</a></sup></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;             ... this deed accurst,<br />
+    An emblem yields to friends and enemies,<br />
+    How the bold teacher's doctrine, <i>sanctified<br />
+    By truth</i>, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed.
+</p></blockquote>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch9">
+<h2 id="p81">Chapter IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>Chaucer (Continued.)&mdash;Progress of Society, and of Languages.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch9-1">Social Life</a>. <a href="#ch9-2">Government</a>. <a href="#ch9-3">Chaucer's English</a>. <a href="#ch9-4">His Death</a>. <a href="#ch9-5">Historical
+   Facts</a>. <a href="#ch9-6">John Gower</a>. <a href="#ch9-7">Chaucer and Gower</a>. <a href="#ch9-8">Gower's Language</a>. <a href="#ch9-10">Other Writers</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch9-1">Social Life.</h4>
+
+
+<p>A few words must suffice to suggest to the student what may be learned, as
+to the condition of society in England, from the Canterbury Tales.</p>
+
+<p>All the portraits are representatives of classes. But an inquiry into the
+social life of the period will be more systematic, if we look first at the
+nature and condition of chivalry, as it still existed, although on the eve
+of departure, in England. This is found in the portraits of certain of
+Chaucer's pilgrims&mdash;the knight, the squire, and the yeoman; and in the
+special prologues to the various tales. The <i>knight</i>, as the
+representative of European chivalry, comes to us in name at least from the
+German forests with the irrepressible Teutons. <i>Chivalry</i> in its rude
+form, however, was destined to pass through a refining and modifying
+process, and to obtain its name in France. Its Norman characteristic is
+found in the young <i>ecuyer</i> or squire, of Chaucer, who aspires to equal
+his father in station and renown; while the English type of the
+man-at-arms (<i>l'homme d'armes</i>) is found in their attendant yeoman, the
+<i>tiers &eacute;tat</i> of English chivalry, whose bills and bows served Edward III.
+at Cressy and Poictiers, and, a little later, made Henry V. of England
+king of France in pros<a id="p82"></a>pect, at Agincourt. Chivalry, in its palmy days,
+was an institution of great merit and power; but its humanizing purpose
+now accomplished, it was beginning to decline.</p>
+
+<p>What a speaking picture has Chaucer drawn of the knight, brave as a lion,
+prudent in counsel, but gentle as a woman. His deeds of valor had been
+achieved, not at Cressy and Calais, but&mdash;what both chieftain and poet
+esteemed far nobler warfare&mdash;in battle with the infidel, at Alge&ccedil;iras, in
+Poland, in Prussia, and Russia. Thrice had he fought with sharp lances in
+the lists, and thrice had he slain his foe; yet he was</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Of his port as meke as is a mayde;<br />
+    He never yet no vilainie ne sayde<br />
+    In all his life unto ne manere wight,<br />
+    He was a very parfit gentil knight.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The entire paradox of chivalry is here presented by the poet. For, though
+Chaucer's knight, just returned from the wars, is going to show his
+devotion to God and the saints by his pilgrimage to the hallowed shrine at
+Canterbury, when he is called upon for his story, his fancy flies to the
+old romantic mythology. Mars is his god of war, and Venus his mother of
+loves, and, by an anachronism quite common in that day, Palamon and Arcite
+are medi&aelig;val knights trained in the school of chivalry, and aflame, in
+knightly style, with the light of love and ladies' eyes. These
+incongruities marked the age.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the flickering brightness of chivalry in Chaucer's time, even
+then growing dimmer and more fitful, and soon to &quot;pale its ineffectual
+fire&quot; in the light of a growing civilization. Its better principles, which
+were those of truth, virtue, and holiness, were to remain; but its forms,
+ceremonies, and magnificence were to disappear.</p>
+
+<p>It is significant of social progress, and of the levelling influence of
+Christianity, that common people should do their pilgrimage with community
+of interest as well as danger, and <a id="p83"></a>in easy, tale-telling conference with
+those of higher station. The franklin, with white beard and red face, has
+been lord of the sessions and knight of the shire. The merchant, with
+forked beard and Flaundrish beaver hat, discourses learnedly of taxes and
+ship-money, and was doubtless drawn from an existing original, the type of
+a class. Several of the personages belong to the guilds which were so
+famous in London, and</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Were alle yclothed in o livere<br />
+    Of a solempne and grete fraternite.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch9-2"><span class="sc">Government.</span>&mdash;Closely connected with this social progress, was the progress
+in constitutional government, the fruit of the charters of John and Henry
+III. After the assassination of Edward II. by his queen and her paramour,
+there opened upon England a new historic era, when the bold and energetic
+Edward III. ascended the throne&mdash;an era reflected in the poem of Chaucer.
+The king, with Wiclif's aid, checked the encroachments of the Church. He
+increased the representation of the people in parliament, and&mdash;perhaps the
+greatest reform of all&mdash;he divided that body into two houses, the peers
+and the commons, giving great consequence to the latter in the conduct of
+the government, and introducing that striking feature of English
+legislation, that no ministry can withstand an opposition majority in the
+lower house; and another quite as important, that no tax should be imposed
+without its consent. The philosophy of these great facts is to be found in
+the democratic spirit so manifest among the pilgrims; a spirit tempered
+with loyalty, but ready, where their liberties were encroached upon, to
+act with legislative vigor, as well as individual boldness.</p>
+
+<p>Not so directly, but still forcibly, does Chaucer present the results of
+Edward's wars in France, in the status of the knight, squire, and yeoman,
+and of the English sailor, and in the changes introduced into the language
+and customs of the English thereby.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch9-3"><a id="p84"></a><span class="sc">Chaucer's English.</span>&mdash;But we are to observe, finally, that Chaucer is the
+type of progress in the language, giving it himself the momentum which
+carried it forward with only technical modifications to the days of
+Spenser and the Virgin Queen. The <i>House of Fame</i> and other minor poems
+are written in the octosyllabic verse of the Trouv&egrave;res, but the
+<i>Canterbury Tales</i> give us the first vigorous English handling of the
+decasyllabic couplet, or iambic pentameter, which was to become so
+polished an instrument afterward in the hands of Dryden and Pope. The
+English of all the poems is simple and vernacular.</p>
+
+<p>It is known that Dante had at first intended to compose the Divina
+Commedia in Latin. &quot;But when,&quot; he said to the sympathizing Frate Ilario,
+&quot;I recalled the condition of the present age, and knew that those generous
+men for whom, in better days, these things were written, had abandoned
+(<i>ahi dolore</i>) the liberal arts into vulgar hands, I threw aside the
+delicate lyre which armed my flank, and attuned another more befitting the
+ears of moderns.&quot; It seems strange that he should have thus regretted what
+to us seems a noble and original opportunity of double creation&mdash;poem and
+language. What Dante thus bewailed was his real warrant for immortality.
+Had he written his great work in Latin, it would have been consigned, with
+the Italian latinity of the middle ages, to oblivion; while his Tuscan
+still delights the ear of princes and lazzaroni. Professorships of the
+Divina Commedia are instituted in Italian universities, and men are
+considered accomplished when they know it by heart.</p>
+
+<p>What Dante had done, not without murmuring, Chaucer did more cheerfully in
+England. Claimed by both universities as a collegian, perhaps without
+truth, he certainly was an educated man, and must have been sorely tempted
+by Latin hexameters; but he knew his mission, and felt his power. With a
+master hand he moulded the language. He is reproached for having
+introduced &quot;a wagon-load of foreign <a id="p85"></a>words,&quot; i.e. Norman words, which,
+although frowned upon by some critics, were greatly needed, were eagerly
+adopted, and constituted him the &quot;well of English undefiled,&quot; as he was
+called by Spenser. It is no part of our plan to consider Chaucer's
+language or diction, a special study which the reader can pursue for
+himself. Occleve, in his work &quot;<i>De Regimine Principium&quot;</i> calls him &quot;the
+honour of English tonge,&quot; &quot;floure of eloquence,&quot; and &quot;universal fadir in
+science,&quot; and, above all, &quot;the firste findere of our faire language.&quot; To
+Lydgate he was the &quot;Floure of Poetes throughout all Bretaine.&quot; Measured by
+our standard, he is not always musical, &quot;and,&quot; in the language of Dryden,
+&quot;many of his verses are lame for want of half a foot, and sometimes a
+whole one;&quot; but he must be measured by the standards of his age, by the
+judgment of his contemporaries, and by a thorough intelligence of the
+language as he found it and as he left it. Edward III., a practical
+reformer in many things, gave additional importance to English, by
+restoring it in the courts of law, and administering justice to the people
+in their own tongue. When we read of the <i>English</i> kings of this early
+period, it is curious to reflect that these monarchs, up to the time of
+Edward I., spoke French as their vernacular tongue, while English had only
+been the mixed, corrupted language of the lower classes, which was now
+brought thus by king and poet into honorable consideration.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch9-4"><span class="sc">His Death.</span>&mdash;Chaucer died on the 25th of October, 1400, in his little
+tenement in the garden of St. Mary's Chapel, Westminster, and left his
+works and his fame to an evil and unappreciative age. His monument was not
+erected until one hundred and fifty-six years afterward, by Nicholas
+Brigham. It stands in the &quot;poets' corner&quot; of Westminster Abbey, and has
+been the nucleus of that gathering-place of the sacred dust which once
+enclosed the great minds of England. The inscription, which justly styles
+him &quot;Anglorum <a id="p86"></a>vates ter maximus,&quot; is not to be entirely depended upon as
+to the &quot;annus Domini,&quot; or &quot;tempora vitae,&quot; because of the turbulent and
+destructive reigns that had intervened&mdash;evil times for literary effort,
+and yet making material for literature and history, and producing that
+wonderful magician, the printing-press, and paper, by means of which the
+former things might be disseminated, and Chaucer brought nearer to us than
+to them.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch9-5"><span class="sc">Historical Facts.</span>&mdash;The year before Chaucer died, Richard II. was starved
+in his dungeon. Henry, the son of John of Gaunt, represented the
+usurpation of Lancaster, and the realm was convulsed with the revolts of
+rival aristocracy; and, although Prince Hal, or Henry V., warred with
+entire success in France, and got the throne of that kingdom away from
+Charles VI., (the Insane,) he died leaving to his infant son, Henry VI.,
+an inheritance which could not be secured. The rival claimant of York,
+Edward IV., had a strong party in the kingdom: then came the wars of the
+Roses; the murders and treason of Richard III.; the sordid valor of Henry
+VII.; the conjugal affection of Henry VIII.; the great religious
+earthquake all over Europe, known as the Reformation; constituting all
+together an epoch too stirring and unsettled to permit literature to
+flourish; an epoch which gave birth to no great poet or mighty master, but
+which contained only the seeds of things which were to germinate and
+flourish in a kindlier age.</p>
+
+<p>In closing this notice of Chaucer, it should be remarked that no English
+poet has been more successful in the varied delineation of character, or
+in fresh and charming pictures of Nature. Witty and humorous, sententious
+and didactic, solemn and pathetic, he not only pleases the fancy, but
+touches the heart.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch9-6"><span class="sc">John Gower.</span>&mdash;Before entering upon the barren period from Chaucer to
+Spenser, however, there is one contempo<a id="p87"></a>rary of Chaucer whom we must not
+omit to mention; for his works, although of little literary value, are
+historical signs of the times: this is <i>John Gower</i>, styled variously Sir
+John and Judge Gower, as he was very probably both a knight and a justice.
+He seems to owe most of his celebrity to his connection, however slight,
+with Chaucer; although there is no doubt of his having been held in good
+repute by the literary patrons and critics of his own age. His fame rests
+upon three works, or rather three parts of one scheme&mdash;<i>Speculum
+Meditantis</i>, <i>Vox Clamantis</i>, and <i>Confessio Amantis</i>. The first of these,
+<i>the mirror of one who meditates</i>, was in French verse, and was, in the
+main, a treatise upon virtue and repentance, with inculcations to conjugal
+fidelity much disregarded at that time. This work has been lost. The <i>Vox
+Clamantis</i>, or <i>voice of one crying in the wilderness</i>, is directly
+historical, being a chronicle, in Latin elegiacs, of the popular revolts
+of Wat Tyler in the time of Richard II., and a sermon on fatalism, which,
+while it calls for a reformation in the clergy, takes ground against
+Wiclif, his doctrines, and adherents. In the later books he discusses the
+military and the lawyers; and thus he is the voice of one crying, like the
+Baptist in the wilderness, against existing abuses and for the advent of a
+better order. The <i>Confessio Amantis</i>, now principally known because it
+contains a eulogium of Chaucer, which in his later editions he left out,
+is in English verse, and was composed at the instance of Richard II. The
+general argument of this Lover's Confession is a dialogue between the
+lover and a priest of Venus, who, in the guise of a confessor, applies the
+breviary of the Church to the confessions of love.<sup><a href="#fn-21" id="fna-21">21</a></sup> The poem is
+interspersed with introductory or recapitulatory Latin verses.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch9-7"><span class="sc">Chaucer and Gower.</span>&mdash;That there was for a time a <a id="p88"></a>mutual admiration between
+Chaucer and Gower, is shown by their allusion to each other. In the
+penultimate stanza of the Troilus and Creseide, Chaucer calls him &quot;O
+Morall Gower,&quot; an epithet repeated by Dunbar, Hawes, and other writers;
+while in the <i>Confessio Amantis</i>, Gower speaks of Chaucer as his disciple
+and poet, and alludes to his poems with great praise. That they were at
+any time alienated from each other has been asserted, but the best
+commentators agree in thinking without sufficient grounds.</p>
+
+<p>The historical teachings of Gower are easy to find. He states truths
+without parable. His moral satires are aimed at the Church corruptions of
+the day, and yet are conservative; and are taken, says Berthelet, in his
+dedication of the Confessio to Henry VIII., not only out of &quot;poets,
+orators, historic writers, and philosophers, but out of the Holy
+Scripture&quot;&mdash;the same Scripture so eloquently expounded by Chaucer, and
+translated by Wiclif. Again, Gower, with an eye to the present rather than
+to future fame, wrote in three languages&mdash;a tribute to the Church in his
+Latin, to the court in his French, and to the progressive spirit of the
+age in his English. The latter alone is now read, and is the basis of his
+fame. Besides three poems, he left, among his manuscripts, fifty French
+sonnets, (cinquantes balades,) which were afterward printed by his
+descendant, Lord Gower, Duke of Sutherland.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch9-8"><span class="sc">Gower's Language.</span>&mdash;Like Chaucer, Gower was a reformer in language, and was
+accused by the &quot;severer etymologists of having corrupted the purity of the
+English by affecting to introduce so many foreign words and phrases;&quot; but
+he has the tribute of Sir Philip Sidney (no mean praise) that Chaucer and
+himself were the leaders of a movement, which others have followed, &quot;to
+beautifie our mother tongue,&quot; and thus the <i>Confessio Amantis</i> ranks as
+one of the formers of our language, in a day when it required much moral
+courage <a id="p89"></a>to break away from the trammels of Latin and French, and at the
+same time to compel them to surrender their choicest treasures to the
+English.</p>
+
+<p>Gower was born in 1325 or 1326, and outlived Chaucer. It has been
+generally believed that Chaucer was his poetical pupil. The only evidence
+is found in the following vague expression of Gower in the Confessio
+Amantis:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    And greet well Chaucer when ye meet<br />
+    As <i>my disciple</i> and my poete.<br />
+    For in the flower of his youth,<br />
+    In sondry wise as he well couth,<br />
+    Of ditties and of songes glade<br />
+    The which he for my sake made.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It may have been but a patronizing phrase, warranted by Gower's superior
+rank and station; for to the modern critic the one is the uprising sun,
+and the other the pale star scarcely discerned in the sky. Gower died in
+1408, eight years after his more illustrious colleague.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch9-10">Other Writers of the Period of Chaucer.</h4>
+
+
+<p>John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, a Scottish poet, born about 1320:
+wrote a poem concerning the deeds of King Robert I. in achieving the
+independence of Scotland. It is called <i>Broite</i> or <i>Brute</i>, and in it, in
+imitation of the English, he traces the Scottish royal lineage to Brutus.
+Although by no means equal to Chaucer, he is far superior to any other
+English poet of the time, and his language is more intelligible at the
+present day than that of Chaucer or Gower. Sir Walter Scott has borrowed
+from Barbour's poem in his &quot;Lord of the Isles.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Blind Harry&mdash;name unknown: wrote the adventures of Sir William Wallace,
+about 1460.</p>
+
+<p>James I. of Scotland, assassinated at Perth, in 1437. He wrote &quot;The Kings
+Quhair,&quot; (Quire or Book,) describing the progress of his attachment to the
+daughter of the Earl of Somerset, while a prisoner in England, during the
+reign of Henry IV.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Occleve, flourished about 1420. His principal work is in Latin; De
+Regimine Principum, (concerning the government of princes.)</p>
+
+<p><a id="p90"></a>John Lydgate, flourished about 1430: wrote <i>Masks</i> and <i>Mummeries</i>, and
+nine books of tragedies translated from Boccaccio.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Henryson, flourished about 1430: Robin and Makyne, a pastoral; and
+a continuation of Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide, entitled &quot;The Testament
+of Fair Creseide.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>William Dunbar, died about 1520: the greatest of Scottish poets, called
+&quot;The Chaucer of Scotland.&quot; He wrote &quot;The Thistle and the Rose,&quot; &quot;The
+Dance,&quot; and &quot;The Golden Targe.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch10">
+<h2 id="p91">Chapter X.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Barren Period Between Chaucer and Spenser.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch10-1">Greek Literature</a>. <a href="#ch10-2">Invention of Printing</a>. <a href="#ch10-3">Caxton</a>. <a href="#ch10-4">Contemporary History</a>.
+   <a href="#ch10-5">Skelton</a>. <a href="#ch10-6">Wyatt</a>. <a href="#ch10-7">Surrey</a>. <a href="#ch10-8">Sir Thomas More</a>. <a href="#ch10-9">Utopia</a>, and <a href="#ch10-10">other Works</a>. <a href="#ch10-11">Other
+   Writers</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch10-1">The Study of Greek Literature.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Having thus mentioned the writers whom we regard as belonging to the
+period of Chaucer, although some of them, like Henryson and Dunbar,
+flourished at the close of the fifteenth century, we reach those of that
+literary epoch which may be regarded as the transition state between
+Chaucer and the age of Elizabeth: an epoch which, while it produced no
+great literary work, and is irradiated by no great name, was, however, a
+time of preparation for the splendid advent of Spenser and Shakspeare.</p>
+
+<p>Incident to the dangers which had so long beset the Eastern or Byzantine
+Empire, which culminated in the fall of Constantinople&mdash;and to the gradual
+but steady progress of Western Europe in arts and letters, which made it a
+welcome refuge for the imperilled learning of the East&mdash;Greek letters came
+like a fertilizing flood across the Continent into England. The philosophy
+of Plato, the power of the Athenian drama, and the learning of the
+Stagyrite, were a new impulse to literature. Before the close of the
+fifteenth century, Greek was taught at Oxford, and men marvelled as they
+read that &quot;musical and prolific language, that gives a soul to the objects
+of sense, and a body to the abstractions of philosophy,&quot; a knowledge of
+which had been before entirely lost in the <a id="p92"></a>West. Thus was perfected what
+is known as the revival of letters, when classical learning came to enrich
+and modify the national literatures, if it did temporarily retard the
+vernacular progress. The Humanists carried the day against the
+Obscurantists; and, as scholarship had before consisted in a thorough
+knowledge of Latin, it now also included a knowledge of Greek, which
+presented noble works of poetry, eloquence, and philosophy, and gave us a
+new idiom for the terminologies of science.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch10-2"><span class="sc">Invention of Printing.</span>&mdash;Nor was this all. This great wealth of learning
+would have still remained a dead letter to the multitude, and, in the
+main, a useless treasure even to scholars, had it not been for a simple
+yet marvellous invention of the same period. In Germany, some obscure
+mechanics, at Harlem, at Mayence, and at Strasbourg, were at work upon a
+machine which, if perfected, should at once extend letters a hundred-fold,
+and by that process revolutionize literature. The writers before, few as
+they were, had been almost as numerous as the readers; hereafter the
+readers were to increase in a geometrical proportion, and each great
+writer should address millions. Movable types, first of wood and then of
+metal, were made, the latter as early as 1441. Sch&#339;ffer, Guttenberg, and
+Faust brought them to such perfection that books were soon printed and
+issued in large numbers. But so slowly did the art travel, partly on
+account of want of communication, and partly because it was believed to
+partake of necromancy, and partly, too, from the phlegmatic character of
+the English people, that thirty years elapsed before it was brought into
+England. The art of printing came in response to the demand of an age of
+progress: it was needed before; it was called for by the increasing number
+of readers, and when it came it multiplied that number largely.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch10-3"><span class="sc">William Caxton.</span>&mdash;That it did at last come to England was<a id="p93"></a> due to William
+Caxton, a native of Kent, and by vocation a mercer, who imported costly
+continental fabrics into England, and with them some of the new books now
+being printed in Holland. That he was a man of some eminence is shown by
+his having been engaged by Edward IV. on a mission to the Duke of
+Burgundy, with power to negotiate a treaty of commerce; that he was a
+person of skill and courtesy is evinced by his being retained in the
+service of Margaret, Duchess of York, when she married Charles, Duke of
+Burgundy. While in her train, he studied printing on the Continent, and is
+said to have printed some books there. At length, when he was more than
+sixty years old, he returned to England; and, in 1474, he printed what is
+supposed to be the first book printed in England, &quot;The Game and Playe of
+the Chesse.&quot; Thus it was a century after Chaucer wrote the Canterbury
+Tales that printing was introduced into England. Caxton died in 1491, but
+his workmen continued to print, and among them Wynken de Worde stands
+conspicuous. Among the earlier works printed by Caxton were the Canterbury
+Tales, the Book of Fame, and the Troilus and Creseide of Chaucer.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch10-4"><span class="sc">Contemporary History.</span>&mdash;It will be remembered that this was the stormy
+period of the Wars of the Roses. The long and troubled reign of Henry VI.
+closed in sorrow in 1471. The titular crown of France had been easily
+taken from him by Charles VII. and Joan of Arc; and although Richard of
+York, the great-grandson of Edward III., had failed in his attempts upon
+the English throne, yet <i>his</i> son Edward, afterward the Fourth, was
+successful. Then came the patricide of Clarence, the accession and
+cruelties of Richard III., the battle of Bosworth, and, at length, the
+union of the two houses in the persons of Henry VII. (Henry Tudor of
+Lancaster) and Elizabeth of York. Thus the strife of the succession was
+settled, and the realm had rest to reorganize and start anew in its
+historic career.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p94"></a>The weakening of the aristocracy by war and by execution gave to the
+crown a power before unknown, and made it a fearful coigne of vantage for
+Henry VIII., whose accession was in 1509. People and parliament were alike
+subservient, and gave their consent to the unjust edicts and arbitrary
+cruelties of this terrible tyrant.</p>
+
+<p>In his reign the old English quarrel between Church and State&mdash;which
+during the civil war had lain dormant&mdash;again rose, and was brought to a
+final issue. It is not unusual to hear that the English Reformation grew
+out of the ambition of a libidinous monarch. This is a coincidence rather
+than a cause. His lust and his marriages would have occurred had there
+been no question of Pope or Church; conversely, had there been a continent
+king upon the throne, the great political and religious events would have
+happened in almost the same order and manner. That &quot;knock of a king&quot; and
+&quot;incurable wound&quot; prophesied by Piers Plowman were to come. Henry only
+seized the opportunity afforded by his ungodly passions as the best
+pretext, where there were many, for setting the Pope at defiance; and the
+spirit of reformation so early displayed, and awhile dormant from
+circumstances, and now strengthened by the voice of Luther, burst forth in
+England. There was little demur to the suppression of the monasteries; the
+tomb of St. Thomas &agrave; Becket was desecrated amidst the insulting mummeries
+of the multitude; and if Henry still burned Lutherans&mdash;because he could
+not forget that he had in earlier days denounced Luther&mdash;if he still
+maintained the six bloody articles<sup><a href="#fn-22" id="fna-22">22</a></sup>&mdash;his reforming spirit is shown in
+the execution of Fisher and More, by the anathema which he drew upon
+himself from the Pope, and by Henry's retaliation upon the friends and
+kinsmen of Cardinal Pole, the papal legate.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p95"></a>Having thus briefly glanced at the history, we return to the literary
+products, all of which reflect more or less of the historic age, and by
+their paucity and poverty indicate the existence of the causes so
+unfavorable to literary effort. This statement will be partially
+understood when we mention, as the principal names of this period,
+Skelton, Wyatt, Surrey, and Sir Thomas More, men whose works are scarcely
+known to the ordinary reader, and which are yet the best of the time.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch10-5"><span class="sc">Skelton.</span>&mdash;John Skelton, poet, priest, and buffoon, was born about the year
+1460, and educated at what he calls &quot;Alma parens, O Cantabrigensis.&quot; Tutor
+to Prince Henry, afterward Henry VIII., he could boast, &quot;The honour of
+England I lernyd to spelle.&quot; That he was highly esteemed in his day we
+gather from the eulogium of Erasmus, then for a short time professor of
+Greek at Oxford: &quot;Unum Brittanicarum literarum lumen et decus.&quot; By another
+contemporary he is called the &quot;inventive Skelton.&quot; As a priest he was not
+very holy; for, in a day when the marriage of the clergy was worse than
+their incontinence, he contracted a secret marriage. He enjoyed for a time
+the patronage of Wolsey, but afterward joined his enemies and attacked him
+violently. He was <i>laureated</i>: this does not mean, as at present, that he
+was poet laureate of England, but that he received a degree of which that
+was the title.</p>
+
+<p>His works are direct delineations of the age. Among these are &quot;monodies&quot;
+upon <i>Kynge Edwarde the forthe</i>, and the <i>Earle of Northumberlande</i>. He
+corrects for Caxton &quot;The boke of the Eneydos composed by Vyrgyle.&quot; He
+enters heartily into numerous literary quarrels; is a reformer to the
+extent of exposing ecclesiastical abuses in his <i>Colin Clout</i>; and
+scourges the friars and bishops alike; and in this work, and his &quot;Why come
+ye not to Courte?&quot; he makes a special target of Wolsey, and the pomp and
+luxury of his household. <a id="p96"></a>He calls him &quot;Mad Amelek, like to Mamelek&quot;
+(Mameluke), and speaks</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Of his wretched original<br />
+    And his greasy genealogy.<br />
+    He came from the sank (blood) royal<br />
+    That was cast out of a butcher's stall.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This was the sorest point upon which he could touch the great cardinal and
+prime minister of Henry VIII.</p>
+
+<p>Historically considered, one work of Skelton is especially valuable, for
+it places him among the first of English dramatists. The first effort of
+the modern drama was the <i>miracle play</i>; then came the <i>morality</i>; after
+that the <i>interlude</i>, which was soon merged into regular tragedy and
+comedy. Skelton's &quot;Magnyfycence,&quot; which he calls &quot;a goodly interlude and a
+merie,&quot; is, in reality, a morality play as well as an interlude, and marks
+the opening of the modern drama in England.</p>
+
+<p>The peculiar verse of Skelton, styled <i>skeltonical</i>, is a sort of English
+anacreontic. One example has been given; take, as another, the following
+lampoon of Philip of Spain and the armada:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    A skeltonicall salutation<br />
+    Or condigne gratulation<br />
+    And just vexation<br />
+    Of the Spanish nation,<br />
+    That in bravado<br />
+    Spent many a crusado<br />
+    In setting forth an armado<br />
+    England to invado.</p>
+
+<p>    Who but Philippus,<br />
+    That seeketh to nip us,<br />
+    To rob us and strip us,<br />
+    And then for to whip us,<br />
+    Would ever have meant<br />
+    Or had intent<br />
+    Or hither sent<br />
+    Such strips of charge, etc., etc.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It varies from five to six syllables, with several consecutive rhymes.</p>
+
+<p>His &quot;Merie Tales&quot; are a series of short and generally broad stories,
+suited to the vulgar taste: no one can read them without being struck with
+the truly historic character of the subjects and the handling, and without
+moralizing upon the age which they describe. Skelton, a contemporary of
+the <a id="p97"></a>French Rabelais, seems to us a weak English portrait of that great
+author; like him a priest, a buffoon, a satirist, and a lampooner, but
+unlike him in that he has given us no English <i>Gargantua</i> and <i>Pantagruel</i>
+to illustrate his age.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch10-6"><span class="sc">Wyatt.</span>&mdash;The next writer who claims our attention is Sir Thomas Wyatt, the
+son of Sir Henry Wyatt. He was born in 1503, and educated at Cambridge.
+Early a courtier, he was imperilled by his attachment to Anne Boleyn,
+conceded, if not quite Platonic, yet to have never led him to criminality.
+Several of his poems were inspired by her charms. The one best known
+begins&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    What word is that that changeth not,<br />
+    Though it be turned and made in twain?<br />
+    It is mine <span class="sc">Anna</span>, God it wot, etc.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>That unfortunate queen&mdash;to possess whose charms Henry VIII. had repudiated
+Catherine of Arragon, and who was soon to be brought to the block after
+trial on the gravest charges&mdash;which we do not think substantiated&mdash;was,
+however, frivolous and imprudent, and liked such impassioned
+attentions&mdash;indeed, may be said to have suffered for them.</p>
+
+<p>Wyatt was styled by Camden &quot;splendide doctus,&quot; but his learning, however
+honorable to him, was not of much benefit to the world; for his works are
+few, and most of them amatory&mdash;&quot;songs and sonnets&quot;&mdash;full of love and
+lovers: as a makeweight, in <i>foro conscienti&aelig;</i>, he paraphrased the
+penitential Psalms. An excellent comment this on the age of Henry VIII.,
+when the monarch possessed with lust attempted the reformation of the
+Church. That Wyatt looked with favor upon the Reformation is indicated by
+one of his remarks to the king: &quot;Heavens! that a man cannot repent him of
+his sins without the Pope's leave!&quot; Imprisoned several times during the
+reign of Henry, after that monarch's death he favored the accession of
+Lady Jane Grey, and, with <a id="p98"></a>other of her adherents, was executed for high
+treason on the 11th of April, 1554. We have spoken of the spirit of the
+age. Its criticism was no better than its literature; for Wyatt, whom few
+read but the literary historian, was then considered</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    A hand that taught what might be said in rhyme,<br />
+    That reft Chaucer the glory of his wit.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The glory of Chaucer's wit remains, while Wyatt is chiefly known because
+he was executed.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch10-7"><span class="sc">Surrey.</span>&mdash;A twin star, but with a brighter lustre, was Henry Howard, Earl
+of Surrey, a writer whose works are remarkable for purity of thought and
+refinement of language. Surrey was a gay and wild young
+fellow&mdash;distinguished in the tournament which celebrated Henry's marriage
+with Anne of Cleves; now in prison for eating meat in Lent, and breaking
+windows at night; again we find him the English marshal when Henry invaded
+France in 1544. He led a restless life, was imperious and hot-tempered to
+the king, and at length quartered the king's arms with his own, thus
+assuming royal rights and imperilling the king's dignity. On this charge,
+which was, however, only a pretext, he was arrested and executed for high
+treason in 1547, before he was thirty years old.</p>
+
+<p>Surrey is the greatest poetical name of Henry the Eighth's reign, not so
+much for the substance of his poems as for their peculiar handling. He is
+claimed as the introducer of blank verse&mdash;the iambic pentameter without
+rhyme, occasionally broken for musical effect by a change in the place of
+the c&aelig;sural pause. His translation of the Fourth Book of the &AElig;neid,
+imitated perhaps from the Italian version of the Cardinal de Medici, is
+said to be the first specimen of blank verse in English. How slow its
+progress was is proved by Johnson's remarks upon the versification of
+Milton.<sup><a href="#fn-23" id="fna-23">23</a></sup> Thus in his blank <a id="p99"></a>verse Surrey was the forerunner of Milton,
+and in his rhymed pentameter couplet one of the heralds of Dryden and
+Pope.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch10-8"><span class="sc">Sir Thomas More.</span>&mdash;In a bird's-eye view of literature, the division into
+poetry and prose is really a distinction without a difference. They are
+the same body in different clothing, at labor and at festivity&mdash;in the
+working suit and in the court costume. With this remark we usher upon the
+literary scene Thomas More, in many respects one of the most remarkable
+men of his age&mdash;scholar, jurist, statesman, gentleman, and Christian; and,
+withal, a martyr to his principles of justice and faith. In a better age,
+he would have retained the highest honors: it is not to his discredit that
+in that reign he was brought to the block.</p>
+
+<p>He was born in 1480. A very precocious youth, a distinguished career was
+predicted for him. He was greatly favored by Henry VIII., who constantly
+visited him at Chelsea, hanging upon his neck, and professing an intensity
+of friendship which, it is said, More always distrusted. He was the friend
+and companion of Erasmus during the residence of that distinguished man in
+England. More was gifted as an orator, and rose to the distinction of
+speaker of the House of Commons; was presented with the great seal upon
+the dismissal of Wolsey, and by his learning, his affability, and his
+kindness, became the most popular, as he seemed to be the most prosperous
+man in England. But, the test of Henry's friendship and of More's
+principles came when the king desired his concurrence in the divorce of
+Catherine of Arragon. He resigned the great seal rather than sign the
+marriage articles of <a id="p100"></a>Anne Boleyn, and would not take the oath as to the
+lawfulness of that marriage. Henry's kindness turned to fury, and More was
+a doomed man. A devout Romanist, he would not violate his conscience by
+submitting to the act of supremacy which made Henry the head of the
+Church, and so he was tried for high treason, and executed on the 6th of
+July, 1535. There are few scenes more pathetic than his last interview
+with his daughter Margaret, in the Tower, and no death more calmly and
+beautifully grand than his. He kissed the executioner and forgave him.
+&quot;Thou art,&quot; said he, &quot;to do me the greatest benefit that I can receive:
+pluck up thy spirit man, and be not afraid to do thine office.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch10-9"><span class="sc">Utopia.</span>&mdash;His great work, and that which best illustrates the history of
+the age, is his Utopia, (&#959;&#965; &#964;&#959;&#960;&#959;&#962;, not a place.) Upon an island discovered
+by a companion of Vespuccius, he established an imaginary commonwealth, in
+which everybody was good and everybody happy. Purely fanciful as is his
+Utopia, and impossible of realization as he knew it to be while men are
+what they are, and not what they ought to be, it is manifestly a satire on
+that age, for his republic shunned English errors, and practised social
+virtues which were not the rule in England.</p>
+
+<p>Although More wrote against Luther, and opposed Henry's Church
+innovations, we are struck with his Utopian claim for great freedom of
+inquiry on all subjects, even religion; and the bold assertion that no man
+should be punished for his religion, because &quot;a man cannot make himself
+believe anything he pleases,&quot; as Henry's six bloody articles so fearfully
+asserted he must. The Utopia was written in Latin, but soon translated
+into English. We use the adjective <i>utopian</i> as meaning wildly fanciful
+and impossible: its true meaning is of high excellence, to be striven
+for&mdash;in a word, human perfection.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch10-10"><a id="p101"></a><span class="sc">Other Works.</span>&mdash;More also wrote, in most excellent English prose, a history
+of the princes, Edward V. and his brother Richard of York, who were
+murdered in the Tower; and a history of their murderer and uncle, Richard
+III. This Richard&mdash;and we need not doubt his accuracy of statement, for he
+was born five years before Richard fell at Bosworth&mdash;is the short,
+deformed youth, with his left shoulder higher than the right; crafty,
+stony-hearted, and cruel, so strikingly presented by Shakspeare, who takes
+More as his authority. &quot;Not letting (sparing) to kiss whom he thought to
+kill ... friend and foe was indifferent where his advantage grew; he
+spared no man's death whose life withstood his purpose. He slew, with his
+own hands, King Henry VI., being a prisoner in the Tower.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With the honorable name of More we leave this unproductive period, in
+which there was no great growth of any kind, but which was the
+planting-time, when seeds were sown that were soon to germinate and bloom
+and astonish the world. The times remind us of the dark saying in the
+Bible, &quot;Out of the eater came forth meat; out of the strong came
+sweetness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The art of printing had so increased the number of books, that public
+libraries began to be collected, and, what is better, to be used. The
+universities enlarged their borders, new colleges were added to Cambridge
+and Oxford; new foundations laid. The note of preparation betokened a
+great advent; the scene was fully prepared, and the actors would not be
+wanting.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the death of Henry VIII., in 1547, Edward VI., his son by Jane
+Seymour, ascended the throne, and during his minority a protector was
+appointed in the person of his mother's brother, the Earl of Hertford,
+afterward Duke of Somerset. Edward was a sickly youth of ten years old,
+but his reign is noted for the progress of reform in the Church, and
+especially for the issue of the <i>Book of Common Prayer</i>, which must be
+considered of literary importance, as, although <a id="p102"></a>with decided
+modifications, and an interruption in its use during the brief reign of
+Mary, it has been the ritual of worship in the Anglican Church ever since.
+It superseded the Latin services&mdash;of which it was mainly a translation
+rearranged and modified&mdash;finally and completely, and containing, as it
+does, the whole body of doctrine, it was the first clear manifesto of the
+creeds and usages of that Church, and a strong bond of union among its
+members.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch10-11">Other Writers of the Period.</h4>
+
+
+<p><i>Thomas Tusser</i>, 1527-1580: published, in 1557, &quot;A Hundreth Good Points of
+Husbandrie,&quot; afterward enlarged and called, &quot;Five Hundred Points of Good
+Husbandrie, united to as many of Good Huswiferie;&quot; especially valuable as
+a picture of rural life and labor in that age.</p>
+
+<p>Alexander Barklay, died 1552: translated into English poetry the <i>Ship of
+Fools</i>, by Sebastian Brandt, of Basle.</p>
+
+<p>Reginald Pecock, Bishop of St. Asaph and of Chichester: published, in
+1449, &quot;The Repressor of Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy.&quot; He attacked the
+Lollards, but was suspected of heresy himself, and deprived of his
+bishopric.</p>
+
+<p>John Fisher, 1459-1535: was made Bishop of Rochester in 1504; opposed the
+Reformation, and refused to approve of Henry's divorce from Catherine of
+Arragon; was executed by the king. The Pope sent him a cardinal's hat
+while he was lying under sentence. Henry said he would not leave him a
+head to put it on. Wrote principally sermons and theological treatises.</p>
+
+<p>Hugh Latimer, 1472-1555: was made Bishop of Worcester in 1535. An ardent
+supporter of the Reformation, who, by a rude, homely eloquence, influenced
+many people. He was burned at the stake at the age of eighty-three, in
+company with Ridley, Bishop of London, by Queen Mary. His memorable words
+to his fellow-martyr are: &quot;We shall this day light a candle in England
+which, I trust, shall never be put out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>John Leland, or Laylonde, died 1552: an eminent antiquary, who, by order
+of Henry VIII., examined, <i>con amore</i>, the records of libraries,
+cathedrals, priories, abbeys, colleges, etc., and has left a vast amount
+of curious antiquarian learning behind him. He became insane by reason of
+the pressure of his labors.</p>
+
+<p>George Cavendish, died 1557: wrote &quot;The Negotiations of Woolsey, the Great
+Cardinal of England,&quot; etc., which was republished as the &quot;Life <a id="p103"></a>and Death
+of Thomas Woolsey.&quot; From this, it is said, Shakspeare drew in writing his
+&quot;Henry VIII.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Roger Ascham, 1515-1568: specially famous as the successful instructor of
+Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey, whom he was able to imbue with a taste for
+classical learning. He wrote a treatise on the use of the bow, called
+<i>Toxophilus</i>, and <i>The Schoolmaster</i>, which contains many excellent and
+judicious suggestions, worthy to be carried out in modern education. It
+was highly praised by Dr. Johnson. It was written for the use of the
+children of Sackville, Lord Buckhurst.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch11">
+<h2 id="p104">Chapter XI.</h2>
+
+<h3>Spenser and the Elizabethan Age.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch11-1">The Great Change</a>. <a href="#ch11-2">Edward VI. and Mary</a>. <a href="#ch11-3">Sidney</a>. <a href="#ch11-4">The Arcadia</a>. <a href="#ch11-5">Defence of
+   Poesy. Astrophel and Stella</a>. <a href="#ch11-6">Gabriel Harvey</a>. <a href="#ch11-7">Edmund Spenser&mdash;Shepherd's
+   Calendar</a>. <a href="#ch11-8">His Great Work</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch11-1">The Great Change.</h4>
+
+
+<p>With what joy does the traveller in the desert, after a day of scorching
+glow and a night of breathless heat, descry the distant trees which mark
+the longed-for well-spring in the emerald oasis, which seems to beckon
+with its branching palms to the converging caravans, to come and slake
+their fever-thirst, and escape from the threatening sirocco!</p>
+
+<p>The pilgrim arrives at the caravansery: not the long, low stone house,
+unfurnished and bare, which former experience had led him to expect; but a
+splendid palace. He dismounts; maidens purer and more beautiful than
+fabled houris, accompanied by slaves bearing rare dishes and goblets of
+crusted gold, offer him refreshments: perfumed baths, couches of down,
+soft and soothing music are about him in delicious combination. Surely he
+is dreaming; or if this be real, were not the burning sun and the sand of
+the desert, the panting camel and the dying horse of an hour ago but a
+dream?</p>
+
+<p>Such is not an overwrought illustration of English literature in the long,
+barren reach from Chaucer to Spenser, as compared with the freshness,
+beauty, and grandeur of the geniuses which adorned Elizabeth's court, and
+tended to make her reign as illustrious in history as the age of Pericles,
+of Augustus, <a id="p105" />or of Louis XIV. Chief among these were Spenser and
+Shakspeare. As the latter has been truly characterized as not for an age,
+but for all time, the former may be more justly considered as the highest
+exponent and representative of that period. The Faerie Queene, considered
+only as a grand heroic poem, is unrivalled in its pictures of beautiful
+women, brave men, daring deeds, and Oriental splendor; but in its
+allegorical character, it is far more instructive, since it enumerates and
+illustrates the cardinal virtues which should make up the moral character
+of a gentleman: add to this, that it is teeming with history, and in its
+manifold completeness we have, if not an oasis in the desert, more truly
+the rich verge of the fertile country which bounds that desert, and which
+opens a more beautiful road to the literary traveller as he comes down the
+great highway: wearied and worn with the factions and barrenness of the
+fifteenth century, he fairly revels with delight in the fertility and
+variety of the Elizabethan age.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch11-2"><span class="sc">Edward and Mary.</span>&mdash;In pursuance of our plan, a few preliminary words will
+present the historic features of that age. In the year 1547, Henry VIII.,
+the royal Bluebeard, sank, full of crimes and beset with deathbed horrors,
+into a dishonorable grave.<sup><a href="#fn-24" id="fna-24">24</a></sup> A poor, weak youth, his son, Edward VI.,
+seemed sent by special providence on a short mission of six years, to
+foster the reformed faith, and to give the land a brief rest after the
+disorders and crimes of his father's reign.</p>
+
+<p>After Edward came Queen Mary, in 1553&mdash;the bloody Mary, who violently
+overturned the Protestant system, and avenged her mother against her
+father by restoring the Papal <a id="p106" />sway and making heresy the unpardonable
+sin. It may seem strange, in one breath to denounce Henry and to defend
+his daughter Mary; but severe justice, untempered with sympathy, has been
+meted out to her. We acknowledge all her recorded actions, but let it be
+remembered that she was the child of a basely repudiated mother, Catherine
+of Arragon, who, as the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, was a
+Catholic of the Catholics. Mary had been declared illegitimate; she was
+laboring under an incurable disease, affecting her mind as well as her
+body; she was the wife of Philip II. of Spain, a monster of iniquity,
+whose sole virtue&mdash;if we may so speak&mdash;was his devotion to his Church. She
+inherited her bigotry from her mother, and strengthened it by her
+marriage; and she thought that in persecuting heretics she was doing God
+service, which would only be a perfect service when she should have burned
+out the bay-tree growth of heresy and restored the ancient faith.</p>
+
+<p>Such were her character and condition as displayed to the English world;
+but we know, in addition, that she bore her sufferings with great
+fortitude; that, an unloved wife, she was a pattern of conjugal affection
+and fidelity; that she was a dupe in the hands of designing men and a
+fierce propaganda; and we may infer that, under different circumstances
+and with better guidance, the real elements of her character would have
+made her a good monarch and presented a far more pleasing historical
+portrait.</p>
+
+<p>Justice demands that we should say thus much, for even with these
+qualifications, the picture of her reign is very dark and painful. After a
+sad and bloody rule of five years&mdash;a reign of worse than Roman
+proscription, or later French terrors&mdash;she died without leaving a child.
+There was but one voice as to her successor. Delirious shouts of joy were
+heard throughout the land: &quot;God save Queen Elizabeth!&quot; &quot;No more burnings
+at Smithfield, nor beheadings on Tower green! No more of Spanish Philip
+and his pernicious bigots! Toler<a id="p107" />ation, freedom, light!&quot; The people of
+England were ready for a golden age, and the golden age had come.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec"><span class="sc">Elizabeth.</span>&mdash;And who was Elizabeth? The daughter of the dishonored Anne
+Boleyn, who had been declared illegitimate, and set out of the succession;
+who had been kept in ward; often and long in peril of her life; destined,
+in all human foresight, to a life of sorrow, humiliation, and obscurity;
+her head had been long lying &quot;'twixt axe and crown,&quot; with more probability
+of the former than the latter.</p>
+
+<p>Wonderful was the change. With her began a reign the like of which the
+world had never seen; a great and brilliant crisis in English history, in
+which the old order passed away and the new was inaugurated. It was like a
+new historic fulfilment of the prophecy of Virgil:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Magnus ... s&aelig;clorum nascitur ordo;<br />
+    Jam redit et <i>Virgo</i>, redeunt Saturnia regna.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Her accession and its consequences were like the scenes in some fairy
+tale. She was indeed a Faerie Queene, as she was designated in Spenser's
+magnificent allegory. Around her clustered a new chivalry, whose gentle
+deeds were wrought not only with the sword, but with the pen. Stout heart,
+stalwart arm, and soaring imagination, all wore her colors and were amply
+rewarded by her smiles; and whatever her personal faults&mdash;and they were
+many&mdash;as a monarch, she was not unworthy of their allegiance.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch11-3"><span class="sc">Sidney.</span>&mdash;Before proceeding to a consideration of Spenser's great poem, it
+is necessary to mention two names intimately associated with him and with
+his fame, and of special interest in the literary catalogue of Queen
+Elizabeth's court, brilliant and numerous as that catalogue was.</p>
+
+<p>Among the most striking characters of this period was Sir Philip Sidney,
+whose brief history is full of romance and <a id="p108" />attraction; not so much for
+what he did as for what he personally was, and gave promise of being.
+Whenever we seek for an historical illustration of the <i>gentleman</i>, the
+figure of Sidney rises in company with that of Bayard, and claims
+distinction. He was born at Pennshurst in Kent, on the 29th of November,
+1554. He was the nephew of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the chief
+favorite of the queen. Precocious in grace, dignity, and learning, Sidney
+was educated both at Oxford and Cambridge, and in his earliest manhood he
+was a <i>prud' homme</i>, handsome, elegant, learned, and chivalrous; a
+statesman, a diplomatist, a soldier, and a poet; &quot;not only of excellent
+wit, but extremely beautiful of face. Delicately chiselled Anglo-Norman
+features, smooth, fair cheek, a faint moustache, blue eyes, and a mass of
+amber-colored hair,&quot; distinguished him among the handsome men of a court
+where handsome men were in great request.</p>
+
+<p>He spent some time at the court of Charles IX. of France&mdash;which, however,
+he left suddenly, shocked and disgusted by the massacre of St.
+Bartholomew's Eve&mdash;and extended his travels into Germany. The queen held
+him in the highest esteem&mdash;although he was disliked by the Cecils, the
+constant rivals of the Dudleys; and when he was elected to the crown of
+Poland, the queen refused him permission to accept, because she would not
+lose &quot;the brightest jewel of her crown&mdash;her Philip,&quot; as she called him to
+distinguish him from her sister Mary's Philip, Philip II. of Spain. A few
+words will finish his personal story. He went, by the queen's permission,
+with his uncle Leicester to the Low Countries, then struggling, with
+Elizabeth's assistance, against Philip of Spain. There he was made
+governor of Flushing&mdash;the key to the navigation of the North Seas&mdash;with
+the rank of general of horse. In a skirmish near Zutphen (South Fen) he
+served as a volunteer; and, as he was going into action fully armed,
+seeing his old friend Sir William Pelham without cuishes upon his thighs,
+prompted by mistaken but chivalrous <a id="p109" />generosity, he took off his own, and
+had his thigh broken by a musket-ball. This was on the 2d of October,
+1586, N.S. He lingered for twenty days, and then died at Arnheim, mourned
+by all. The story of his passing the untasted water to the wounded
+soldier, will never become trite: &quot;This man's necessity is greater than
+mine,&quot; was an immortal speech which men like to quote.<sup><a href="#fn-25" id="fna-25">25</a></sup></p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch11-4"><span class="sc">Sidney's Works.</span>&mdash;But it is as a literary character that we must consider
+Sidney; and it is worthy of special notice that his works could not have
+been produced in any other age. The principal one is the <i>Arcadia</i>. The
+name, which was adopted from Sannazzaro, would indicate a pastoral&mdash;and
+this was eminently the age of English pastoral&mdash;but it is in reality not
+such. It presents indeed sylvan scenes, but they are in the life of a
+knight. It is written in prose, interspersed with short poems, and was
+inspired by and dedicated to his literary sister Mary, the Countess of
+Pembroke. It was called indeed the <i>Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia</i>. There
+are many scenes of great beauty and vigor; there is much which represents
+the manners, of the age, but few persons can now peruse it with pleasure,
+because of the peculiar affectations of style, and its overload of
+ornament. There grew naturally in the atmosphere of the court of a regnant
+queen, an affected, flattering, and inflated language, known to us as
+<i>Euphuism</i>. Of this John Lilly has been called the father, but we really
+only owe to him the name, which is taken from his two works, <i>Euphues,
+Anatomy of Wit</i>, and <i>Euphues and his England</i>. The speech of the Euphuist
+is hardly caricatured in Sir Walter Scott's delineation of Sir Piercie
+Shafton in &quot;The Monastery.&quot; The gallant men of that day affected this form
+of address to fair ladies, and fair ladies liked to be greeted in<a id="p110" /> such
+language. Sidney's works have a relish of this diction, and are imbued
+with the spirit which produced it.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch11-5"><span class="sc">Defence of Poesie.</span>&mdash;The second work to be mentioned is his &quot;Defence of
+Poesie.&quot; Amid the gayety and splendor of that reign, there was a sombre
+element. The Puritans took gloomy views of life: they accounted
+amusements, dress, and splendor as things of the world; and would even
+sweep away poetry as idle, and even wicked. Sir Philip came to its defence
+with the spirit of a courtier and a poet, and the work in which he upholds
+it is his best, far better in style and sense than his Arcadia. It is one
+of the curiosities of literature, in itself, and in its representation of
+such a social condition as could require a defence of poetry. His
+<i>Astrophel and Stella</i> is a collection of amatory poems, disclosing his
+passion for Lady Rich, the sister of the Earl of Essex. Although something
+must be allowed to the license of the age, in language at least, yet still
+the <i>Astrophel and Stella</i> cannot be commended for its morality. The
+sentiments are far from Platonic, and have been severely censured by the
+best critics. Among the young gallants of Euphuistic habitudes, Sidney was
+known as <i>Astrophel</i>; and Spenser wrote a poem mourning the death of
+Astrophel: <i>Stella</i>, of course, was the star of his worship.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch11-6"><span class="sc">Gabriel Harvey.</span>&mdash;Among the friends of both Sidney and Spenser, was one who
+had the pleasure of making them acquainted&mdash;Gabriel Harvey. He was born,
+it is believed, in 1545, and lived until 1630. Much may be gathered of the
+literary character and tendencies of the age by a perusal of the &quot;three
+proper and wittie familiar letters&quot; which passed between Spenser and
+himself, and the &quot;four letters and certain sonnets,&quot; containing valuable
+notices of contemporary poets. He also prefixed a poem entitled
+<i>Hobbinol</i>, to the Faery Queene. But Harvey most deserves our notice
+be<a id="p111" />cause he was the champion of the hexameter verse in English, and imbued
+even Spenser with an enthusiasm for it.</p>
+
+<p>Each language has its own poetic and rhythmic capacities. Actual
+experiment and public taste have declared their verdict against hexameter
+verse in English. The genius of the Northern languages refuses this old
+heroic measure, which the Latins borrowed from the Greeks, and all the
+scholarship and finish of Longfellow has not been able to establish it in
+English. Harvey was a pedant so thoroughly tinctured with classical
+learning, that he would trammel his own language by ancient rules, instead
+of letting it grow into the assertion of its own rules.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch11-7"><span class="sc">Edmund Spenser&mdash;The Shepherd's Calendar.</span>&mdash;Having noticed these lesser
+lights of the age of Spenser, we return to a brief consideration of that
+poet, who, of all others, is the highest exponent and representative of
+literature in the age of Queen Elizabeth, and whose works are full of
+contemporary history.</p>
+
+<p>Spenser was born in the year of the accession of Queen Mary, 1553, at
+London, and of what he calls &quot;a house of ancient fame.&quot; He was educated at
+Cambridge, where he early displayed poetic taste and power, and he went,
+after leaving college, to reside as a tutor in the North of England. A
+love affair with &quot;a skittish female,&quot; who jilted him, was the cause of his
+writing the <i>Shepherd's Calendar</i>; which he soon after took with him in
+manuscript to London, as the first fruits of a genius that promised far
+nobler things.</p>
+
+<p>Harvey introduced him to Sidney, and a tender friendship sprang up between
+them: he spent much of his time with Sidney at Pennshurst, and dedicated
+to him the <i>Shepherd's Calendar</i>. He calls it &quot;an olde name for a newe
+worke.&quot; The plan of it is as follows: There are twelve parts,
+corresponding to twelve months: these he calls <i>aeglogues</i>, or
+goat-herde's songs, (not <i>eclogues</i> or &#949;&#954;&#955;&#959;&#947;&#945;&#953;&mdash;well-chosen words.) <a id="p112" />It is
+a rambling work in varied melody, interspersed and relieved by songs and
+lays.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec"><span class="sc">His Archaisms.</span>&mdash;In view of its historical character, there are several
+points to be observed. It is of philological importance to notice that in
+the preliminary epistle, he explains and defends his use of archaisms&mdash;for
+the language of none of his poems is the current English of the day, but
+always that of a former period&mdash;saying that he uses old English words
+&quot;restored as to their rightful heritage;&quot; and it is also evident that he
+makes new ones, in accordance with just principles of philology. This fact
+is pointed out, lest the cursory reader should look for the current
+English of the age of Elizabeth in Spenser's poems.</p>
+
+<p>How much, or rather how little he thought of the poets of the day, may be
+gathered from his saying that he &quot;scorns and spews the rakebelly rout of
+ragged rymers.&quot; It further displays the boldness of his English, that he
+is obliged to add &quot;a Glosse or Scholion,&quot; for the use of the reader.</p>
+
+<p>Another historical point worthy of observation is his early adulation of
+Elizabeth, evincing at once his own courtiership and her popularity. In
+&quot;February&quot; (Story of the Oak and Briar) he speaks of &quot;colours meete to
+clothe a mayden queene.&quot; The whole of &quot;April&quot; is in her honor:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Of fair Eliza be your silver song,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;That blessed wight,<br />
+    The floure of virgins, may she flourish long,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In princely plight.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In &quot;September&quot; &quot;he discourseth at large upon the loose living of Popish
+prelates,&quot; an historical trait of the new but cautious reformation of the
+Marian Church, under Elizabeth. Whether a courtier like Spenser could
+expect the world to believe in the motto with which he concludes the
+epilogue, &quot;Merce non mercede,&quot; is doubtful, but the words are significant;
+and it is not to his discredit that he strove for both.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch11-8"><a id="p113" /><span class="sc">His Greatest Work.</span>&mdash;We now approach <i>The Faerie Queene</i>, the greatest of
+Spenser's works, the most remarkable poem of that age, and one of the
+greatest landmarks in English literature and English history. It was not
+published in full until nearly all the great events of Elizabeth's reign
+had transpired, and it is replete with the history of nearly half a
+century in the most wonderful period of English history. To courtly
+readers of that day the history was only pleasantly illustrative&mdash;to the
+present age it is invaluable for itself: the poem illustrates the history.</p>
+
+<p>He received, through the friendship of Sidney, the patronage of his uncle,
+Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester&mdash;a powerful nobleman, because, besides
+his family name, and the removal of the late attainder, which had been in
+itself a distinction, he was known to be the lover of the queen; for
+whatever may be thought of her conduct, we know that in recommending him
+as a husband to the widowed Queen of Scots, she said she would have
+married him herself had she designed to marry at all; or, it may be said,
+she would have married him had she dared, for that act would have ruined
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Spenser was a loyal and enthusiastic subject, a poet, and a scholar. From
+these characteristics sprang the Faerie Queene. After submitting the first
+book to the criticism of his friend and his patron, he dedicated the work
+to &quot;The most high, mighty, and magnificent empress, renowned for piety,
+virtue, and all gracious government, Elizabeth, by the grace of God Queen
+of England, France, and Ireland, and of Virginia.&quot;<sup><a href="#fn-26" id="fna-26">26</a></sup></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch12">
+<h2 id="p114">Chapter XII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Illustrations of the History in the Faerie Queene.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch12-1">The Faerie Queene</a>. <a href="#ch12-2">The Plan Proposed</a>. <a href="#ch12-3">Illustrations of the History</a>. <a href="#ch12-4">The
+   Knight and the Lady</a>. <a href="#ch12-5">The Wood of Error</a> and <a href="#ch12-6">the Hermitage</a>. <a href="#ch12-7">The Crusades</a>.
+   <a href="#ch12-8">Britomartis</a> and <a href="#ch12-9">Sir Artegal</a>. <a href="#ch12-10">Elizabeth</a>. <a href="#ch12-11">Mary Queen of Scots</a>. <a href="#ch12-12">Other
+   Works</a>. <a href="#ch12-13">Spenser's Fate</a>. <a href="#ch12-14">Other Writers</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch12-1">The Faerie Queene.</h4>
+
+
+<p>The Faerie Queene is an allegory, in many parts capable of more than one
+interpretation. Some of the characters stand for two, and several of them
+even for three distinct historical personages.</p>
+
+<p>The general plan and scope of the poem may be found in the poet's letter
+to his friend, Sir Walter Raleigh. It is designed to enumerate and
+illustrate the moral virtues which should characterize a noble or gentle
+person&mdash;to present &quot;the image of a brave knight perfected in the twelve
+private morall vertues, as Aristotle hath devised.&quot; It appears that the
+author designed twelve books, but he did not accomplish his purpose. The
+poem, which he left unfinished, contains but six books or legends, each of
+which relates the adventures of a knight who is the patron and
+representative of a special virtue.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   <i>Book</i> I. gives the adventures of St. George, the Red-Cross Knight, by
+   whom is intended the virtue of Holiness.</p>
+
+<p>   <i>Book</i> II., those of Sir Guyon, or Temperance.</p>
+
+<p>   <i>Book</i> III., Britomartis, a lady-knight, or Chastity.</p>
+
+<p>   <i>Book</i> IV., Cambel and Triamond, or Friendship.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p115" />   <i>Book</i> V., Sir Artegal, or Justice.</p>
+
+<p>   <i>Book</i> VI., Sir Calydore, or Courtesy.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The perfect hero of the entire poem is King Arthur, chosen &quot;as most fitte,
+for the excellency of his person, being made famous by many men's former
+workes, and also furthest from the daunger of envy and suspition of
+present time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was manifestly thus, too, that the poet solved a difficult and delicate
+problem: he pleased the queen by adopting this mythic hero, for who else
+was worthy of her august hand?</p>
+
+<p>And in the person of the faerie queene herself Spenser informs us: &quot;I mean
+<i>glory</i> in my general intention, but in my particular, I conceive the most
+excellent and glorious person of our sovereign, the <i>Queene</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Did we depend upon the poem for an explanation of Spenser's design, we
+should be left in the dark, for he intended to leave the origin and
+connection of the adventures for the twelfth book, which was never
+written; but he has given us his plan in the same preliminary letter to
+Raleigh.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch12-2"><span class="sc">The Plan Proposed.</span>&mdash;&quot;The beginning of my history,&quot; he says, &quot;should be in
+the twelfth booke, which is the last; where I devise that the Faerie
+Queene kept her Annual Feaste XII days; uppon which XII severall days the
+occasions of the XII severall adventures hapned, which being undertaken by
+XII severall knights, are in these XII books handled and discoursed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>First, a tall, clownish youth falls before the queen and desires a boon,
+which she might not refuse, viz. the achievement of any adventure which
+might present itself. Then appears a fair lady, habited in mourning, and
+riding on an ass, while behind her comes a dwarf, leading a caparisoned
+war-horse, upon which was the complete armor of a knight. The lady falls
+before the queen and complains that her father and mother, an ancient king
+and queen, had, for many years, <a id="p116" />been shut up by a dragon in a brazen
+castle, and begs that one of the knights may be allowed to deliver them.</p>
+
+<p>The young clown entreats that he may take this adventure, and
+notwithstanding the wonder and misgiving of all, the armor is found to fit
+him well, and when he had put it on, &quot;he seemed the goodliest man in all
+the company, and was well liked by the lady, and eftsoones taking on him
+knighthood, and mounting on that strounge courser, he went forth with her
+on that adventure; where beginneth the First Booke.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In a similar manner, other petitions are urged, and other adventures
+undertaken.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch12-3"><span class="sc">Illustrations of the History.</span>&mdash;The history in this poem lies directly upon
+the surface. Elizabeth was the Faery Queen herself&mdash;faery in her real
+person, springing Cinderella-like from durance and danger to the most
+powerful throne in Europe. Hers was a reign of faery character, popular
+and august at home, after centuries of misrule and civil war; abroad
+English influence and power were exerted in a magical manner. It is she
+who holds a court such as no Englishman had ever seen; who had the power
+to transform common men into valiant warriors, elegant courtiers, and
+great statesmen; to send forth her knights upon glorious
+adventures&mdash;Sidney to die at Zutphen, Raleigh to North and South America,
+Frobisher&mdash;with a wave of her hand as he passes down the Thames&mdash;to try
+the northwest passage to India; Effingham, Drake, and Hawkins to drive off
+to the tender mercy of northern storms the Invincible Armada, and then to
+point out to the coming generations the distant fields of English
+enterprise.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Chivalry was dying; the abbey and the castle were soon together to
+crumble into ruins; and all the forms, desires, beliefs, convictions of
+the old world were passing away, never to return;&quot;<sup><a href="#fn-27" id="fna-27">27</a></sup> but this virgin
+queen was the founder of a new <a id="p117" />chivalry, whose deeds were not less
+valiant, and far more useful to civilization.</p>
+
+<p>It is not our purpose, for it would be impossible, to interpret all the
+history contained in this wonderful poem: a few of the more striking
+presentations will be indicated, and thus suggest to the student how he
+may continue the investigation for himself.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch12-4"><span class="sc">The Knight and the Lady.</span>&mdash;In the First Book we are at once struck with the
+fine portraiture of the Red Crosse Knight, the Patron of Holinesse, which
+we find in the opening lines:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    A gentle knight was pricking on the plain,<br />
+    Ycladd in mighty arms and silver shield.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>As we read we discover, without effort, that he is the St. George of
+England, or the impersonation of England herself, whose red-cross banner
+distinguishes her among the nations of the earth. It is a description of
+Christian England with which the poet thus opens his work:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    And on his brest a bloodie cross he bore,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The dear remembrance of his dying Lord,<br />
+    For whose sweet sake that glorious badge he wore,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And dead, as living ever, Him adored.<br />
+    Upon his shield the like was also scored,<br />
+    For sovereign hope which in his help he had.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Then follows his adventure&mdash;that of St. George and the Dragon. By slaying
+this monster, he will give comfort and aid to a peerless lady, the
+daughter of a glorious king; this fair lady, <i>Una</i>, who has come a long
+distance, and to whom, as a champion, the Faery Queene has presented the
+red-cross knight. Thus is presented the historic truth that the reformed
+and suffering Church looked to Queen Elizabeth for succor and support, for
+the Lady Una is one of several portraitures of the Church in this poem.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p118" />As we proceed in the poem, the history becomes more apparent. The Lady
+Una, riding upon a lowly ass, shrouded by a veil, covered with a black
+stole, &quot;as one that inly mourned,&quot; and leading &quot;a milk-white lamb,&quot; is the
+Church. The ass is the symbol of her Master's lowliness, who made even his
+triumphant entry into Jerusalem upon &quot;a colt the foal of an ass;&quot; the
+lamb, the emblem of the innocence and of the helplessness of the &quot;little
+flock;&quot; the black stole is meant to represent the Church's trials and
+sorrows in her former history as well as in that naughty age. The dragon
+is the old serpent, her constant and bitter foe, who, often discomfited,
+returns again and again to the attack in hope of her overthrow.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch12-5"><span class="sc">The Wood of Error.</span>&mdash;The adventures of the knight and the lady take them
+first into the Wood of Error, a noble and alluring grove, within which,
+however, lurks a loathsome serpent. The knight rushes upon this female
+monster with great boldness, but</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    ... Wrapping up her wreathed body round,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;She leaped upon his shield and her huge train<br />
+    All suddenly about his body wound,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;That hand and foot he strove to stir in vain.<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;God help the man so wrapt in Error's endless chain.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Lady Una cries out:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    ... Now, now, sir knight, shew what ye bee,<br />
+    <i>Add faith unto thy force</i>, and be not faint.<br />
+    Strangle her, else she sure will strangle thee.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>He follows her advice, makes one desperate effort, Error is slain, and the
+pilgrimage resumed.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it is taught that the Church has waged successful battle with Error
+in all its forms&mdash;paganism, Arianism, Socinianism, infidelity; and in all
+ages of her history, whether crouching in the lofty groves of the Druids,
+or in the more insidious forms of later Christian heresy.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch12-6"><a id="p119" /><span class="sc">The Hermitage.</span>&mdash;On leaving the Wood of Error, the knight and Lady Una
+encounter a venerable hermit, and are led into his hermitage. This is
+<i>Archimago</i>, a vile magician thus disguised, and in his retreat foul
+spirits personate both knight and lady, and present these false doubles to
+each. Each sees what seems to be the other's fall from virtue, and,
+horrified by the sight, the real persons leave the hermitage by separate
+ways, and wander, in inextricable mazes lost, until fortune and faery
+bring them together again and disclose the truth.</p>
+
+<p>Here Spenser, who was a zealous Protestant, designs to present the
+monastic system, the disfavor into which the monasteries had fallen, and
+the black arts secretly studied among better arts in the cloisters,
+especially in the period just succeeding the Norman conquest.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch12-7"><span class="sc">The Crusades.</span>&mdash;As another specimen of the historic interpretation, we may
+trace the adventures of England in the Crusades, as presented in the
+encounter of St. George with <i>Sansfoy</i>, (without faith,) or the Infidel.</p>
+
+<p>From the hermitage of Archimago,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    The true St. George had wandered far away,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Still flying from his thoughts and jealous fear,<br />
+    Will was his guide, and grief led him astray;<br />
+    At last him chanced to meet upon the way<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A faithless Saracen all armed to point,<br />
+    In whose great shield was writ with letters gay<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="sec">Sansfoy</span>: full large of limb, and every joint<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He was, and cared not for God or man a point.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Well might the poet speak of Mohammedanism as large of limb, for it had
+stretched itself like a Colossus to India, and through Northern Africa
+into Spain, where it threatened Christendom, beyond the Pyrenees. It was
+then that the unity of the Church, the concurrence of Europe in one form
+of Christianity, made available the enthusiasm which succeeded in stemming
+the torrent of Islam, and setting bounds to its conquests.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p120" />It is not our purpose to pursue the adventures of the Church, but to
+indicate the meaning of the allegory and the general interpretation; it
+will give greater zest to the student to make the investigation for
+himself, with the all-sufficient aids of modern criticism.</p>
+
+<p>Assailed in turn by error in doctrine, superstition, hypocrisy,
+enchantments, lawlessness, pride, and despair, the red-cross knight
+overcomes them all, and is led at last by the Lady Una into the House of
+Holiness, a happy and glorious house. There, anew equipped with the shield
+of Faith, the helmet of Salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, he goes
+forth to greater conquests; the dragon is slain, the Lady Una triumphant,
+the Church delivered, and Holiness to the Lord established as the law of
+his all-subduing kingdom on earth.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch12-8"><span class="sc">Britomartis.</span>&mdash;In the third book the further adventures of the red-cross
+knight are related, but a heroine divides our attention with him.
+<i>Britomartis</i>, or Chastity, finds him attacked by six lawless knights, who
+try to compel him to give up his lady and serve another. Here Britomartis
+represents Elizabeth, and the historic fact is the conflict of English
+Protestantism carried on upon land and sea, in the Netherlands, in France,
+and against the Invincible Armada of Philip. The new mistress offered him
+in the place of Una is the Papal Church, and the six knights are the
+nations fighting for the claims of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>The valiant deeds of Britomartis represent also the power of chastity, to
+which Scott alludes when he says,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    She charmed at once and tamed the heart,<br />
+    Incomparable Britomarte.<sup><a href="#fn-28" id="fna-28">28</a></sup>
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>And here the poet pays his most acceptable tribute to the Virgin Queen.
+She is in love with Sir Artegal&mdash;abstract justice. She has encountered him
+in fierce battle, and he has conquered her. It was the fond boast of
+Elizabeth that <a id="p121" />she lived for her people, and for their sake refused to
+marry. The following portraiture will be at once recognized:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    And round about her face her yellow hair<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Having, thro' stirring, loosed its wonted band,<br />
+    Like to a golden border did appear,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Framed in goldsmith's forge with cunning hand;<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Yet goldsmith's cunning could not understand<br />
+    To frame such subtle wire, so shiny clear,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;For it did glisten like the glowing sand,<br />
+    The which Pactolus with his waters sheer,<br />
+    Throws forth upon the rivage, round about him near.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This encomium upon Elizabeth's hair recalls the description of another
+courtier, that it was like the last rays of the declining sun. Ill-natured
+persons called it red.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch12-9"><span class="sc">Sir Artegal, or Justice.</span>&mdash;As has been already said, Artegal, or Justice,
+makes conquest of Britomartis or Elizabeth. It is no earthly love that
+follows, but the declaration of the queen that in her continued maidenhood
+justice to her people shall be her only spouse. Such, whatever the honest
+historian may think, was the poet's conceit of what would best please his
+royal mistress.</p>
+
+<p>It has been already stated that by Gloriana, the Faerie Queene, the poet
+intended the person of Elizabeth in her regnant grandeur: Britomartis
+represents her chastity. Not content with these impersonations, Spenser
+introduces a third: it is Belph&#339;be, the abstraction of virginity; a
+character for which, however, he designs a dual interpretation. Belph&#339;be
+is also another representation of the Church; in describing her he rises
+to great splendor of language:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    ... her birth was of the morning dew,<br />
+    And her conception of the glorious prime.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We recur, as we read, to the grandeur of the Psalmist's words, as he
+speaks of the coming of her Lord: &quot;In the day of thy <a id="p122" />power shall the
+people offer thee free-will offerings with a holy worship; the dew of thy
+birth is of the womb of the morning.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch12-10"><span class="sc">Elizabeth.</span>&mdash;In the fifth book a great number of the statistics of
+contemporary history are found. A cruel sultan, urged on by an abandoned
+sultana, is Philip with the Spanish Church. Mercilla, a queen pursued by
+the sultan and his wife, is another name for Elizabeth, for he tells us
+she was</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    ... a maiden queen of high renown;<br />
+    For her great bounty knowen over all.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Artegal, assuming the armor of a pagan knight, represents justice in the
+person of Solyman the Magnificent, making war against Philip of Spain. In
+the ninth canto of the sixth book, the court of Elizabeth is portrayed; in
+the tenth and eleventh, the war in Flanders&mdash;so brilliantly described in
+Mr. Motley's history. The Lady Belge is the United Netherlands; Gerioneo,
+the oppressor, is the Duke of Alva; the Inquisition appears as a horrid
+but nameless monster, and minor personages occur to complete the historic
+pictures.</p>
+
+<p>The adventure of Sir Artegal in succor of the Lady Irena, (Erin,)
+represents the proceedings of Elizabeth in Ireland, in enforcing the
+Reformation, abrogating the establishments of her sister Mary, and thus
+inducing Tyrone's rebellion, with the consequent humiliation of Essex.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch12-11"><span class="sc">Mary Queen of Scots.</span>&mdash;With one more interpretation we close. In the fifth
+book, Spenser is the apologist of Elizabeth for her conduct to her cousin,
+Mary Queen of Scots, and he has been very delicate in his distinctions. It
+is not her high abstraction of justice, Sir Artegal, who does the
+murderous deed, but his man <i>Talus</i>, retributive justice, who, like a
+limehound, finds her hidden under a heap of gold, and drags her forth by
+her fair locks, in such rueful plight that even Artegal pities her:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><a id="p123" />
+    Yet for no pity would he change the course<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Of justice which in Talus hand did lie,<br />
+    Who rudely haled her forth without remorse,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Still holding up her suppliant hands on high,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And kneeling at his feet submissively;<br />
+    But he her suppliant hands, those <i>hands of gold</i>,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And eke her feet, those feet of <i>silver try</i>,<br />
+    Which sought unrighteousness and justice sold,<br />
+    Chopped off and nailed on high that all might them behold.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>She was a royal lady, a regnant queen: her hands held a golden sceptre,
+and her feet pressed a silver footstool. She was thrown down the castle
+wall, and drowned &quot;in the dirty mud.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But the stream washed away her guilty blood.&quot; Did it wash away
+Elizabeth's bloody guilt? No. For this act she stands in history like Lady
+Macbeth, ever rubbing her hands, but &quot;the damned spot&quot; will not out at her
+bidding. Granted all that is charged against Mary, never was woman so
+meanly, basely, cruelly treated as she.</p>
+
+<p>What has been said is only in partial illustration of the plan and manner
+of Spenser's great poem: the student is invited and encouraged to make an
+analysis of the other portions himself. To the careless reader the poem is
+harmonious, the pictures beautiful, and the imagery gorgeous; to the
+careful student it is equally charming, and also discloses historic
+pictures of great value.</p>
+
+<p>It is so attractive that the critic lingers unconsciously upon it.
+Spenser's tributes to the character of woman are original, beautiful, and
+just, and the fame of his great work, originally popular and designed for
+a contemporary purpose only, has steadily increased. Next to Milton, he is
+the most learned of the British poets. Warton calls him the <i>serious
+Spenser</i>. Thomson says he formed himself upon Spenser. He took the ottava
+rima, or eight-lined stanza of the Italian poets, and by adding an
+Alexandrine line, formed it into what has since been called the Spenserian
+stanza, which has been <a id="p124" />imitated by many great poets since, and by Byron,
+the greatest of them, in his Childe Harold. Of his language it has already
+been said that he designedly uses the archaic, or that of Chaucer; or, as
+Pope has said,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   Spenser himself affects the obsolete.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The plan of the poem, neglecting the unities of an epic, is like that of a
+general history, rambling and desultory, or like the transformations of a
+fairy tale, as it is: his descriptions are gorgeous, his verse exceedingly
+melodious, and his management of it very graceful. The Gerusalemme
+Liberata of Tasso appeared while he was writing the Faery Queene, and he
+imitated portions of that great epic in his own, but his imitations are
+finer than the original.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch12-12"><span class="sc">His Other Works.</span>&mdash;His other works need not detain us: Hymns in honor of
+Love and Beauty, Prothalamion, and Epithalamion, Mother Hubbard's Tale,
+Amoretti or Sonnets, The Tears of the Muses or Brittain's Ida, are little
+read at the present day. His Astrophel is a tender &quot;pastoral elegie&quot; upon
+the death of the most noble and valorous knight, Sir Philip Sidney; and is
+better known for its subject than for itself. This was a favorite theme of
+the friendly and sensitive poet; he has also written several elegies and
+&aelig;glogues in honor of Sidney.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch12-13"><span class="sc">Spenser's Fate.</span>&mdash;The fate of Spenser is a commentary upon courtiership,
+even in the reign of Elizabeth, the Faery Queene. Her requital of his
+adoration was an annual pension of fifty pounds, and the ruined castle and
+unprofitable estate of Kilcolman in Ireland, among a half-savage
+population, in a period of insurrections and massacres, with the
+requirement that he should reside upon his grant. An occasional visit from
+Raleigh, then a captain in the army, a rambler along the banks of the
+picturesque Mulla, and the composition and<a id="p125" /> arrangement of the great poem
+with the suggestions of his friend, were at once his labors and his only
+recreations. He sighed after the court, and considered himself as hardly
+used by the queen.</p>
+
+<p>At length an insurrection broke out, and his home was set on fire: he fled
+from his flaming castle, and in the confusion his infant child was left
+behind and burned to death. A few months after, he died in London, on
+January 16, 1598-9, broken-hearted and poor, at an humble tavern, in King
+Street. Buried at the expense of the Earl of Essex, Ann Countess of Dorset
+bore the expense of his monument in Westminster Abbey, in gratitude for
+his noble championship of woman. Upon that are inscribed these words:
+<i>Anglorum poetarum nostri seculi facile princeps</i>&mdash;truer words, great as
+is the praise, than are usually found in monumental inscriptions.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever our estimate of Spenser, he must be regarded as the truest
+literary exponent and representative of the age of Elizabeth, almost as
+much her biographer as Miss Strickland, and her historian as Hume: indeed,
+neither biographer nor historian could venture to draw the lineaments of
+her character without having recourse to Spenser and his literary
+contemporaries.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch12-14">Other Writers of the Age of Spenser.</h4>
+
+
+<p><i>Richard Hooker</i>, 1553-1598: educated at Oxford, he became Master of the
+Temple in London, a post which he left with pleasure to take a country
+parish. He wrote a famous work, entitled &quot;A Treatise on the Laws of
+Ecclesiastical Polity,&quot; which is remarkable for its profound learning,
+powerful logic, and eloquence of style. In it he defends the position of
+the Church of England, against Popery on the one hand and Calvinism on the
+other.</p>
+
+<p><i>Robert Burton</i>, 1576-1639: author of &quot;The Anatomy of Melancholie,&quot; an
+amusing and instructive medley of quotations and classical anecdotes,
+showing a profound erudition. In this all the causes and effects of
+melancholy are set forth with varied illustrations. His <i>nom de plume</i> was
+Democritus, Jr., and he is an advocate of the laughing philosophy.</p>
+
+<p><i>Thomas Hobbes</i>, 1588-1679: tutor to Charles II., when Prince of Wales,
+<a id="p126" />and author of the <i>Leviathan</i>. This is a philosophical treatise, in which
+he advocates monarchical government, as based upon the fact that all men
+are selfish, and that human nature, being essentially corrupt, requires an
+iron control: he also wrote upon <i>Liberty and Necessity</i>, and on <i>Human
+Nature</i>.</p>
+
+<p>John Stow, 1525-1605: tailor and antiquary. Principally valuable for his
+&quot;Annales,&quot; &quot;Summary of English Chronicles,&quot; and &quot;A Survey of London.&quot; The
+latter is the foundation of later topographical descriptions of the
+English metropolis.</p>
+
+<p>Raphael Hollinshed, or Holinshed, died about 1580: his <i>Chronicles of
+Englande, Scotlande, and Irelande</i>, were a treasure-house to Shakspeare,
+from which he drew materials for King Lear, Cymbeline, Macbeth, and other
+plays.</p>
+
+<p>Richard Hakluyt, died 1616: being greatly interested in voyages and
+travels, he wrote works upon the adventures of others. Among these are,
+&quot;Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America,&quot; and &quot;Four Voyages
+unto Florida,&quot; which have been very useful in the compilation of early
+American history.</p>
+
+<p>Samuel Purchas, 1577-1628: like Hakluyt, he was exceedingly industrious in
+collecting material, and wrote &quot;Hakluyt's Posthumus, or Purchas, his
+Pilgrimes,&quot; a history of the world &quot;in Sea Voyages and Land Travels.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Walter Raleigh, 1552-1618: a man famous for his personal strength and
+comeliness, vigor of mind, valor, adventures, and sufferings. A prominent
+actor in the stirring scenes of Elizabeth's reign, he was high in the
+favor of the queen. Accused of high treason on the accession of James I.,
+and imprisoned under sentence of death, an unsuccessful expedition to
+South America in search of El Dorado, which caused complaints from the
+Spanish king, led to his execution under the pending sentence. He wrote,
+chiefly in prison, a History of the World, in which he was aided by his
+literary friends, and which is highly commended. It extends to the end of
+the second Macedonian war. Raleigh was also a poet, and wrote several
+special treatises.</p>
+
+<p>William Camden, 1551-1623: author of Britannia, or a chorographic
+description of the most flourishing kingdoms of England, Scotland,
+Ireland, and the adjacent islands, from the earliest antiquity. This work,
+written in Latin, has been translated into English. He also wrote a sketch
+of the reign of Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p><i>George Buchanan</i>, 1506-1581: celebrated as a Latin writer, an historian,
+a poet, and an ecclesiastical polemic. He wrote a <i>History of Scotland</i>, a
+Latin version of the Psalms, and a satire called <i>Cham&aelig;leon</i>. He was<a id="p127" /> a
+man of profound learning and indomitable courage; and when told, just
+before his death, that the king was incensed at his treatise <i>De Jure
+Regni</i>, he answered that he was not concerned at that, for he was &quot;going
+to a place where there were few kings.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Sackville, Earl Dorset, Lord Buckhurst, 1536-1608: author, or
+rather originator of &quot;The Mirror for Magistrates,&quot; showing by illustrious,
+unfortunate examples, the vanity and transitory character of human
+success. Of Sackville and his portion of the Mirror for Magistrates, Craik
+says they &quot;must be considered as forming the connecting link between the
+Canterbury Tales and the Fairy Queen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><i>Samuel Daniel</i>, 1562-1619: an historian and a poet. His chief work is
+&quot;The Historie of the Civile Warres between the Houses of York and
+Lancaster,&quot; &quot;a production,&quot; says Drake, &quot;which reflects great credit on
+the age in which it was written.&quot; This work is in poetical form; and,
+besides it, he wrote many poems and plays, and numerous sonnets.</p>
+
+<p>Michael Drayton, 1563-1631: a versatile writer, most favorably known
+through his <i>Polyolbion</i>, a poem in thirty books, containing a detailed
+description of the topography of England, in Alexandrine verses. His
+<i>Barons' Wars</i> describe the civil commotions during the reign of Edward
+II.</p>
+
+<p>Sir John Davies, 1570-1626: author of <i>Nosce Teipsum</i> and <i>The Orchestra</i>.
+The former is commended by Hallam; and another critic calls it &quot;the best
+poem, except Spenser's Faery Queen, in Queen Elizabeth's, or even, in
+James VI.'s time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>John Donne, 1573-1631: a famous preacher, Dean of St. Paul's: considered
+at the head of the metaphysical school of poets: author of
+<i>Pseudo-Martyr</i>, <i>Polydoron</i>, and numerous sermons. He wrote seven
+<i>satires</i>, which are valuable, but his style is harsh, and his ideas
+far-fetched.</p>
+
+<p>Joseph Hall, 1574-1656: an eminent divine, author of six books of
+<i>satires</i>, of which he called the first three <i>toothless</i>, and the others
+<i>biting</i> satires. These are valuable as presenting truthful pictures of
+the manners and morals of the age and of the defects in contemporary
+literature.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, 1554-1628: he wrote the Life of Sidney,
+and requested to have placed upon his tomb, &quot;The friend of Sir Philip
+Sidney.&quot; He was also the author of numerous treatises: &quot;Monarchy,&quot; &quot;Humane
+Learning,&quot; &quot;Wars,&quot; etc., and of two tragedies.</p>
+
+<p>George Chapman, 1557-1634: author of a translation of Homer, in verses of
+fourteen syllables. It retains much of the spirit of the original, and is
+still considered one of the best among the numerous versions of the
+ancient poet. He also wrote <i>C&aelig;sar and Pompey, Byron's Tragedy</i>, and other
+plays.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch13">
+<h2><a id="p128" />Chapter XIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>The English Drama.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch13-1">Origin of the Drama</a>. <a href="#ch13-2">Miracle Plays</a>. <a href="#ch13-3">Moralities</a>. <a href="#ch13-4">First Comedy</a>. <a href="#ch13-5">Early
+   Tragedies</a>. <a href="#ch13-6">Playwrights and Morals</a>. <a href="#ch13-7">Christopher Marlowe</a>. <a href="#ch13-8">Other Dramatists</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch13-1">Origin of the English Drama.</h4>
+
+
+<p>To the Elizabethan period also belongs the glory of having produced and
+fostered the English drama, itself so marked a teacher of history, not
+only in plays professedly historical, but also in the delineations of
+national character, the indications of national taste, and the satirical
+scourgings of the follies of the day. A few observations are necessary as
+to its feeble beginnings. The old Greek drama indeed existed as a model,
+especially in the tragedies of Euripides and the comedies of Aristophanes;
+but until the fall of Constantinople, these were a dead letter to Western
+Europe, and when the study of Greek was begun in England, they were only
+open to men of the highest education and culture; whereas the drama
+designed for the people was to cater in its earlier forms to the rude
+tastes and love of the marvellous which are characteristic of an
+unlettered people. And, besides, the Roman drama of Plautus and of Terence
+was not suited to the comprehension of the multitude, in its form and its
+preservation of the unities. To gratify the taste for shows and
+excitement, the people already had the high ritual of the Church, but they
+demanded something more: the Church itself acceded to this demand, and
+dramatized Scripture at once for their amusement and instruction. Thus the
+<i>mys<a id="p129" />teria</i> or <i>miracle play</i> originated, and served a double purpose.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As in ancient Greece, generations before the rise of the great dramas of
+Athens, itinerant companies wandered from village to village, carrying
+their stage furniture in their little carts, and acted in their booths and
+tents the grand stories of the mythology&mdash;so in England the mystery
+players haunted the wakes and fairs, and in barns or taverns, taprooms, or
+in the farm-house kitchen, played at saints and angels, and transacted on
+their petty stage the drama of the Christian faith.&quot;<sup><a href="#fn-29" id="fna-29">29</a></sup></p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch13-2"><span class="sc">The Mystery, or Miracle Play.</span>&mdash;The subjects of these dramas were taken
+from such Old Testament narratives as the creation, the lives of the
+patriarchs, the deluge; or from the crucifixion, and from legends of the
+saints: the plays were long, sometimes occupying portions of several days
+consecutively, during seasons of religious festival. They were enacted in
+monasteries, cathedrals, churches, and church-yards. The <i>mise en sc&egrave;ne</i>
+was on two stages or platforms, on the upper of which were represented the
+Persons of the Trinity, and on the lower the personages of earth; while a
+yawning cellar, with smoke arising from an unseen fire, represented the
+infernal regions. This device is similar in character to the plan of
+Dante's poem&mdash;Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.</p>
+
+<p>The earliest of these mysteries was performed somewhere about the year
+1300, and they held sway until 1600, being, however, slowly supplanted by
+the <i>moralities</i>, which we shall presently consider. Many of these
+<i>mysteries</i> still remain in English, and notices of them may be found in
+<i>Collier's History of Dramatic Poetry</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A miracle play was performed to celebrate the birth of Philip II. of
+Spain. They are still performed in Andalusia, and one written within a few
+years for such representation, was enacted at Seville, with great pomp of
+scenic effect,<a id="p130" /> in the Holy Week of 1870. Similar scenes are also
+witnessed by curious foreigners at the present day in the Ober-Ammergau of
+Bavaria. These enable the traveller of to-day to realize the former
+history.</p>
+
+<p>To introduce a comic element, the devil was made to appear with horns,
+hoof, and tail, to figure with grotesque malignity throughout the play,
+and to be reconsigned at the close to his dark abode by the divine power.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch13-3"><span class="sc">Moralities.</span>&mdash;As the people became enlightened, and especially as religious
+knowledge made progress, such childish shows were no longer able to
+satisfy them. The drama undertook a higher task of instruction in the form
+of what was called a <i>morality</i>, or <i>moral play</i>. Instead of old stories
+reproduced to please the childish fancy of the ignorant, genius invented
+scenes and incidents taken indeed from common life, but the characters
+were impersonal; they were the ideal virtues, <i>morality, hope, mercy,
+frugality</i>, and their correlative vices. The <i>mystery</i> had endeavored to
+present similitudes; the <i>moralities</i> were of the nature of allegory, and
+evinced a decided progress in popular intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>These for a time divided the interest with the mysteries, but eventually
+superseded them. The impersonality of the characters enabled the author to
+make hits at political circumstances and existent follies with impunity,
+as the multitude received advice and reproof addressed to them abstractly,
+without feeling a personal sting, and the government would not condescend
+to notice such abstractions. The moralities were enacted in court-yards or
+palaces, the characters generally being personated by students, or
+merchants from the guilds. A great improvement was also made in the length
+of the play, which was usually only an hour in performance. The public
+taste was so wedded to the devil of the mysteries, that he could not be
+given up in the moral plays: he kept his place; but a rival buffoon
+appeared in the person <a id="p131" />of <i>the vice</i>, who tried conclusions with the
+archfiend in serio-comic style until the close of the performance, when
+Satan always carried the vice away in triumph, as he should do.</p>
+
+<p>The moralities retained their place as legitimate drama throughout the
+sixteenth century, and indeed after the modern drama appeared. It is
+recorded that Queen Elizabeth, in 1601, then an old woman, witnessed one
+of these plays, entitled &quot;The Contention between Liberality and
+Prodigality.&quot; This was written by Lodge and Greene, two of the regular
+dramatists, after Ben Jonson had written &quot;Every Man in his Humour,&quot; and
+while Shakspeare was writing Hamlet. Thus the various progressive forms of
+the drama overlapped each other, the older retaining its place until the
+younger gained strength to assert its rights and supersede its rival.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec"><span class="sc">The Interlude.</span>&mdash;While the moralities were slowly dying out, another form
+of the drama had appeared as a connecting link between them and the
+legitimate drama of Shakspeare. This was the <i>interlude</i>, a short play, in
+which the <i>dramatis person&aelig;</i> were no longer allegorical characters, but
+persons in real life, usually, however, not all bearing names even
+assumed, but presented as a friar, a curate, a tapster, etc. The chief
+characteristic of the interlude was, however, its satire; it was a more
+outspoken reformer than the morality, scourged the evils of the age with
+greater boldness, and plunged into religious controversy with the zeal of
+opposing ecclesiastics. The first and principal writer of these interludes
+was John Heywood, a Roman Catholic, who wrote during the reign of Henry
+VIII., and, while a professed jester, was a great champion of his Church.</p>
+
+<p>As in all cases of progress, literary and scientific, the lines of
+demarcation cannot be very distinctly drawn, but as the morality had
+superseded the mystery, and the interlude the morality, so now they were
+all to give way before the regular drama. The people were becoming more
+educated; the <a id='p132' />greater spread of classical knowledge had caused the
+dramatists to study and assimilate the excellences of Latin and Greek
+models; the power of the drama to instruct and refine, as well as to
+amuse, was acknowledged, and thus its capability of improvement became
+manifest. The forms it then assumed were more permanent, and indeed have
+remained almost unchanged down to our own day.</p>
+
+<p>What is called the <i>first</i> comedy in the language cannot be expected to
+show a very decided improvement over the last interludes or moralities,
+but it bears those distinctive marks which establish its right to the
+title.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch13-4"><span class="sc">The First Comedy.</span>&mdash;This was <i>Ralph Roister Doister</i>, which appeared in the
+middle of the sixteenth century: (a printed copy of 1551 was discovered in
+1818.) Its author was Nicholas Udall, the master of Eton, a clergyman, but
+very severe as a pedagogue; an ultra Protestant, who is also accused of
+having stolen church plate, which may perhaps mean that he took away from
+the altar what he regarded as popish vessels and ornaments. He calls the
+play &quot;a comedy and interlude,&quot; but claims that it is imitated from the
+Roman drama. It is regularly divided into acts and scenes, in the form of
+our modern plays. The plot is simple: Ralph, a gay Lothario, courts as gay
+a widow, and the by-play includes a designing servant and an intriguing
+lady's-maid: these are the stock elements of a hundred comedies since.</p>
+
+<p>Contemporary with this was <i>Gammer Gurton's Needle</i>, supposed to be
+written, but not conclusively, by John Still, Bishop of Bath and Wells,
+about 1560. The story turns upon the loss of a steel needle&mdash;a rare
+instrument in that day, as it was only introduced into England from Spain
+during the age of Elizabeth. This play is a coarser piece than Ralph
+Roister Doister; the buffoon raises the devil to aid him in finding the
+lost needle, which is at length found, by very pal<a id="p133" />pable proof, to be
+sticking in the seat of Goodman Hodge's breeches.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch13-5"><span class="sc">The First Tragedy.</span>&mdash;Hand in hand with these first comedies came the
+earliest tragedy, <i>Gorboduc</i>, by Sackville and Norton, known under another
+name as <i>Ferrex and Porrex</i>; and it is curious to observe that this came
+in while the moralities still occupied the stage, and before the
+interludes had disappeared, as it was played before the queen at White
+Hall, in 1562. It is also to be noted that it introduced a chorus like
+that of the old Greek drama. Ferrex and Porrex are the sons of King
+Gorboduc: the former is killed by the latter, who in turn is slain by his
+own mother. Of Gorboduc, Lamb says, &quot;The style of this old play is stiff
+and cumbersome, like the dresses of the times. There may be flesh and
+blood underneath, but we cannot get at it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With the awakened interest of the people, the drama now made steady
+progress. In 1568 the tragedy of <i>Tancred and Gismunda</i>, based upon one of
+the stories of Boccaccio, was enacted before Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>A license for establishing a regular theatre was got out by Burbage in
+1574. Peele and Greene wrote plays in the new manner: Marlowe, the
+greatest name in the English drama, except those of Shakspeare and Ben
+Jonson, gave to the world his <i>Tragical History of the Life and Death of
+Doctor Faustus</i>, which many do not hesitate to compare favorably with
+Goethe's great drama, and his <i>Rich Jew of Malta</i>, which contains the
+portraiture of Barabas, second only to the Shylock of Shakspeare. Of
+Marlowe a more special mention will be made.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch13-6"><span class="sc">Playwrights and Morals.</span>&mdash;It was to the great advantage of the English
+regular drama, that the men who wrote were almost in every case highly
+educated in the classics, and thus able to avail themselves of the best
+models. It is equally <a id="p134" />true that, owing to the religious condition of the
+times, when Puritanism launched forth its diatribes against all
+amusements, they were men in the opposition, and in most cases of
+irregular lives. Men of the world, they took their characters from among
+the persons with whom they associated; and so we find in their plays
+traces of the history of the age, in the appropriation of classical forms,
+in the references to religious and political parties, and in their
+delineation of the morals, manners, and follies of the period: if the
+drama of the present day owes to them its origin and nurture, it also
+retains as an inheritance many of the faults and deformities from which in
+a more refined period it is seeking to purge itself. It is worthy of
+notice, that as the drama owes everything to popular patronage, its moral
+tone reflects of necessity the moral character of the people who frequent
+it, and of the age which sustains it.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch13-7"><span class="sc">Christopher Marlowe.</span>&mdash;Among those who may be regarded as the immediate
+forerunners and ushers of Shakspeare, and who, although they prepared the
+way for his advent, have been obscured by his greater brilliance, the one
+most deserving of special mention is Marlowe.</p>
+
+<p>Christopher Marlowe was born at Canterbury, about the year 1564. He was a
+wild, irregular genius, of bad morals and loose life, but of fine
+imagination and excellent powers of expression. He wrote only tragedies.</p>
+
+<p>His <i>Tamburlaine the Great</i> is based upon the history of that <i>Timour
+Leuk</i>, or <i>Timour the Lame</i>, the great Oriental conqueror of the
+fourteenth century:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    So large of limb, his joints so strongly knit,<br />
+    Such breadth of shoulders as might mainly bear<br />
+    Old Atlas' burthen.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The descriptions are overdrawn, and the style inflated, but the subject
+partakes of the heroic, and was popular still,<a id="p135" /> though nearly two
+centuries had passed since the exploits of the historic hero.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Rich Jew of Malta</i> is of value, as presenting to us Barabas the Jew
+as he appeared to Christian suspicion and hatred in the fifteenth century.
+As he sits in his country-house with heaps of gold before him, and
+receives the visits of merchants who inform him of the safe arrival of his
+ships, it is manifest that he gave Shakspeare the first ideal of his
+Shylock, upon which the greater dramatist greatly improved.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Tragicall Life and Death of Doctor John Faustus</i> certainly helped
+Goethe in the conception and preparation of his modern drama, and contains
+many passages of rare power. Charles Lamb says: &quot;The growing horrors of
+Faustus are awfully marked by the hours and half-hours which expire and
+bring him nearer and nearer to the enactment of his dire compact. It is
+indeed an agony and bloody sweat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><i>Edward II.</i> presents in the assassination scene wonderful power and
+pathos, and is regarded by Hazlitt as his best play.</p>
+
+<p>Marlowe is the author of the pleasant madrigal, called by Izaak Walton
+&quot;that smooth song&quot;:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Come live with me and be my love.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The playwright, who had led a wild life, came to his end in a tavern
+brawl: he had endeavored to use his dagger upon one of the waiters, who
+turned it upon him, and gave him a wound in the head of which he died, in
+1593.</p>
+
+<p>His talents were of a higher order than those of his contemporaries; he
+was next to Shakspeare in power, and was called by Phillips &quot;a second
+Shakspeare.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch13-8">Other Dramatic Writers before Shakspeare.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Thomas Lodge, 1556-1625: educated at Oxford. Wrote <i>The Wounds of
+Civil-War</i>, and other tragedies. Rosalynd, a novel, from which Shakspeare
+drew in his <i>As You Like It</i>. He translated <i>Josephus</i> and <i>Seneca</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p136" />Thomas Kyd, died about 1600: <i>The Spanish Tragedy, or, Hieronymo is Mad
+Again</i>. This contains a few highly wrought scenes, which have been
+variously attributed to Ben Jonson and to Webster.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Tailor: wrote <i>The Hog hath Lost his Pearl</i>, a comedy, published in
+1614. This partakes of the character of the <i>morality</i>.</p>
+
+<p>John Marston: wrote <i>Antonio and Mellida</i>, 1602; <i>Antonio's Revenge</i>,
+1602; <i>Sophonisba, a Wonder of Women</i>, 1606; <i>The Insatiate Countess</i>,
+1603, and many other plays. Marston ranks high among the immediate
+predecessors of Shakspeare, for the number, variety, and vigorous handling
+of his plays.</p>
+
+<p>George Peele, born about 1553: educated at Oxford. Many of his pieces are
+broadly comic. The principal plays are: <i>The Arraignment of Paris</i>,
+<i>Edward I.</i> and <i>David and Bethsabe</i>. The latter is overwrought and full
+of sickish sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Nash, 1558-1601: a satirist and polemic, who is best known for his
+controversy with Gabriel Harvey. Most of his plays were written in
+conjunction with others. He was imprisoned for writing <i>The Isle of Dogs</i>,
+which was played, but not published. He is very licentious in his
+language.</p>
+
+<p>John Lyly, born about 1553: wrote numerous smaller plays, but is chiefly
+known as the author of <i>Euphues, Anatomy of Wit</i>, and <i>Euphues and his
+England</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Greene, died 1592: educated at Cambridge. Wrote <i>Alphonsus, King of
+Arragon</i>, <i>James IV.</i>, <i>George-a-Greene</i>, <i>Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay</i>,
+and other plays. After leading a profligate life, he left behind him a
+pamphlet entitled, &quot;A Groat's-worth of Wit, bought with a Million of
+Repentance:&quot; this is full of contrition, and of advice to his
+fellow-actors and fellow-sinners. It is mainly remarkable for its abuse of
+Shakspeare, &quot;an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers;&quot; &quot;Tygre's
+heart wrapt in a player's hide;&quot; &quot;an absolute Johannes factotum, in his
+own conceyt the onely <i>shakescene</i> in the country.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Most of these dramatists wrote in copartnership with others, and many of
+the plays which bear their names singly, have parts composed by
+colleagues. Such was the custom of the age, and it is now very difficult
+to declare the distinct authorship of many of the plays.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch14">
+<h2><a id="p137" />Chapter XIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>William Shakspeare.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch14-1">The Power of Shakspeare</a>. <a href="#ch14-2">Meagre Early History</a>. <a href="#ch14-3">Doubts of his Identity</a>.
+   <a href="#ch14-4">What is known</a>. <a href="#ch14-5">Marries, and goes to London</a>. &quot;<a href="#ch14-6">Venus</a>&quot; and &quot;<a href="#ch14-7">Lucrece</a>.&quot;
+   <a href="#ch14-8">Retirement and Death</a>. <a href="#ch14-9">Literary Habitudes</a>. <a href="#ch14-10">Variety of the Plays</a>. <a href="#ch14-11">Table
+   of Dates and Sources</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch14-1">The Power of Shakspeare.</h4>
+
+
+<p>We have now reached, in our search for the historic teachings in English
+literature, and in our consideration of the English drama, the greatest
+name of all, the writer whose works illustrate our position most strongly,
+and yet who, eminent type as he is of British culture in the age of
+Elizabeth, was truly and pithily declared by his friend and contemporary,
+Ben Jonson, to be &quot;not for an age, but for all time.&quot; It is also
+singularly true that, even in such a work as this, Shakspeare really
+requires only brief notice at our hands, because he is so universally
+known and read: his characters are among our familiar acquaintance; his
+simple but thoughtful words are incorporated in our common conversation;
+he is our every-day companion. To eulogize him to the reading public is</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,<br />
+    To lend a perfume to the violet ...
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Bible and Shakspeare have been long conjoined as the two most
+necessary books in a family library; and Mrs. Cowden Clarke, the author of
+the Concordance to Shakspeare, has pointedly and truthfully said: &quot;A poor
+lad, possessing no other book, might on this single one make himself a
+gen<a id="p138" />tleman and a scholar: a poor girl, studying no other volume, might
+become a lady in heart and soul.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch14-2"><span class="sc">Meagre Early History.</span>&mdash;It is passing strange, considering the great value
+of his writings, and his present fame, that of his personal history so
+little is known. In the words of Steevens, one of his most successful
+commentators: &quot;All that is known, with any degree of certainty, concerning
+Shakspeare, is&mdash;that he was born at Stratford upon Avon&mdash;married and had
+children there&mdash;went to London, where he commenced actor, and wrote poems
+and plays&mdash;returned to Stratford, made his will, died, and was buried.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This want of knowledge is in part due to his obscure youth, during which
+no one could predict what he would afterward achieve, and therefore no one
+took notes of his life: to his own apparent ignorance and carelessness of
+his own merits, and to the low repute in which plays, and especially
+playwrights, were then held; although they were in reality making their
+age illustrious in history. The pilgrim to Stratford sees the little low
+house in which he is said to have been born, purchased by the nation, and
+now restored into a smart cottage: within are a few meagre relics of the
+poet's time; not far distant is the foundation&mdash;recently uncovered&mdash;of his
+more ambitious residence in New Place, and a mulberry-tree, which probably
+grew from a slip of that which he had planted with his own hand. Opposite
+is the old Falcon Inn, where he made his daily potations. Very near rises,
+above elms and lime-trees, the spire of the beautiful church on the bank
+of the Avon, beneath the chancel of which his remains repose, with those
+of his wife and daughter, overlooked by his bust, of which no one knows
+the maker or the history, except that it dates from his own time. His bust
+is of life-size, and was originally painted to imitate nature&mdash;eyes of
+hazel, hair and beard auburn, doublet scarlet, and sleeveless gown of
+black. Covered by a false taste with white paint to imitate marble, <a id="p139" />while
+it destroyed identity and age: it has since been recolored from
+traditional knowledge, but it is too rude to give us the expression of his
+face.</p>
+
+<p>The only other probable likeness is that from an old picture, an engraving
+of which, by Droeshout, is found in the first folio edition of his plays,
+published in 1623, seven years after his death: it was said by Ben Jonson
+to be a good likeness. We are very fortunate in having these,
+unsatisfactory as they are, for it is simple truth that beyond these
+places and things, there is little, if anything, to illustrate the
+personal history of Shakspeare. All that we can know of the man is found
+in his works.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch14-3"><span class="sc">Doubts of his Identity.</span>&mdash;This ignorance concerning him has given rise to
+numerous doubts as to his literary identity, and many efforts have been
+made to find other authors for his dramas. Among the most industrious in
+this deposing scheme, have been Miss Delia Bacon and Mr. Nathaniel Holmes,
+who concur in attributing his best plays to Francis Bacon. That Bacon did
+not acknowledge his own work, they say, is because he rated the dramatic
+art too far beneath his dignity to confess any complicity with it. In
+short, he and other great men of that day wrote immortal works which they
+were ashamed of, and were willing to father upon the common actor and
+stage-manager, one William Shakspeare!</p>
+
+<p>While it is not within the scope of this volume to enter into the
+controversy, it is a duty to state its existence, and to express the
+judgment that these efforts have been entirely unsuccessful, but have not
+been without value in that they have added a little to the meagre history
+by their researches, and have established the claims of Shakspeare on a
+firmer foundation than before.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch14-4"><span class="sc">What Is Known.</span>&mdash;William Shakspeare (spelt <i>Shackspeare</i> in the body of his
+will, but signed <i>Shakspeare</i>) was the third <a id="p140" />of eight children, and the
+eldest son of John Shakspeare and Mary Arden: he was born at the beautiful
+rural town of Stratford, on the little river Avon, on the 23d of April,
+1564. His father, who was of yeoman rank, was probably a dealer in wool
+and leather. Aubrey, a gossiping chronicler of the next generation, says
+he was a butcher, and some biographers assert that he was a glover. He may
+have exercised all these crafts together, but it is more to our purpose to
+know that in his best estate he was a property holder and chief burgess of
+the town. Shakspeare's mother seems to have been of an older family.
+Neither of them could write. Shakspeare received his education at the free
+grammar-school, still a well-endowed institution in the town, where he
+learned the &quot;small Latin and less Greek&quot; accorded to him by Ben Jonson at
+a later day.</p>
+
+<p>There are guesses, rather than traditions, that he was, after the age of
+fifteen, a student in a law-office, that he was for a time at one of the
+universities, and also that he was a teacher in the grammar-school. These
+are weak inventions to account for the varied learning displayed in his
+dramas. His love of Nature and his power to delineate her charms were
+certainly fostered by the beautiful rural surroundings of Stratford;
+beyond this it is idle to seek to penetrate the obscure processes of his
+youth.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch14-5"><span class="sc">Marries, and Goes to London.</span>&mdash;Finding himself one of a numerous and poor
+family, to the support of which his father's business was inadequate, he
+determined, to shift for himself, and to push his fortunes in the best way
+he could.</p>
+
+<p>Whether he regarded matrimony as one element of success we do not know,
+but the preliminary bond of marriage between himself and Anne Hathaway,
+was signed on the 28th of November, 1582, when he was eighteen years old.
+The woman was seven years older than himself; and it is a sad commentary
+on the morality of both, that his first child, Susanna, was baptized on
+the 25th of May, 1583.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p141" />Strolling bands of players, in passing through England, were in the habit
+of stopping at Stratford, and setting upon wheels their rude stage with
+weather-stained curtains; and these, it should be observed, were the best
+dramatic companies of the time, such as the queen's company, and those in
+the service of noblemen like Leicester, Warwick, and others. If he did not
+see he must have heard of the great pageant in 1575, when Leicester
+entertained Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth, which is so charmingly
+described by Sir Walter Scott. Young Shakspeare became stage-struck, and
+probably joined one of these companies, with other idle young men of the
+neighborhood.</p>
+
+<p>Various legends, without sufficient foundation of truth, are related of
+him at this time, which indicate that he was of a frolicsome and
+mischievous turn: among these is a statement that he was arraigned for
+deer-poaching in the park of Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote. A satirical
+reference to Sir Thomas in one of his plays,<sup><a href="#fn-30" id="fna-30">30</a></sup> leads us to think that
+there is some truth in the story, although certain of his biographers have
+denied it.</p>
+
+<p>In February, 1584-5, he became the father of twins, Hamnet and Judith, and
+in 1586, leaving his wife and children at Stratford, he went up with a
+theatrical company to London, where for three years he led a hard and
+obscure life. He was at first a menial at the theatre; some say he held
+gentlemen's horses at the door, others that he was call-boy, prompter,
+scene-shifter, minor actor. At length he began to find his true vocation
+in altering and adapting plays for the stage. This earlier practice, in
+every capacity, was of great value to him when he began to write plays of
+his own. As an actor he never rose above mediocrity. It is said that he
+played such parts as the Ghost in Hamlet, and Adam in As You Like It; but
+off the stage he became known for a ready wit and convivial humor.</p>
+
+<p>His ready hand for any work caused him to prosper steadily,<a id="p142" /> and so in
+1589 we find his name the twelfth on the list of sixteen shareholders in
+the Blackfriars Theatre, one of the first play-houses built in London.
+That he was steadily growing in public favor, as well as in private
+fortune, might be inferred from Spenser's mention of him in the &quot;Tears of
+the Muses,&quot; published in 1591, if we were sure he was the person referred
+to. If he was, this is the first great commendation he had received:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    The man whom nature's self had made,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To mock herself and truth to imitate,<br />
+    With kindly counter under mimic shade,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Our pleasant Willie.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>There is, however, a doubt whether the reference is to him, as he had
+written very little as early as 1591.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch14-6"><span class="sc">Venus and Adonis.</span>&mdash;In 1593 appeared his <i>Venus and Adonis</i>, which he now
+had the social position and interest to dedicate to the Earl of
+Southampton. It is a harmonious and beautiful poem, but the display of
+libidinous passion in the goddess, however in keeping with her character
+and with the broad taste of the age, is disgusting to the refined reader,
+even while he acknowledges the great power of the poet. In the same year
+was built the Globe Theatre, a hexagonal wooden structure, unroofed over
+the pit, but thatched over the stage and the galleries. In this, too,
+Shakspeare was a shareholder.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch14-7"><span class="sc">The Rape of Lucrece.</span>&mdash;The <i>Rape of Lucrece</i> was published in 1594, and was
+dedicated to the same nobleman, who, after the custom of the period,
+became Shakspeare's patron, and showed the value of his patronage by the
+gift to the poet of a thousand pounds.</p>
+
+<p>Thus in making poetical versions of classical stories, which formed the
+imaginative pabulum of the age, and in readapt<a id="p143" />ing older plays, the poet
+was gaining that skill and power which were to produce his later immortal
+dramas.</p>
+
+<p>These, as we shall see, he began to write as early as 1589, and continued
+to produce until 1612.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch14-8"><span class="sc">Retirement and Death.</span>&mdash;A few words will complete his personal history: His
+fortune steadily increased; in 1602 he was the principal owner of the
+Globe; then, actuated by his home feeling, which had been kept alive by
+annual visits to Stratford, he determined, as soon as he could, to give up
+the stage, and to take up his residence there. He had purchased, in 1597,
+the New Place at Stratford, but he did not fully carry out his plan until
+1612, when he finally retired with ample means and in the enjoyment of an
+honorable reputation. There he exercised a generous hospitality, and led a
+quiet rural life. He planted a mulberry-tree, which became a pilgrim's
+shrine to numerous travellers; but a ruthless successor in the ownership
+of New Place, the Reverend Francis Gastrell, annoyed by the concourse of
+visitors, was Vandal enough to cut it down. Such was the anger of the
+people that he was obliged to leave the place, which he did after razing
+the mansion to the ground. His name is held in great detestation at
+Stratford now, as every traveller is told his story.</p>
+
+<p>Shakspeare's death occurred on his fifty-second birthday, April 23d, 1616.
+He had been ill of a fever, from which he was slowly recovering, and his
+end is said to have been the result of an over-conviviality in
+entertaining Drayton and Ben Jonson, who had paid him a visit at
+Stratford.</p>
+
+<p>His son Hamnet had died in 1596, at the age of twelve. In 1607, his
+daughter Susannah had married Dr. Hall; and in 1614 died Judith, who had
+married Thomas Quiney. Shakspeare's wife survived him, and died in 1623.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch14-9"><span class="sc">Literary Habitudes.</span>&mdash;Such, in brief, is the personal<a id="p144" /> history of
+Shakspeare: of his literary habitudes we know nothing. The exact dates of
+the appearance of his plays are, in most cases, doubtful. Many of these
+had been printed singly during his life, but the first complete edition
+was published in folio, in 1623. It contains <i>thirty-six</i> plays, and is
+the basis of the later editions, which contain thirty-<i>seven</i>. Many
+questions arise which cannot be fully answered: Did he write all the plays
+contained in the volume? Are the First Part of Henry VI., Titus
+Andronicus,<sup><a href="#fn-31" id="fna-31">31</a></sup> and Pericles his work? Did he not write others not found
+among these? Had he, as was not uncommon then and later, collaboration in
+those which bear his name? Was he a Beaumont to some Fletcher, or a
+Sackville to some Norton? Upon these questions generations of Shakspearean
+scholars have expended a great amount of learned inquiry ever since his
+day, and not without results: it is known that many of his dramas are
+founded upon old plays, as to plots; and that he availed himself of the
+labor of others in casting his plays.</p>
+
+<p>But the real value of his plays, the insight into human nature, the
+profound philosophy, &quot;the myriad-soul&quot; which they display, are
+Shakspeare's only. By applying just rules of evidence, we conclude that he
+did write thirty-five of the plays attributed to him, and that he did not
+write, or was not the chief writer of others. It is certainly very strong
+testimony on these points, that seven years after his death, and <i>three
+years before that of Bacon</i>, a large folio should have been published by
+his professional friends Heminge and Condell, prefaced with ardent
+eulogies, claiming thirty-six plays as his, and that it did not meet with
+the instant and indignant cry that his claims were false. The players of
+that day were an envious and carping set, and the controversy would have
+been fierce from the very first, had there been just grounds for it.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch14-10"><span class="sc">Variety of Plays.</span>&mdash;No attempt will be made to analyze<a id="p145" /> any of the plays of
+Shakspeare: that is left for the private study and enjoyment of the
+student, by the use of the very numerous aids furnished by commentators
+and critics. It will be found often that in their great ardor, the
+dramatist has been treated like the Grecian poet:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    [Shakspeare's] critics bring to view<br />
+    Things which [Shakspeare] never knew.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Many of the plays are based upon well-known legends and fictional tales,
+some of them already adopted in old plays: thus the story of King Lear and
+his daughters is found in Holinshed's Chronicle, and had been for years
+represented; from this Shakspeare has borrowed the story, but has used
+only a single passage. The play is intended to represent the ancient
+Celtic times in Britain, eight hundred years before Christ; and such is
+its power and pathos, that we care little for its glaring anachronisms and
+curious errors. In Holinshed are also found the stories of Cymbeline and
+Macbeth, the former supposed to have occurred during the Roman occupancy
+of Britain, and the latter during the Saxon period.</p>
+
+<p>With these before us, let us observe that names, chronology, geography,
+costumes, and customs are as nothing in his eyes. His aim is human
+philosophy: he places his living creations before us, dressing them, as it
+were, in any garments most conveniently at hand. These lose their
+grotesqueness as his characters speak and act. Paternal love and weakness,
+met by filial ingratitude; these are the lessons and the fearful pictures
+of Lear: sad as they are, the world needed them, and they have saved many
+a later Lear from expulsion and storm and death, and shamed many a Goneril
+and Regan, while they have strengthened the hearts of many a Cordelia
+since. Chastity and constancy shine like twin stars from the forest of
+Cymbeline. And what have we in Macbeth? Mad ambition parleying with the
+devil, in the guise of a woman lost to all virtue save a desire to
+aggrandize her husband and her<a id="p146" />self. These have a pretence of history; but
+Hamlet, with hardly that pretence, stands alone supreme in varied
+excellence. Ambition, murder, resistless fate, filial love, the love of
+woman, revenge, the power of conscience, paternal solicitude, infinite
+jest: what a volume is this!</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch14-11"><span class="sc">Table of Dates and Sources.</span>&mdash;The following table, which presents the plays
+in chronological order,<sup><a href="#fn-32" id="fna-32">32</a></sup> the times when they were written, as nearly as
+can be known, and the sources whence they were derived, will be of more
+service to the student than any discursive remarks upon the several plays.</p>
+
+<table summary="Table of Shakespearean Dates and Sources">
+<tr><th>Plays.</th><th>                       Dates. </th><th>               Sources.</th></tr>
+
+<tr><td> 1. Henry VI., first part   </td><td>  1589 </td><td>  Denied to Shakspeare; attributed to
+                                       Marlowe or Kyd.</td></tr>
+<tr><td> 2. Pericles                 </td><td> 1590 </td><td>  From the &quot;Gesta Romanorum.&quot;</td></tr>
+<tr><td> 3. Henry VI., second part   </td><td> 1591 </td><td>    &quot;  an older play.</td></tr>
+<tr><td> 4. Henry VI., third part    </td><td> 1591 </td><td>    &quot;  &quot;    &quot;    &quot;</td></tr>
+<tr><td> 5. Two Gentlemen of Verona  </td><td> 1591</td><td>     &quot;  an old tale.</td></tr>
+<tr><td> 6. Comedy of Errors         </td><td> 1592</td><td>     &quot;  a comedy of Plautus.</td></tr>
+<tr><td> 7. Love's Labor Lost        </td><td> 1592</td><td>     &quot;  an Italian play.</td></tr>
+<tr><td> 8. Richard II.              </td><td> 1593</td><td>     &quot;  Holinshed and other
+                                          chronicles.</td></tr>
+<tr><td> 9. Richard III.             </td><td> 1593</td><td>   From an old play and Sir Thomas
+                                       More's History.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>10. Midsummer Night's Dream  </td><td> 1594</td><td>   Suggested by Palamon and Arcite,
+                                       The Knight's Tale, of Chaucer.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>11. Taming of the Shrew      </td><td> 1596</td><td>   From an older play.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>12. Romeo and Juliet         </td><td> 1596</td><td>     &quot;  &quot; old tale. Boccaccio.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>13. Merchant of Venice       </td><td> 1597</td><td>     &quot; Gesta Romanorum, with suggestions
+                                         from Marlowe's Jew of Malta.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>14. Henry IV., part 1        </td><td> 1597</td><td>   From an old play.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>15. Henry IV., part 2        </td><td> 1598</td><td>    &quot;   &quot;  &quot;   &quot;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>16. King John                </td><td> 1598</td><td>    &quot;   &quot;  &quot;   &quot;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>17. All's Well that Ends Well</td><td> 1598</td><td>    &quot;  Boccaccio.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a id="p147" />18. Henry V.                  </td><td>1599</td><td>  From an older play.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>19. As You Like It           </td><td> 1600</td><td>  Suggested in part by Lodge's novel,
+                                      Rosalynd.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>20. Much Ado About Nothing   </td><td> 1600</td><td>  Source unknown.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>21. Hamlet                   </td><td> 1601</td><td>  From the Latin History of Scandinavia,
+                                      by Saxo, called Grammaticus.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>22. Merry Wives of Windsor   </td><td> 1601</td><td>  Said to have been suggested by
+                                      Elizabeth.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>23. Twelfth Night            </td><td> 1601</td><td>  From an old tale.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>24. Troilus and Cressida     </td><td> 1602</td><td>  Of classical origin, through Chaucer.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>25. Henry VIII.              </td><td> 1603</td><td>  From the chronicles of the day.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>26. Measure for Measure      </td><td> 1603</td><td>   &quot;  an old tale.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>27. Othello                  </td><td> 1604 </td><td>  &quot;  &quot;   &quot;   &quot;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>28. King Lear                </td><td> 1605</td><td>   &quot;  Holinshed.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>29. Macbeth                  </td><td> 1606</td><td>   &quot;      &quot;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>30. Julius C&aelig;sar       </td><td>       1607</td><td>   &quot;  Plutarch's Parallel Lives.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>31. Antony and Cleopatra     </td><td> 1608</td><td>   &quot;      &quot;         &quot;       &quot;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>32. Cymbeline                </td><td> 1609</td><td>   &quot;  Holinshed.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>33. Coriolanus               </td><td> 1610</td><td>   &quot;  Plutarch.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>34. Timon of Athens          </td><td> 1610</td><td>   &quot;     &quot;      and other sources.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>35. Winter's Tale            </td><td> 1611</td><td>   &quot;  a novel by Greene.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>36. Tempest                  </td><td> 1612</td><td>   &quot;  Italian Tale.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>37. Titus Andronicus         </td><td> 1593</td><td>  Denied to Shakspeare; probably by
+                                      Marlowe or Kyd.</td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch15">
+<h2 id="p148">Chapter XV.</h2>
+
+<h3>William Shakspeare, (Continued.)</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch15-1">The Grounds of his Fame</a>. <a href="#ch15-2">Creation of Character</a>. <a href="#ch15-3">Imagination and Fancy</a>.
+   <a href="#ch15-4">Power of Expression</a>. <a href="#ch15-5">His Faults</a>. <a href="#ch15-6">Influence of Elizabeth</a>. <a href="#ch15-7">Sonnets</a>.
+   <a href="#ch15-8">Ireland and Collier</a>. <a href="#ch15-9">Concordance</a>. <a href="#ch15-10">Other Writers</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch15-1">The Grounds of His Fame.</h4>
+
+
+<p>From what has been said, it is manifest that as to his plots and
+historical reproductions, Shakspeare has little merit but taste in
+selection; and indeed in most cases, had he invented the stories, his
+merit would not have been great: what then is the true secret of his power
+and of his fame? This question is not difficult to answer.</p>
+
+<p>First, these are due to his wonderful insight into human nature, and the
+philosophy of human life: he dissects the human mind in all its
+conditions, and by this vivisection he displays its workings as it lives
+and throbs; he divines the secret impulses of all ages and
+characters&mdash;childhood, boyhood, manhood, girlhood, and womanhood; men of
+peace, and men of war; clowns, nobles, and kings. His large heart was
+sympathetic with all, and even most so with the lowly and suffering; he
+shows us to ourselves, and enables us to use that knowledge for our
+profit. All the virtues are held up to our imitation and praise, and all
+the vices are scourged and rendered odious in our sight. To read
+Shakspeare aright is of the nature of honest self-examination, that most
+difficult and most necessary of duties.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch15-2"><span class="sc">Creation of Character.</span>&mdash;Second: He stands supreme<a id="p149" /> in the creation of
+character, which may be considered the distinguishing mark of the highest
+literary genius. The men and women whom he has made are not stage-puppets
+moved by hidden strings; they are real. We know them as intimately as the
+friends and acquaintances who visit us, or the people whom we accost in
+our daily walks.</p>
+
+<p>And again, in this varied delineation of character, Shakspeare less than
+any other author either obtrudes or repeats himself. Unlike Byron, he is
+nowhere his own hero: unlike most modern novelists, he fashions men who,
+while they have the generic human resemblance, differ from each other like
+those of flesh and blood around us: he has presented a hundred phases of
+love, passion, ambition, jealousy, revenge, treachery, and cruelty, and
+each distinct from the others of its kind; but lest any character should
+degenerate into an allegorical representation of a single virtue or vice,
+he has provided it with the other lineaments necessary to produce in it a
+rare human identity.</p>
+
+<p>The stock company of most writers is limited, and does arduous duty in
+each new play or romance; so that we detect in the comic actor, who is now
+convulsing the pit with laughter, the same person who a little while ago
+died heroically to slow music in the tragedy. Each character in Shakspeare
+plays but one part, and plays it skilfully and well. And who has portrayed
+the character of woman like Shakspeare?&mdash;the grand sorrow of the
+repudiated Catharine, the incorruptible chastity of Isabella, the
+cleverness of Portia, the loves of Jessica and of Juliet, the innocent
+curiosity of Miranda, the broken heart and crazed brain of the fair
+Ophelia.</p>
+
+<p>In this connection also should be noticed his powers of grouping and
+composition; which, in the words of one of his biographers, &quot;present to us
+pictures from the realms of spirits and from fairyland, which in deep
+reflection and in useful maxims, yield nothing to the pages of the
+philosophers, <a id="p150" />and which glow with all the poetic beauty that an
+exhaustless fancy could shower upon them.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch15-3"><span class="sc">Imagination and Fancy.</span>&mdash;And this brings us to notice, in the third place,
+his rare gifts of imagination and of fancy; those instruments of the
+representative faculty by which objects of sense and of mind are held up
+to view in new, varied, and vivid lights. Many of his tragedies abound in
+imaginative pictures, while there are not in the realm of Fancy's fairy
+frostwork more exquisite representations than those found in the <i>Tempest</i>
+and the <i>Midsummer Night's Dream</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch15-4"><span class="sc">Power of Expression.</span>&mdash;Fourth, Shakspeare is remarkable for the power and
+felicity of his expression. He adapts his language to the persons who use
+it, and thus we pass from the pompous grandiloquence of king and herald to
+the common English and coarse conceits of clown and nurse and
+grave-digger; from the bombastic speech of Glendower and the rhapsodies of
+Hotspur to the slang and jests of Falstaff.</p>
+
+<p>But something more is meant by felicity of expression than this. It
+applies to the apt words which present pithy bits of household philosophy,
+and to the beautiful words which convey the higher sentiments and flights
+of fancy; to the simple words couching grand thoughts with such exquisite
+aptness that they seem made for each other, so that no other words would
+do as well, and to the dainty songs, like those of birds, which fill his
+forests and gardens with melody. Thus it is that orators and essayists
+give dignity and point to their own periods by quoting Shakspeare.</p>
+
+<p>Such are a few of Shakspeare's high merits, which constitute him the
+greatest poet who has ever used the English tongue&mdash;poet, moralist, and
+philosopher in one.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch15-5"><span class="sc">His Faults.</span>&mdash;If it be necessary to point out his faults, it should be
+observed that most of them are those of the age and <a id="p151" />of his profession. To
+both may be charged the vulgarity and lewdness of some of his
+representations; which, however, err in this respect far less than the
+writings of his contemporaries.</p>
+
+<p>Again: in the short time allowed for the presentation of a play, before a
+restless audience, as soon as the plot was fairly shadowed, the hearers
+were anxious for the <i>d&eacute;nouement</i>. And so Shakspeare, careless of future
+fame, frequently displays a singular disparity between the parts. He has
+so much of detail in the first two acts, that in order to preserve the
+symmetry, five or six more would be necessary. Thus conclusions are
+hurried, when, as works of art, they should be the most elaborated.</p>
+
+<p>He has sometimes been accused of obscurity in expression, which renders
+some of his passages difficult to be understood by commentators; but this,
+in most cases, is the fault of his editors. The cases are exceptional and
+unimportant. His anachronisms and historical inaccuracies have already
+been referred to. His greatest admirers will allow that his wit and humor
+are very often forced and frequently out of place; but here, too, he
+should be leniently judged. These sallies of wit were meant rather to
+&quot;tickle the ears of the groundlings&quot; than as just subjects for criticism
+by later scholars. We know that old jokes, bad puns, and innuendoes are
+needed on the stage at the present day. Shakspeare used them for the same
+ephemeral purpose then; and had he sent down corrected versions to
+posterity, they would have been purged of these.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch15-6"><span class="sc">Influence of Elizabeth.</span>&mdash;Enough has been said to show in what manner
+Shakspeare represents his age, and indeed many former periods of English
+history. There are numerous passages which display the influence of
+Elizabeth. It was at her request that he wrote the <i>Merry Wives of
+Windsor</i>, in which Falstaff is depicted as a lover: the play of Henry
+VIII., criticizing the queen's father, was not produced until after her
+death. His pure women, like those of Spenser, are drawn after a queenly
+model. It is known that <a id="p152" />Elizabeth was very susceptible to admiration, but
+did not wish to be considered so; and Shakspeare paid the most delicate
+and courtly tribute to her vanity, in those exquisite lines from the
+<i>Midsummer Night's Dream</i>, showing how powerless Cupid was to touch her
+heart:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;      A certain aim he took<br />
+    At a fair vestal, throned by the west;<br />
+    And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,<br />
+    As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:<br />
+    But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft<br />
+    Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon;<br />
+    And <i>the imperial votaress passed on</i>,<br />
+    In maiden meditation, fancy free.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch15-7"><span class="sc">Shakspeare's Sonnets.</span>&mdash;Before his time, the sonnet had been but little
+used in England, the principal writers being Surrey, Sir Walter Raleigh,
+Sidney, Daniel, and Drayton. Shakspeare left one hundred and fifty-four,
+which exhibit rare poetical power, and which are most of them addressed to
+a person unknown, perhaps an ideal personage, whose initials are W. H.
+Although chiefly addressed to a man, they are of an amatory nature, and
+dwell strongly upon human frailty, infidelity, and treachery, from which
+he seems to have suffered: the mystery of these poems has never been
+penetrated. They were printed in 1609. &quot;Our language,&quot; says one of his
+editors, &quot;can boast no sonnets altogether worthy of being placed by the
+side of Shakspeare's, except the few which Milton poured forth&mdash;so severe
+and so majestic.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It need hardly be said that Shakspeare has been translated into all modern
+languages, in whole or in part. In French, by Victor Hugo and Guizot, Leon
+de Wailly and Alfred de Vigny; in German, by Wieland, A. W. Schlegel, and
+B&uuml;rger; in Italian, by Leoni and Carcano, and in Portuguese by La Silva.
+Goethe's Apprenticeship of Wilhelm Meister is a long and profound critique
+of Hamlet; and to the Germans he is quite as familiar and intelligible as
+to the English.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch15-8"><a id="p153" /><span class="sc">Ireland: Collier.</span>&mdash;The most celebrated forgery of Shakspeare was that by
+Samuel Ireland, the son of a Shakspearean scholar, who was an engraver and
+dealer in curiosities. He wrote two plays, called <i>Vortigern</i> and <i>Henry
+the Second</i>, which he said he had discovered; and he forged a deed with
+Shakspeare's autograph. By these he imposed upon his father and many
+others, but eventually confessed the forgery.</p>
+
+<p>One word should be said concerning the Collier controversy. John Payne
+Collier was a lawyer, born in 1789, and is known as the author of an
+excellent history of <i>English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of Shakspeare</i>
+and <i>Annals of the Stage to the Restoration</i>. In the year 1849, he came
+into possession of a copy of the folio edition of Shakspeare, published in
+1632, <i>full of emendations</i>, by an early owner of the volume. In 1852 he
+published these, and at once great enthusiasm was excited, for and against
+the emendations: many thought them of great value, while others even went
+so far as to accuse Mr. Collier of having made some of them himself. The
+chief value of the work was that it led to new investigations, and has
+thus thrown additional light upon the works of Shakspeare.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch15-9"><span class="sc">Concordance.</span>&mdash;The student is referred to a very complete concordance of
+Shakspeare, by Mrs. Mary Cowden Clarke, the labor of many years, by which
+every line of Shakspeare may be found, and which is thus of incalculable
+utility to the Shakspearean scholar.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch15-10">Other Dramatic Writers of the Age of Shakspeare.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Ben Jonson, 1573-1637: this great dramatist, who deserves a larger space,
+was born in London; his father became a Puritan preacher, but after his
+death, his mother's second husband put the boy at brick-making. His spirit
+revolted at this, and he ran away, and served as a soldier in the Low
+Countries. On his return he killed Gabriel Spencer, a fellow-actor, in a
+duel, and was for some time imprisoned. His first play was a comedy
+entitled <i>Every Man in his Humour</i>, acted in 1598. This <a id="p154" />was succeeded,
+the next year, by <i>Every Man out of his Humour</i>. He wrote a great number
+of both tragedies and comedies, among which the principal are <i>Cynthia's
+Revels</i>, <i>Sejanus</i>, <i>Volpone</i>, <i>Catiline's Conspiracy</i>, and <i>The
+Alchemist</i>. In 1616, he received a pension from the crown of one hundred
+marks, which was increased by Charles I., in 1630, to one hundred pounds.
+He was the friend of Shakspeare, and had many wit-encounters with him. In
+these, Fuller compares Jonson to a great Spanish galleon, &quot;built far
+higher in learning, solid and slow in performance,&quot; and Shakspeare to an
+&quot;English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn
+with all tides, tack about and take advantage of all winds, by the
+quickness of his wit and invention.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Massinger, 1548-1640: born at Salisbury. Is said to have written
+thirty-eight plays, of which only eighteen remain. The chief of these is
+the <i>Virgin Martyr</i>, in which he was assisted by Dekker. The best of the
+others are <i>The City Madam</i> and <i>A New Way to Pay Old Debts</i>, <i>The Fatal
+Dowry</i>, <i>The Unnatural Combat</i>, and <i>The Duke of Milan</i>. <i>A New Way to Pay
+Old Debts</i> keeps its place upon the modern stage.</p>
+
+<p>John Ford, born 1586: author of <i>The Lover's Melancholy</i>, <i>Love's
+Sacrifice</i>, <i>Perkin Warbeck</i>, and <i>The Broken Heart</i>. He was a pathetic
+delineator of love, especially of unhappy love. Some of his plots are
+unnatural, and abhorrent to a refined taste.</p>
+
+<p>Webster (dates unknown): this author is remarkable for his handling of
+gloomy and terrible subjects. His best plays are <i>The Devil's Law Case</i>,
+<i>Appius and Virginia</i>, <i>The Duchess of Malfy</i>, and <i>The White Devil</i>.
+Hazlitt says &quot;his <i>White Devil</i> and <i>Duchess of Malfy</i> come the nearest to
+Shakspeare of anything we have upon record.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Francis Beaumont, 1586-1615, and John Fletcher, 1576-1625: joint authors
+of plays, numbering fifty-two. A prolific union, in which it is difficult
+to determine the exact authorship of each. Among the best plays are <i>The
+Maid's Tragedy</i>, <i>Philaster</i>, and <i>Cupid's Revenge</i>. Many of the plots are
+licentious, but in monologues they frequently rise to eloquence, and in
+descriptions are picturesque and graphic.</p>
+
+<p>Shirley, 1594-1666: delineates fashionable life with success. His best
+plays are <i>The Maid's Revenge</i>, <i>The Politician</i>, and <i>The Lady of
+Pleasure</i>. The last suggested to Van Brugh his character of Lady Townly,
+in <i>The Provoked Husband</i>. Lamb says Shirley &quot;was the last of a great
+race, all of whom spoke the same language, and had a set of moral feelings
+and notions in common. A new language and quite a new turn of tragic and
+comic interest came in at the Restoration.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Dekker, died about 1638: wrote, besides numerous tracts,
+twen<a id="p155" />ty-eight plays. The principal are <i>Old Fortunatus</i>, <i>The Honest
+Whore</i>, and <i>Satiro-Mastix, or, The Humorous Poet Untrussed</i>. In the last,
+he satirized Ben Jonson, with whom he had quarrelled, and who had
+ridiculed him in <i>The Poetaster</i>. In the Honest Whore are found those
+beautiful lines so often quoted:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;... the best of men<br />
+    That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer;<br />
+    A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit;<br />
+    The first true gentleman that ever breathed.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Extracts from the plays mentioned may be found in Charles Lamb's
+&quot;Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of
+Shakspeare.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch16">
+<h2 id="p156">Chapter XVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>Bacon, and the Rise of the New Philosophy.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch16-1">Birth and Early Life</a>. <a href="#ch16-2">Treatment of Essex</a>. <a href="#ch16-3">His Appointments</a>. <a href="#ch16-4">His Fall</a>.
+   <a href="#ch16-5">Writes Philosophy</a>. <a href="#ch16-6">Magna Instauratio</a>. <a href="#ch16-7">His Defects</a>. <a href="#ch16-8">His Fame</a>. <a href="#ch16-9">His
+   Essays</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch16-1">Birth and Early Life of Bacon.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Contemporary with Shakspeare, and almost equal to him in English fame at
+least, is Francis Bacon, the founder of the system of experimental
+philosophy in the Elizabethan age. The investigations of the one in the
+philosophy of human life, were emulated by those of the other in the realm
+of general nature, in order to find laws to govern further progress, and
+to evolve order and harmony out of chaos.</p>
+
+<p>Bacon was born in London, on the 22d of January, 1560-61, to an enviable
+social lot. His father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, was for twenty years lord
+keeper of the great seal, and was eulogized by George Buchanan as &quot;Diu
+Britannici regni secundum columen.&quot; His mother was Anne Cook, a person of
+remarkable acquirements in language and theology. Francis Bacon was a
+delicate, attractive, and precocious child, noticed by the great, and
+kindly called by the queen &quot;her little lord keeper.&quot; Ben Jonson refers to
+this when he writes, at a later day:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    England's high chancellor, the destined heir<br />
+    In his soft cradle to his father's chair.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Thus, in his early childhood, he became accustomed to the<a id="p157" /> forms and
+grandeur of political power, and the modes by which it was to be striven
+for.</p>
+
+<p>In his thirteenth year he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, then,
+as now, the more mathematical and scientific of the two universities. But,
+like Gibbon at Oxford, he thought little of his alma mater, under whose
+care he remained only three years. It is said that at an early age he
+disliked the Logic of Aristotle, and began to excogitate his system of
+Induction: not content with the formal recorded knowledge, he viewed the
+universe as a great storehouse of facts to be educed, investigated, and
+philosophically classified.</p>
+
+<p>After leaving the university, he went in the suite of Sir Amyas Paulet,
+the English ambassador, to France; and recorded the observations made
+during his travels in a treatise <i>On the State of Europe</i>, which is
+thoughtful beyond his years. The sudden death of his father, in February,
+1579-80, recalled him to England, and his desire to study led him to apply
+to the government for a sinecure, which would permit him to do so without
+concern as to his support. It is not strange&mdash;considering his youth and
+the entire ignorance of the government as to his abilities&mdash;that this was
+refused. He then applied himself to the study of the law; and whatever his
+real ability, the jealousy of the Cecils no doubt prompted the opinion of
+the queen, that he was not very profound in the branch he had chosen, an
+opinion which was fully shared by the blunt and outspoken Lord Coke, who
+was his rival in love, law, and preferment. Prompted no doubt by the
+coldness of Burleigh, he joined the opposition headed by the Earl of
+Essex, and he found in that nobleman a powerful friend and generous
+patron, who used his utmost endeavors to have Bacon appointed
+attorney-general, but without success. To compensate Bacon for his
+failure, Essex presented him with a beautiful villa at Twickenham on the
+Thames, which was worth &pound;2,000.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch16-2"><a id="p158" /><span class="sc">Treatment of Essex.</span>&mdash;Essex was of a bold, eccentric, and violent temper.
+It is not to the credit of Bacon that when Essex, through his rashness and
+eccentricities, found himself arraigned for treason, Bacon deserted him,
+and did not simply stand aloof, but was the chief agent in his
+prosecution. Nor is this all: after making a vehement and effective speech
+against him, as counsel for the prosecution&mdash;a speech which led to his
+conviction and execution&mdash;Bacon wrote an uncalled-for and malignant paper,
+entitled &quot;A Declaration of the Treasons of Robert, Earl of Essex.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A high-minded man would have aided his friend; a cautious man would have
+remained neutral; but Bacon was extravagant, fond of show, eager for
+money, and in debt: he sought only to push his own fortunes, without
+regard to justice or gratitude, and he saw that he had everything to gain
+from his servility to the queen, and nothing from standing by his friend.
+Even those who thought Essex justly punished, regarded Bacon with aversion
+and contempt, and impartial history has not reversed their opinion.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch16-3"><span class="sc">His Appointments.</span>&mdash;He strove for place, and he obtained it. In 1590 he was
+appointed counsel extraordinary to the queen: such was his first reward
+for this conduct, and such his first lesson in the school where thrift
+followed fawning. In 1593 he was brought into parliament for Middlesex,
+and there he charmed all hearers by his eloquence, which has received the
+special eulogy of Ben Jonson. In his parliamentary career is found a
+second instance of his truckling to power: in a speech touching the rights
+of the crown, he offended the queen and her ministers; and as soon as he
+found they resented it, he made a servile and unqualified apology.</p>
+
+<p>At this time he began to write his <i>Essays</i>, which will be referred to
+hereafter, and published two treatises, one on <i>The Common Law</i>, and one
+on <i>The Alienation Office</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p159" />In 1603 he was, by his own seeking, among the crowd of gentlemen knighted
+by James I. on his accession; and in 1604 he added fortune to his new
+dignity by marrying Alice Barnham, &quot;a handsome maiden,&quot; the daughter of a
+London alderman. He had before addressed the dowager Lady Hatton, who had
+refused him and bestowed her hand upon his rival, Coke.</p>
+
+<p>In 1613 he attained to the long-desired dignity of attorney-general, a
+post which he filled with power and energy, but which he disgraced by the
+torture of Peacham, an old clergyman, who was charged with having written
+treason in a sermon which he never preached nor published. As nothing
+could be extorted from him by the rack, Bacon informed the king that
+Peacham &quot;had a dumb devil.&quot; It should be some palliation of this deed,
+however, that the government was quick and sharp in ferretting out
+treason, and that torture was still authorized.</p>
+
+<p>In 1616 he was sworn of the privy council, and in the next year inherited
+his father's honors, being made lord keeper of the seal, principally
+through the favor of the favorite Buckingham. His course was still upward:
+in 1618 he was made lord high chancellor, and Baron Verulam, and the next
+year he was created Viscount St. Albans. Such rapid and high promotion
+marked his great powers, but it belonged to the period of despotism. James
+had been ruling without a parliament. At length the necessities of the
+government caused the king to summon a parliament, and the struggle began
+which was to have a fatal issue twenty-five years later. Parliament met,
+began to assert popular rights, and to examine into the conduct of
+ministers and high officials; and among those who could ill bear such
+scrutiny, Bacon was prominent.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch16-4"><span class="sc">His Fall.</span>&mdash;The charges against him were varied and numerous, and easy of
+proof. He had received bribes; he had <a id="p160" />given false judgments for money; he
+had perverted justice to secure the smiles of Buckingham, the favorite;
+and when a commission was appointed to examine these charges he was
+convicted. With abject humility, he acknowledged his guilt, and implored
+the pity of his judges. The annals of biography present no sorrier picture
+than this. &quot;Upon advised consideration of the charges,&quot; he wrote,
+&quot;descending into my own conscience, and calling my memory to account so
+far as I am able, I do plainly and ingenuously confess that I am guilty of
+corruption, and do renounce all defence. O my lords, spare a broken reed!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It is useless for his defenders, among whom the chief are Mr. Basil
+Montagu and Mr. Hepworth Dixon, to inform us that judges in that day were
+ill paid, and that it was the custom to receive gifts. If Bacon had a
+defence to make and did not make it, he was a coward or a sycophant: if
+what he said is true, he was a dishonest man, an unjust judge. He was
+sentenced to pay a fine of &pound;40,000, and to be imprisoned in the Tower at
+the king's pleasure; the fine was remitted, and the imprisonment lasted
+but two days, a result, no doubt foreseen, of his wretched confession.
+This was the end of his public career. In retirement, with a pension of
+&pound;1,200, making, with his other means, an annual income of &pound;2,500, this
+&quot;meanest of mankind&quot; set himself busily to work to prove to the world that
+he could also be the &quot;wisest and brightest;&quot;<sup><a href="#fn-33" id="fna-33">33</a></sup> a duality of fame
+approached by others, but never equalled. He was, in fact, two men in one:
+a dishonest, truckling politician, and a large-minded and truth-seeking
+philosopher.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch16-5"><span class="sc">Begins His Philosophy.</span>&mdash;Retired in disgrace from his places at court, the
+rest of his life was spent in developing <a id="p161" />his <i>Instauratio Magna</i>, that
+revolution in the very principles and institutes of science&mdash;that
+philosophy which, in the words of Macaulay, &quot;began in observations, and
+ended in arts.&quot; A few words will suffice to close his personal history.
+While riding in his coach, he was struck with the idea that snow would
+arrest animal putrefaction. He alighted, bought a fowl, and stuffed it
+with snow, with his own hands. He caught cold, stopped at the Earl of
+Arundel's mansion, and slept in damp sheets; fever intervened, and on
+Easter Day, 1626, he died, leaving his great work unfinished, but in such
+condition that the plan has been sketched for the use of the philosophers
+who came after him.</p>
+
+<p>He is said to have made the first sketch of the <i>Instauratio</i> when he was
+twenty-six years old, but it was much modified in later years. He fondly
+called it also <i>Temporis Partus Maximus</i>, the greatest birth of Time.
+After that he wrote his <i>Advancement of Learning in 1605</i>, which was to
+appear in his developed scheme, under the title <i>De Augmentis
+Scientiarum</i>, written in 1623. His work advanced with and was modified by
+his investigations.</p>
+
+<p>In 1620 he wrote the <i>Novum Organum</i>, which, when it first appeared,
+called forth from James I. the profane <i>bon mot</i> that it was like the
+peace of God, &quot;because it passeth all understanding.&quot; Thus he was
+preparing the component parts, and fitting them into his system, which has
+at length become quite intelligible. A clear notion of what he proposed to
+himself and what he accomplished, may be found in the subjoined meagre
+sketch, only designed to indicate the outline of that system, which it
+will require long and patient study to master thoroughly.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch16-6"><span class="sc">The Great Restoration, (Magna Instauratio.)</span>&mdash;He divided it into six parts,
+bearing a logical relation to each other, and arranged in the proper order
+of study.</p>
+
+<p>I. Survey and extension of the sciences, (<i>De Augmentis <a id="p162" />Scientiarum</i>.)
+&quot;Gives the substance or general description of the knowledge which mankind
+<i>at present possesses</i>.&quot; That is, let it be observed, not according to the
+received system and divisions, but according to his own. It is a new
+presentation of the existent state of knowledge, comprehending &quot;not only
+the things already invented and known, but also those omitted and wanted,&quot;
+for he says the intellectual globe, as well as the terrestrial, has its
+broils and deceits.</p>
+
+<p>In the branch &quot;<i>De Partitione Scientiarum</i>,&quot; he divides all human learning
+into <i>History</i>, which uses the memory; <i>Poetry</i>, which employs the
+imagination; and <i>Philosophy</i>, which requires the reason: divisions too
+vague and too few, and so overlapping each other as to be of little
+present use. Later classifications into numerous divisions have been
+necessary to the progress of scientific research.</p>
+
+<p>II. Precepts for the interpretation of nature, (<i>Novum Organum</i>.) This
+sets forth &quot;the doctrine of a more perfect use of the reason, and the true
+helps of the intellectual faculties, so as to raise and enlarge the powers
+of the mind.&quot; &quot;A kind of logic, by us called,&quot; he says, &quot;the art of
+interpreting nature: differing from the common logic ... in three things,
+the end, the order of demonstrating, and the grounds of inquiry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here he discusses induction; opposes the syllogism; shows the value and
+the faults of the senses&mdash;as they fail us, or deceive us&mdash;and presents in
+his <i>idola</i> the various modes and forms of deception. These <i>idola</i>, which
+he calls the deepest fallacies of the human mind, are divided into four
+classes: Idola Tribus, Idola Specus, Idola Fori, Idola Theatri. The first
+are the errors belonging to the whole human race, or <i>tribe</i>; the
+second&mdash;<i>of the den</i>&mdash;are the peculiarities of individuals; the third&mdash;<i>of
+the market-place</i>&mdash;are social and conventional errors; and the
+fourth&mdash;<i>those of the theatre</i>&mdash;include Partisanship, Fashion, and
+Authority.</p>
+
+<p>III. Phenomena of the Universe, or Natural and Experimental History, on
+which to found Philosophy, (<i>Sylva Sylva<a id="p163" />rum</i>.) &quot;Our natural history is
+not designed,&quot; he says, &quot;so much to please by vanity, or benefit by
+gainful experiments, as to afford light to the discovery of causes, and
+hold out the breasts of philosophy.&quot; This includes his patient search for
+facts&mdash;nature <i>free</i>, as in the history of plants, minerals, animals,
+etc.&mdash;nature <i>put to the torture</i>, as in the productions of art and human
+industry.</p>
+
+<p>IV. Ladder of the Understanding, (<i>Scala Intellect&ucirc;s</i>.) &quot;Not illustrations
+of rules and precepts, but perfect models, which will exemplify the second
+part of this work, and represent to the eye the whole progress of the
+mind, and the continued structure and order of invention, in the most
+chosen subjects, after the same manner as globes and machines facilitate
+the more abstruse and subtle demonstrations in mathematics.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>V. Precursors or anticipations of the second philosophy, (<i>Prodromi sive
+anticipationes philosophi&aelig; secund&aelig;</i>.) &quot;These will consist of such things
+as we have invented, experienced, or added by the same common use of the
+understanding that others employ&quot;&mdash;a sort of scaffolding, only of use till
+the rest are finished&mdash;a set of suggestive helps to the attainment of this
+second philosophy, which is the goal and completion of his system.</p>
+
+<p>VI. Second Philosophy, or Active Science, (<i>Philosophia Secunda</i>.) &quot;To
+this all the rest are subservient&mdash;<i>to lay down that philosophy</i> which
+shall flow from the just, pure, and strict inquiry hitherto proposed.&quot; &quot;To
+perfect this is beyond both our abilities and our hopes; yet we shall lay
+the foundations of it, and recommend the superstructure to posterity.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>An examination of this scheme will show a logical procession from the
+existing knowledge, and from existing defects, by right rules of reason,
+and the avoidance of deceptions, with a just scale of perfected models, to
+the <i>second philosophy</i>, or science in useful practical action, diffusing
+light and comfort throughout the world.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p164" />In a philosophic instead of a literary work, these heads would require
+great expansion in order adequately to illustrate the scheme in its six
+parts. This, however, would be entirely out of our province, which is to
+present a brief outline of the works of a man who occupies a prominent
+place in the intellectual realm of England, as a profound philosopher, and
+as a writer of English prose; only as one might introduce a great man in a
+crowd: those who wish to know the extent and character of his greatness
+must study his works.</p>
+
+<p>They were most of them written in Latin, but they have been ably
+translated and annotated, and are within the ready reach and comprehension
+of students. The best edition in English, is that by Spedding, Ellis, and
+Heath, which has been republished in America.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch16-7"><span class="sc">Bacon's Defects.</span>&mdash;Further than this tabular outline, neither our space nor
+the scope of our work will warrant us in going; but it is important to
+consider briefly the elements of Bacon's remarkable fame. His system and
+his knowledge are superseded entirely. Those who have studied physics and
+chemistry at the present day, know a thousand-fold more than Bacon could;
+for such knowledge did not exist in his day. But he was one of those&mdash;and
+the chief one&mdash;who, in that age of what is called the childhood of
+experimental philosophy, helped to clear away the mists of error, and
+prepare for the present sunshine of truth. &quot;I have been laboring,&quot; says
+some writer, (quoted by Bishop Whately, Pref. to Essay XIV.,) &quot;to render
+myself useless.&quot; Such was Bacon's task, and such the task of the greatest
+inventors, discoverers, and benefactors of the human race.</p>
+
+<p>Nor did Bacon rank high even as a natural philosopher or physicist in his
+own age: he seems to have refused credence to the discoveries of
+Copernicus and Galileo, which had stirred the scientific world into great
+activity before his day; and his investigations in botany and vegetable
+physiology are crude and full of errors.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p165" />His mind, eminently philosophic, searched for facts only to establish
+principles and discover laws; and he was often impatient or obstinate in
+this search, feeling that it trammelled him in his haste to reach
+conclusions.</p>
+
+<p>In the consideration of the reason, he unduly despised the <i>Organon</i> of
+Aristotle, which, after much indignity and misapprehension, still remains
+to elucidate the universal principle of reasoning, and published his new
+organon&mdash;<i>Novum Organum</i>&mdash;as a sort of substitute for it: Induction
+unjustly opposed to the Syllogism. In what, then, consists that wonderful
+excellence, that master-power which has made his name illustrious?</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch16-8"><span class="sc">His Fame.</span>&mdash;I. He labored earnestly to introduce, in the place of fanciful
+and conjectural systems&mdash;careful, patient investigation: the principle of
+the procurement of well-known facts, in order that, by severe induction,
+philosophy might attain to general laws, and to a classification of the
+sciences. The fault of the ages before him had been hasty, careless, often
+neglected observation, inaccurate analysis, the want of patient successive
+experiment. His great motto was experiment, and again and again
+experiment; and the excellent maxims which he laid down for the proper
+conduct of experimental philosophy have outlived his own facts and system
+and peculiar beliefs. Thus he has fitly been compared to Moses. He led
+men, marshalled in strong array, to the vantage ground from which he
+showed them the land of promise, and the way to enter it; while he
+himself, after all his labors, was not permitted to enjoy it. Such men
+deserve the highest fame; and thus the most practical philosophers of
+to-day revere the memory of him who showed them from the mountain-top,
+albeit in dim vision, the land which they now occupy.</p>
+
+<p>II. Again, Bacon is the most notable example among natural philosophers of
+a man who worked for science and truth alone, with a singleness of purpose
+and entire unconcern as to immediate and selfish rewards. Bacon the
+<a id="p166" />philosopher was in the strongest contrast to Bacon the politician. He
+left, he said, his labors to posterity; his name and memory to foreign
+nations, and &quot;to (his) own country, after some time is past over.&quot; His own
+time could neither appreciate nor reward them. Here is an element of
+greatness worthy of all imitation: he who works for popular applause, may
+have his reward, but it is fleeting and unsatisfying; he who works for
+truth alone, has a grand inner consequence while he works, and his name
+will be honored, if for nothing else, for this loyalty to truth. After
+what has been said of his servility and dishonesty, it is pleasing to
+contemplate this unsullied side of his escutcheon, and to give a better
+significance to the motto on his monument&mdash;<i>Sic sedebat</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch16-9"><span class="sc">His Essays.</span>&mdash;Bacon's <i>Essays</i>, or <i>Counsels Civil and Moral</i>, are as
+intelligible to the common mind as his philosophy is dry and difficult.
+They are short, pithy, sententious, telling us plain truths in simple
+language: he had been writing them through several years. He dedicated
+them, under the title of <i>Essays</i>, to Henry, Prince of Wales, the eldest
+son of King James I., a prince of rare gifts, and worthy such a
+dedication, who unfortunately died in 1612. They show him to be the
+greatest master of English prose in his day, and to have had a deep
+insight into human nature.</p>
+
+<p>Bacon is said to have been the first person who applied the word <i>essay</i>
+in English to such writings: it meant, as the French word shows, a little
+trial-sketch, a suggestion, a few loose thoughts&mdash;a brief of something to
+be filled in by the reader. Now it means something far more&mdash;a long
+composition, dissertation, disquisition. The subjects of the essays, which
+number sixty-eight, are such as are of universal interest&mdash;fame, studies,
+atheism, beauty, ambition, death, empire, sedition, honor, adversity, and
+suchlike.</p>
+
+<p>The Essays have been ably edited and annotated by Archbishop Whately, and
+his work has been republished in America.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch17">
+<h2 id="p167">Chapter XVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>The English Bible.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch17-1">Early Versions</a>. <a href="#ch17-2">The Septuagint. </a>. <a href="#ch17-3">The Vulgate</a>. <a href="#ch17-4">Wiclif; Tyndale</a>.
+   <a href="#ch17-5">Coverdale; Cranmer</a>. <a href="#ch17-6">Geneva; Bishop's Bible</a>. <a href="#ch17-7">King James's Bible</a>.
+   <a href="#ch17-8">Language of the Bible</a>. <a href="#ch17-9">Revision</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch17-1">Early Versions of the Scriptures.</h4>
+
+
+<p>When we consider the very extended circulation of the English Bible in the
+version made by direction of James I., we are warranted in saying that no
+work in the language, viewed simply as a literary production, has had a
+more powerful historic influence over the world of English-speaking
+people.</p>
+
+<p>Properly to understand its value as a version of the inspired writings, it
+is necessary to go back to the original history, and discover through what
+precedent forms they have come into English.</p>
+
+<p>All the canonical books of the Old Testament were written in Hebrew. The
+apocryphal books were produced either in a corrupted dialect, or in Greek.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch17-2"><span class="sc">The Septuagint.</span>&mdash;Limiting our inquiry to the canonical books, and
+rejecting all fanciful traditions, it is known that about 286 or 285 B.C.,
+Ptolemy Philadelphus, King of Egypt, probably at the instance of his
+librarian, Demetrius Phalereus, caused seventy-two Jews, equally learned
+in Hebrew and in Greek, to be brought to Alexandria, to prepare a Greek
+version of the Hebrew Scriptures. This was for the use of the Alexandrian
+Jews. The version was called the Septuagint, or translation of the
+seventy. The various portions of the<a id="p168" /> translation are of unequal merit,
+the rendering of the Pentateuch being the best; but the completed work was
+of great value, not only to the Jews dispersed in the countries where
+Greek had been adopted as the national language, but it opened the way for
+the coming of Christianity: the study of its prophecies prepared the minds
+of men for the great Advent, and the version was used by the earlier
+Christians as the historic ground of their faith.</p>
+
+<p>The books of the New Testament were written in Greek, with the probable
+exception of St. Matthew's Gospel, which, if written in Hebrew, or
+Aram&aelig;an, was immediately translated into Greek.</p>
+
+<p>Contemporary with the origin of Christianity, and the vast extension of
+the Roman Empire, the Latin had become the all-absorbing tongue; and, as
+might be expected, numerous versions of the whole and of parts of the
+Scriptures were made in that language, and one of these complete versions,
+which grew in favor, almost superseding all others, was called the <i>Vetus
+Itala</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch17-3"><span class="sc">The Vulgate.</span>&mdash;St. Jerome, a doctor of the Latin Church in the latter part
+of the fourth century, undertook, with the sanction of Damasus, the Bishop
+of Rome, a new Latin version upon the basis of the <i>Vetus Itala</i>, bringing
+it nearer to the Septuagint in the Old Testament, and to the original
+Greek of the New.</p>
+
+<p>This version of Jerome, corrected from time to time, was approved by
+Gregory I., (the Great,) and, since the seventh century, has been used by
+the Western Church, under the name of the <i>Vulgate</i>, (from <i>vulgatus</i>&mdash;for
+general or common use.) The Council of Trent, in the sixteenth century,
+declared it alone to be authentic.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout Western Europe this was used, and made the basis of further
+translations into the national languages. It was from the Vulgate that
+Aldhelm made his Anglo-Saxon <a id="p169" />version of the Psalter in 706; Bede, his
+entire Saxon Bible in the same period; Alfred, his portion of the Psalms;
+and other writers, fragmentary translations.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the newly formed English language was strong enough, partial
+versions were attempted in it: one by an unknown hand, as early as 1290;
+and one by John de Trevisa, about one hundred years later.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch17-4"><span class="sc">Wiclif: Tyndale.</span>&mdash;Wiclif's Bible was translated from the Latin Vulgate,
+and issued about 1378. If it be asked why he did not go to the original
+sources, and thus avoid the errors of successive renderings, the answer is
+plain: he was not sufficiently acquainted with Hebrew and Greek to
+translate from them. Wiclif's translation was eagerly sought, and was
+multiplied by the hands of skilful scribes. Its popularity was very great,
+as is attested by the fact that when, in the House of Lords, in the year
+1390, a bill was offered to suppress it, the measure signally failed. The
+first copy of Wiclif's Bible was not printed until the year 1731.</p>
+
+<p>About a century after Wiclif, the Greek language and the study of Greek
+literature came into England, and were of great effect in making the
+forthcoming translations more accurate.</p>
+
+<p>First among these new translators was William Tyndale, who was born about
+the year 1477. He was educated at Oxford and Cambridge, and left England
+for fear of persecution. He translated the Scriptures from the Greek, and
+printed the volume at Antwerp&mdash;the first printed translation of the
+Scriptures in English&mdash;in the year 1526. This work was largely circulated
+in England. It was very good for a first translation, and the language is
+very nearly that of King James's Bible. It met the fury of the Church, all
+the copies which could be found being burned by Tonstall, Bishop of
+London, at St. Paul's Cross. When Sir Thomas More asked how Tyndale
+subsisted abroad, he was pithily answered that Tyndale was supported by
+the Bishop of London, who sent over<a id="p170" /> money to buy up his books. To the
+fame of being a translator of the Scriptures, Tyndale adds that of
+martyrdom. He was seized, at the instance of Henry VIII., in Antwerp, and
+condemned to death by the Emperor of Germany. He was strangled in the year
+1536, at Villefort, near Brussels, praying, just before his death, that
+the Lord would open the King of England's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The Old Testament portion of Tyndale's Bible is principally from the
+Septuagint, and has many corruptions and errors, which have been corrected
+by more modern translators.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch17-5"><span class="sc">Miles Coverdale: Cranmer's Bible.</span>&mdash;In 1535, Miles Coverdale, a co-laborer
+of Tyndale, published &quot;Biblia; The Bible, that is, the Holy Scriptures of
+the Olde and New Testament, faithfully and truly translated out of the
+Douche and Latyn into Englishe: Zurich.&quot; In the next year, 1536, Coverdale
+issued another edition, which was dedicated to Henry VIII., who ordered a
+copy to be placed in every parish church in England. This translation is
+in part that of Tyndale, and is based upon it. Another edition of this
+appeared in 1537, and was called Matthew's Bible, probably a pseudonym of
+Coverdale. Of this, from the beginning to the end of Chronicles is
+Tyndale's version. The rest of the Old Testament is Coverdale's
+translation. The entire New Testament is Tyndale's. This was published by
+royal license. Strange mutation! The same king who had caused Tyndale to
+be strangled for publishing the English Scriptures at Antwerp, was now
+spreading Tyndale's work throughout the parishes of England. Coverdale
+published many editions, among which the most noted was Cranmer's Bible,
+issued in 1539, so called because Cranmer wrote a preface to it. Coverdale
+led an eventful life, being sometimes in exile and prisoner, and at others
+in high favor. He was Bishop of Exeter, from which see he was ejected by
+Mary, in 1553. He died in 1568, at the age of eighty-one.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch17-6"><a id="p171" /><span class="sc">The Genevan: Bishops' Bible.</span>&mdash;In the year 1557 he had aided those who were
+driven away by Mary, in publishing a version of the Bible at Geneva. It
+was much read in England, and is known as the Genevan Bible. The Great
+Bible was an edition of Coverdale issued in 1562. The Bishops' Bible was
+so called because, at the instance of Archbishop Parker, it was translated
+by a royal commission, of whom eight were bishops. And in 1571, a canon
+was passed at Canterbury, requiring a large copy of this work to be in
+every parish church, and in the possession of every bishop and dignitary
+among the clergy. Thus far every new edition and issue had been an
+improvement on what had gone before, and all tended to the production of a
+still more perfect and permanent translation. It should be mentioned that
+Luther, in Germany, after ten years of labor, from 1522 to 1532, had
+produced, unaided, his wonderful German version. This had helped the cause
+of translations everywhere.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch17-7"><span class="sc">King James's Bible.</span>&mdash;At length, in 1603, just after the accession of James
+I., a conference was held at Hampton Court, which, among other tasks,
+undertook to consider what objections could be made to the Bishops' Bible.
+The result was that the king ordered a new version which should supersede
+all others. The number of eminent and learned divines appointed to make
+the translation was fifty-four; seven of these were prevented by
+disability of one kind or another. The remaining forty-seven were divided
+into six classes, and the labor was thus apportioned: ten, who sat at
+Westminster, translated from Genesis through Kings; eight, at Cambridge,
+undertook the other historical books and the Hagiographa, including the
+Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Ruth, Esther, and a few
+other books; seven at Oxford, the four greater Prophets, the Lamentations
+of Jeremiah, and the twelve minor Prophets; eight, also at Oxford, the
+four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Revelation of St. John;<a id="p172" />
+seven more at Westminster, the Epistles of St. Paul, and the remaining
+canonical books; and five more at Cambridge, the Apocryphal books. The
+following was the mode of translation: Each individual in one of the
+classes translated himself every book confided to that class; each class
+then met and compared these translations, and thus completed their task.
+The work thus done was sent by each class to all the other classes; after
+this, all the classes met together, and while one read the others
+criticized. The translation was commenced in the year 1607, and was
+finished in three years. The first public issue was in 1611, when the book
+was dedicated to King James, and has since been known as King James's
+Bible. It was adopted not only in the English Church, but by all the
+English people, so that the other versions have fallen into entire disuse,
+with the exception of the Psalms, which, according to the translation of
+Cranmer's Bible, were placed in the Book of Common Prayer, where they have
+since remained, constituting the Psalter. It should be observed that the
+Psalter, which is taken principally from the Vulgate, is not so near the
+original as the Psalms in King James's version: the language is, however,
+more musical and better suited to chanting in the church service.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch17-8"><span class="sc">The Language of the Bible.</span>&mdash;There have been numerous criticisms, favorable
+and adverse, to the language of King James's Bible. It is said to have
+been written in older English than that of its day, and Selden remarks
+that &quot;it is rather translated into English words than into English
+phrase.&quot; The Hebraisms are kept, and the phraseology of that language is
+retained. This leads to the opinion of Bishop Horsley, that the adherence
+to the Hebrew idiom is supposed to have at once enriched and adorned our
+language. Bishop Middleton says &quot;the style is simple, it is harmonious, it
+is energetic, and, which is of no small importance, use has made it
+familiar, and time has rendered it sacred.&quot; That it has lasted two<a id="p173" />
+hundred and fifty years without a rival, is the strongest testimony in
+favor of its accuracy and the beauty of its diction. Philologically
+considered, it has been of inestimable value as a strong rallying-point
+for the language, keeping it from wild progress in any and every
+direction. Many of our best words, which would otherwise have been lost,
+have been kept in current use because they are in the Bible. The peculiar
+language of the Bible expresses our most serious sentiments and our
+deepest emotions. It is associated with our holiest thoughts, and gives
+phraseology to our prayers. It is the language of heavenly things, but not
+only so: it is interwreathed in our daily discourse, kept fresh by our
+constant Christian services, and thus we are bound by ties of the same
+speech to the devout men of King James's day.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch17-9"><span class="sc">Revision.</span>&mdash;There are some inaccuracies and flaws in the translation which
+have been discerned by the superior excellence of modern learning. In the
+question now mooted of a revision of the English Bible, the correction of
+these should be the chief object. A version in the language of the present
+day, in the course of time would be as archaic as the existing version is
+now; and the private attempts which have been made, have shown us the
+great danger of conflicting sectarian views.</p>
+
+<p>In any event, it is to be hoped that those who authorize a new translation
+will emulate the good sense and judgment of King James, by placing it in
+the hands of the highest learning, most liberal scholarship, and most
+devoted piety.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch18">
+<h2 id="p174">Chapter XVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>John Milton, and the English Commonwealth.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch18-1">Historical Facts</a>. <a href="#ch18-2">Charles I</a>. <a href="#ch18-3">Religious Extremes</a>. <a href="#ch18-4">Cromwell</a>. <a href="#ch18-5">Birth and
+   Early Works</a>. <a href="#ch18-6">Views of Marriage</a>. <a href="#ch18-7">Other Prose Works</a>. <a href="#ch18-8">Effects of the
+   Restoration</a>. <a href="#ch18-9">Estimate of his Prose</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch18-1">Historical Facts.</h4>
+
+
+<p>It is Charles Lamb who says &quot;Milton almost requires a solemn service to be
+played before you enter upon him.&quot; Of Milton, the poet of <i>Paradise Lost</i>,
+this is true; but for Milton the statesman the politician, and polemic,
+this is neither necessary nor appropriate. John Milton and the
+Commonwealth! Until the present age, Milton has been regarded almost
+solely as a poet, and as the greatest imaginative poet England has
+produced; but the translation and publication of his prose works have
+identified him with the political history of England, and the discovery in
+1823, of his <i>Treatise on Christian Doctrine</i>, has established him as one
+of the greatest religious polemics in an age when every theological sect
+was closely allied to a political party, and thus rendered the strife of
+contending factions more bitter and relentless. Thus it is that the name
+of John Milton, as an author, is fitly coupled with the commonwealth, as a
+political condition.</p>
+
+<p>It remains for us to show that in all his works he was the strongest
+literary type of history in the age in which he lived. Great as he would
+have been in any age, his greatness is mainly English and historical. In
+his literary works may be traced every cardinal event in the history of
+that period: he <a id="p175" />aided in the establishment of the Commonwealth, and of
+that Commonwealth he was one of the principal characters. His pen was as
+sharp and effective as the sabres of Cromwell's Ironsides.</p>
+
+<p>A few words of preliminary history must introduce him to our reader. Upon
+the death of Queen Elizabeth, in 1603, James I. ascended the throne with
+the highest notions of kingly prerogative and of a church establishment;
+but the progress of the English people in education and intelligence, the
+advance in arts and letters which had been made, were vastly injurious to
+the autocratic and aristocratic system which James had received from his
+predecessor. His foolish arrogance and contempt for popular rights
+incensed the people thus enlightened as to their own position and
+importance. They soon began to feel that he was not only unjust, but
+ungrateful: he had come from a rustic throne in Scotland, where he had
+received &pound;5,000 per annum, with occasional presents of fruits, grain, and
+poultry, to the greatest throne in Europe; and, besides, the Stuart
+family, according to Thackeray, &quot;as regards mere lineage, were no better
+than a dozen English and Scottish houses that could be named.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They resisted his illegal taxes and forced loans; they clamored against
+the unconstitutional Court of High Commission; they despised his arrogant
+favorites; and what they might have patiently borne from a gallant,
+energetic, and handsome monarch, they found it hard to bear from a
+pedantic, timid, uncouth, and rickety man, who gave them neither glory nor
+comfort. His eldest son, Prince Henry, the universal favorite of the
+nation, had died in 1612, before he was eighteen.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch18-2"><span class="sc">Charles I.</span>&mdash;When, after a series of struggles with the parliament, which
+he had reluctantly convened, James died in 1625, Charles I. came to an
+inheritance of error and misfortune. Imbued with the principles of his
+father, he, too, insisted upon &quot;governing the people of England in the
+sev<a id="p176" />enteenth century as they had been governed in the sixteenth,&quot; while in
+reality they had made a century of progress. The cloud increased in
+blackness and portent; he dissolved the parliament, and ruled without one;
+he imposed and collected illegal and doubtful taxes; he made forced loans,
+as his father had done; he was artful, capricious, winding and doubling in
+his policy; he made promises without intending to perform them; and found
+himself, finally, at direct issue with his parliament and his people.
+First at war with the political principles of the court, the nation soon
+found itself in antagonism with the religion and morals of the court.
+Before the final rupture, the two parties were well defined, as Cavaliers
+and Roundheads: each party went to extremes, through the spite and fury of
+mutual opposition. The Cavaliers affected a recklessness and dissoluteness
+greater than they really felt to be right, in order to differ most widely
+from those purists who, urged by analogous motives, decried all amusements
+as evil. Each party repelled the other to the extreme of opposition.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch18-3"><span class="sc">Religious Extremes.</span>&mdash;Loyalty was opposed by radicalism, and the invectives
+of both were bitter in the extreme. The system and ceremonial of a
+gorgeous worship restored by Laud, and accused by its opposers of
+formalism and idolatry, were attacked by a spirit of excess, which, to
+religionize daily life, took the words of Scripture, and especially those
+of the Old Testament, as the language of common intercourse, which issued
+them from a gloomy countenance, with a nasal twang, and often with a false
+interpretation.</p>
+
+<p>As opposed to the genuflections of Laud and the pomp of his ritual, the
+land swarmed with unauthorized preachers; then came out from among the
+Presbyterians the Independents; the fifth-monarchy men, shouting for King
+Jesus; the Seekers, the Antinomians, who, like Trusty Tomkins, were elect
+by the fore-knowledge of God, who were not under the law but under grace,
+and who might therefore gratify every lust, <a id="p177" />and give the rein to every
+passion, because they were sealed to a certain salvation. Even in the army
+sprang up the Levellers, who wished to abolish monarchy and aristocracy,
+and to level all ranks to one. To each religious party, there was a
+political character, ranging from High Church and the divine right of
+kings, to absolute levellers in Church and State. This disintegrating
+process threatened not only civil war, with well-defined parties, but
+entire anarchy in the realm of England. It was long resisted by the
+conservative men of all opinions. At length the issue came: the king was a
+prisoner, without a shadow of power.</p>
+
+<p>The parliament was still firm, and would have treated with the king by a
+considerable majority; but Colonel Pride surrounded it with two regiments,
+excluded more than two hundred of the Presbyterians and moderate men; and
+the parliament, thus <i>purged</i>, appointed the High Court of Justice to try
+the king for treason.</p>
+
+<p>Charles I. fell before the storm. His was a losing cause from the day he
+erected his standard at Nottingham, in 1642, to that on which, after his
+noble bearing on the scaffold, the masked executioner held up his head and
+cried out, &quot;This is the head of a traitor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With a fearful consistency the Commons voted soon after to abolish
+monarchy and the upper house, and on their new seal inscribed, &quot;On the
+first year of freedom by God's blessing restored, 1648.&quot; The dispassionate
+historian of the present day must condemn both parties; and yet, out of
+this fierce travail of the nation, English constitutional liberty was
+born.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch18-4"><span class="sc">Cromwell.</span>&mdash;The power which the parliament, under the dictation of the
+army, had so furiously wielded, passed into the hands of Cromwell, a
+mighty man, warrior, statesman, and fanatic, who mastered the crew, seized
+the helm, and guided the ship of State as she drove furiously before the
+wind. He became lord protector, a king in everything but <a id="p178" />the name. We
+need not enter into an analysis of these parties: the history is better
+known than any other part of the English annals, and almost every reader
+becomes a partisan. Cromwell, the greatest man of his age, was still a
+creature of the age, and was led by the violence of circumstances to do
+many things questionable and even wicked, but with little premeditation:
+like Rienzi and Napoleon, his sudden elevation fostered an ambition which
+robbed him of the stern purpose and pure motives of his earlier career.</p>
+
+<p>The establishment of the commonwealth seemed at first to assure the
+people's liberty; but it was only in seeming, and as the sequel shows,
+they liked the rule of the lord protector less than that of the
+unfortunate king; for, ten years after the beheading of Charles I., they
+restored the monarchy in the person of his son, Charles.</p>
+
+<p>Such, very briefly and in mere outline, was the political situation. And
+now to return to Milton: It is claimed that of all the elements of these
+troublous times, he was the literary type, and this may be demonstrated&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   I. By observing his personal characteristics and political
+   appointments;</p>
+
+<p>   II. By the study of his prose works; and</p>
+
+<p>   III. By analyzing his poems.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch18-5"><span class="sc">Birth and Early Works.</span>&mdash;John Milton was born on the 9th of December, 1608,
+in London. His grandfather, John Mylton, was a Papist, who disinherited
+his son, the poet's father, for becoming a Church-of-England man. His
+mother was a gentlewoman. Milton was born just in time to grow up with the
+civil troubles. When the outburst came in 1642, he was thirty-four years
+old, a solemn, cold, studious, thoughtful, and dogmatic Puritan. In 1624
+he entered Christ College, Cambridge, where, from his delicate and
+beautiful face and shy airs, he was called the &quot;Lady of the College.&quot; It
+is said that he left the university on account of peculiar<a id="p179" /> views in
+theology and politics; but eight years after, in 1632, he took his degree
+as master of arts. Meanwhile, in December, 1629, he had celebrated his
+twenty-first birthday, when the Star of Bethlehem was coming into the
+ascendant, with that pealing, organ-like hymn, &quot;On the Eve of Christ's
+Nativity&quot;&mdash;the worthiest poetic tribute ever laid by man, along with the
+gold, frankincense, and myrrh of the Eastern sages, at the feet of the
+Infant God:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    See how from far upon the Eastern road,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet;<br />
+    O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,<br />
+    And join thy voice unto the angel choir,<br />
+    From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Some years of travel on the Continent matured his mind, and gave full
+scope to his poetic genius. At Paris he became acquainted with Grotius,
+the illustrious writer upon public law; and in Rome, Genoa, Florence, and
+other Italian cities, he became intimate with the leading minds of the
+age. He returned to England on account of the political troubles.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch18-6"><span class="sc">Milton's Views of Marriage.</span>&mdash;In the consideration of Milton's personality,
+we do not find in him much to arouse our heart-sympathy. His opinions
+concerning marriage and divorce, as set forth in several of his prose
+writings, would, if generally adopted, destroy the sacred character of
+divinely appointed wedlock. His views may be found in his essay on <i>The
+Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce;</i> in his <i>Tetrachordon, or the four
+chief places in Scripture, which treat of Marriage, or Nullities in
+Marriage</i>; in his <i>Colasterion</i>, and in his translation of Martin Bucer's
+<i>Judgment Concerning Divorce</i>, addressed to the Parliament of England.
+Where women were concerned he was a hard man and a stern master.</p>
+
+<p>In 1643 he married Mary Powell, the daughter of a Cav<a id="p180" />alier; and, taking
+her from the gay life of her father's house, he brought her into a gloom
+and seclusion almost insupportable. He loved his books better than he did
+his wife. He fed and sheltered her, indeed, but he gave her no tender
+sympathy. Then was enacted in his household the drama of the rebellion in
+miniature; and no doubt his domestic troubles had led to his extended
+discussion of the question of divorce. He speaks, too, almost entirely in
+the interest of husbands. With him woman is not complementary to man, but
+his inferior, to be cherished if obedient, to minister to her husband's
+welfare, but to have her resolute spirit broken after the manner of
+Petruchio, the shrew-tamer. In all this, however, Milton was eminently a
+type of the times. It was the canon law of the established Church of
+England at which he aimed, and he endeavored to lead the parliament to
+legislation upon the most sacred ties and relations of human life.
+Happily, English morals were too strong, even in that turbulent period, to
+yield to this unholy attempt. It was a day when authority was questioned,
+a day for &quot;extending the area of freedom,&quot; but he went too far even for
+emancipated England; and the mysterious power of the marriage tie has
+always been reverenced as one of the main bulwarks of that righteousness
+which exalteth a nation.</p>
+
+<p>His apology for Smectymnuus is one of his pamphlets against Episcopacy,
+and receives its title from the initial letters of the names of five
+Puritan ministers, who also engaged in controversy: they were Stephen
+Marshall, Edward Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcome, William Spenston.
+The Church of England never had a more intelligent and relentless enemy
+than John Milton.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch18-7"><span class="sc">Other Prose Works.</span>&mdash;Milton's prose works are almost all of them of an
+historical character. Appointed Latin Secretary to the Council, he wrote
+foreign dispatches and treatises upon the persons and events of the day.
+In 1644 he <a id="p181" />published his <i>Areopagitica</i>, a noble paper in favor of
+<i>Unlicensed Printing</i>, and boldly directed against the Presbyterian party,
+then in power, which had continued and even increased the restraints upon
+the press. No stouter appeal for the freedom of the press was ever heard,
+even in America. But in the main, his prose pen was employed against the
+crown and the Church, while they still existed; against the king's memory,
+after the unfortunate monarch had fallen, and in favor of the parliament
+and all its acts. Milton was no trimmer; he gave forth no uncertain sound;
+he was partisan to the extreme, and left himself no loop-hole of retreat
+in the change that was to come.</p>
+
+<p>A famous book appeared in 1649, not long after Charles's execution,
+proclaimed to have been written by King Charles while in prison, and
+entitled <i>Eikon Basilike</i>, or <i>The Kingly Image</i>, being the portraiture of
+his majesty in his solitude and suffering. It was supposed that it might
+influence the people in favor of royalty, and so Milton was employed to
+answer it in a bitter invective, an unnecessary and heartless attack upon
+the dead king, entitled <i>Eikonoklastes</i>, or <i>The Image-breaker</i>. The Eikon
+was probably in part written by the king, and in part by Bishop Gauden,
+who indeed claimed its authorship after the Restoration.</p>
+
+<p>Salmasius having defended Charles in a work of dignified and moderate
+tone, Milton answered in his first <i>Defensio pro Populo Anglicano</i>; in
+which he traverses the whole ground of popular rights and kingly
+prerogative, in a masterly and eloquent manner. This was followed by a
+second <i>Defensio</i>. For the two he received &pound;1,000, and by his own account
+accelerated the disease of the eyes which ended in complete blindness.</p>
+
+<p>No pen in England worked more powerfully than his in behalf of the
+parliament and the protectorate, or to stay the flood tide of loyalty,
+which bore upon its sweeping heart the restoration of the second Charles.
+He wrote the last <a id="p182" />foreign despatches of Richard Cromwell, the weak
+successor of the powerful Oliver; but nothing could now avail to check the
+return of monarchy. The people were tired of turmoil and sick of blood;
+they wanted rest, at any cost. The powerful hand of Cromwell was removed,
+and astute Monk used his army to secure his reward. The army, concurring
+with the popular sentiment, restored the Stuarts. The conduct of the
+English people in bringing Charles back stamped Cromwell as a usurper, and
+they have steadily ignored in their list of governors&mdash;called
+monarchs&mdash;the man through whose efforts much of their liberty had been
+achieved; but history asserts itself, and the benefits of the &quot;Great
+Rebellion&quot; are gratefully acknowledged by the people, whether the
+protectorate appears in the court list or not.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch18-8"><span class="sc">The Effect of the Restoration.</span>&mdash;Charles II. came back to such an
+overwhelming reception, that he said, in his witty way, it must have been
+his own fault to stay away so long from a people who were so glad to see
+him when he did come. This restoration forced Milton into concealment: his
+public day was over, and yet his remaining history is particularly
+interesting. Inheriting weak eyes from his mother, he had overtasked their
+powers, especially in writing the <i>Defensiones</i>, and had become entirely
+blind. Although his person was included in the general amnesty, his
+polemical works were burned by the hangman; and the pen that had so
+powerfully battled for a party, now returned to the service of its first
+love, poetry. His loss of power and place was the world's gain. In his
+forced seclusion, he produced the greatest of English poems&mdash;religious,
+romantic, and heroic.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch18-9"><span class="sc">Estimate of His Prose.</span>&mdash;Before considering his poems, we may briefly state
+some estimate of his prose works. They comprise much that is excellent,
+are full of learning, and contain passages of rarest rhetoric. He said
+himself, that in <a id="p183" />prose he had only &quot;the use of his left hand;&quot; but it was
+the left hand of a Milton. To the English scholar they are chiefly of
+historical value: many of them are written in Latin, and lose much of
+their terseness in a translation which retains classical peculiarities of
+form and phrase.</p>
+
+<p>His <i>History of England from the Earliest Times</i> is not profound, nor
+philosophical; he followed standard chronicle authorities, but made few,
+if any, original investigations, and gives us little philosophy. His
+tractate on <i>Education</i> contains peculiar views of a curriculum of study,
+but is charmingly written. He also wrote a treatise on <i>Logic</i>. Little
+known to the great world outside of his poems, there is one prose work,
+discovered only in 1823, which has been less read, but which contains the
+articles of his Christian belief. It is a tractate on Christian doctrine:
+no one now doubts its genuineness; and it proves him to have been a
+Unitarian, or High Arian, by his own confession. This was somewhat
+startling to the great orthodox world, who had taken many of their
+conceptions of supernatural things from Milton's <i>Paradise Lost</i>; and yet
+a careful study of that poem will disclose similar tendencies in the
+poet's mind. He was a Puritan whose theology was progressive until it
+issued in complete isolation: he left the Presbyterian ranks for the
+Independents, and then, startled by the rise and number of sects, he
+retired within himself and stood almost alone, too proud to be instructed,
+and dissatisfied with the doctrines and excesses of his earlier
+colleagues.</p>
+
+<p>In 1653 he lost his wife, Mary Powell, who left him three daughters. He
+supplied her place in 1656, by marrying Catherine Woodstock, to whom he
+was greatly attached, and who also died fifteen months after. Eight years
+afterward he married his third wife, Elizabeth Minshull, who survived him.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch19">
+<h2>Chapter XIX.</h2>
+
+<h3 id="p184">The Poetry of Milton.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch19-1">The Blind Poet</a>. <a href="#ch19-2">Paradise Lost</a>. <a href="#ch19-3">Milton and Dante</a>. <a href="#ch19-4">His Faults</a>.
+   <a href="#ch19-5">Characteristics of the Age</a>. <a href="#ch19-6">Paradise Regained</a>. <a href="#ch19-7">His Scholarship</a>. <a href="#ch19-8">His
+   Sonnets</a>. <a href="#ch19-9">His Death and Fame</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch19-1">The Blind Poet.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Milton's blindness, his loneliness, and his loss of power, threw him upon
+himself. His imagination, concentrated by these disasters and troubles,
+was to see higher things in a clear, celestial light: there was nothing to
+distract his attention, and he began that achievement which he had long
+before contemplated&mdash;a great religious epic, in which the heroes should be
+celestial beings and our sinless first parents, and the scenes Heaven,
+Hell, and the Paradise of a yet untainted Earth. His first idea was to
+write an epic on King Arthur and his knights: it is well for the world
+that he changed his intention, and took as a grander subject the loss of
+Paradise, full as it is of individual interest to mankind.</p>
+
+<p>In a consideration of his poetry, we must now first recur to those pieces
+which he had written at an earlier day. Before settling in London, he had,
+as we have seen, travelled fifteen months on the Continent, and had been
+particularly interested by his residence in Italy, where he visited the
+blind Galileo. The poems which most clearly show the still powerful
+influence of Italy in all European literature, and upon him especially,
+are the <i>Arcades, Comus, L'Allegro, Il Penseroso</i>, and <i>Lycidas</i>, each
+beautiful and finished, and although Italian in <a id="p185" />their taste, yet full of
+true philosophy couched in charming verse.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Arcades</i>, (Arcadians,) composed in 1684, is a pastoral masque,
+enacted before the Countess Dowager of Derby at Harefield, by some noble
+persons of her family. The <i>Allegro</i> is the song of Mirth, the nymph who
+brings with her</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Jest and youthful jollity,<br />
+    Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,<br />
+    Nods and becks and wreath&egrave;d smiles,</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>    Sport that wrinkled Care derides,<br />
+    And Laughter holding both his sides.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The poem is like the nymph whom he addresses,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Buxom, blithe, and debonaire.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The <i>Penseroso</i> is a tribute to tender melancholy, and is designed as a
+pendant to the <i>Allegro</i>:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Pensive nun devout and pure,<br />
+    Sober, steadfast, and demure,<br />
+    All in a robe of darkest grain,<br />
+    Flowing with majestic train.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We fall in love with each goddess in turn, and find comfort for our
+varying moods from &quot;grave to gay.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Burke said he was certain Milton composed the <i>Penseroso</i> in the aisle of
+a cloister, or in an ivy-grown abbey.</p>
+
+<p><i>Comus</i> is a noble poem, philosophic and tender, but neither pastoral nor
+dramatic, except in form; it presents the power of chastity in disarming
+<i>Circe, Comus</i>, and all the libidinous sirens. <i>L'Allegro</i> and <i>Il
+Penseroso</i> were written at Horton, about 1633.</p>
+
+<p><i>Lycidas</i>, written in 1637, is a tender monody on the loss of a friend
+named King, in the Irish Channel, in that year, and is a classical
+pastoral, tricked off in Italian garb. What it loses in adherence to
+classic models and Italian taste, is more than made up <a id="p186" />by exquisite lines
+and felicitous phrases. In it he calls fame &quot;that last infirmity of noble
+mind.&quot; Perhaps he has nowhere written finer lines than these:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed.<br />
+    And yet anon repairs his drooping head,<br />
+    And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore<br />
+    <i>Flames in the forehead of the morning sky</i>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Besides these, Milton wrote Latin poems with great vigor, if not with
+remarkable grace; and several Italian sonnets and poems, which have been
+much admired even by Italian critics. The sonnet, if not of Italian
+origin, had been naturalized there when its birth was forgotten; and this
+practice in the Italian gave him that power to produce them in English
+which he afterward used with such effect.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch19-2"><span class="sc">Paradise Lost.</span>&mdash;Having thus summarily disposed of his minor poems, each of
+which would have immortalized any other man, we come to that upon which
+his highest fame rests; which is familiarly known by men who have never
+read the others, and who are ignorant of his prose works; which is used as
+a parsing exercise in many schools, and which, as we have before hinted,
+has furnished Protestant pulpits with pictorial theology from that day to
+this. It occupied him several years in the composition; from 1658, when
+Cromwell died, through the years of retirement and obscurity until 1667.
+It came forth in an evil day, for the merry monarch was on the throne, and
+an irreligious court gave tone to public opinion.</p>
+
+<p>The hardiest critic must approach the <i>Paradise Lost</i> with wonder and
+reverence. What an imagination, and what a compass of imagination! Now
+with the lost peers in Hell, his glowing fancy projects an empire almost
+as grand and glorious as that of God himself. Now with undazzled,
+presumptuous gaze he stands face to face with the Almighty, and<a id="p187" /> records
+the words falling from His lips; words which he has dared to place in the
+mouth of the Most High&mdash;words at the utterance of which</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;         ... ambrosial fragrance filled<br />
+    All heaven, and in the blessed spirits elect<br />
+    Sense of new joy ineffable diffused.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Little wonder that in his further flight he does not shrink from colloquy
+with the Eternal Son&mdash;in his theology not the equal of His Father&mdash;or that
+he does not fear to describe the fearful battle between Christ with his
+angelic hosts against the kingdom of darkness:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;        ... At his right hand victory<br />
+    Sat eagle-winged: beside him hung his bow<br />
+    And quiver with three-bolted thunder stored.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>         ... Them unexpected joy surprised,<br />
+    When the great ensign of Messiah blazed,<br />
+    Aloft by angels borne his sign in heaven.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>How heart-rending his story of the fall, and of the bitter sorrow of our
+first parents, whose fatal act</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Brought death into the world and all our woe,<br />
+    With loss of Eden, till one greater Man<br />
+    Restore us, and regain the blissful seat.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>How marvellous is the combat at Hell-gate, between Satan and Death; how
+terrible the power at which &quot;Hell itself grew darker&quot;! How we strive to
+shade our mind's eye as we enter again with him into the courts of Heaven.
+How refreshingly beautiful the perennial bloom of Eden:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Picta velut primo Vere coruscat humus.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>What a wonderful story of the teeming creation related to our first
+parents by the lips of Raphael:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><a id="p188" />
+    When from the Earth appeared<br />
+    The tawny lion, pawing to get free<br />
+    His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds,<br />
+    And rampant shakes his brinded mane.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>And withal, how compact the poem, how perfect the drama. It is Paradise,
+perfect in beauty and holiness; attacked with devilish art; in danger;
+betrayed; lost!</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked and ate;<br />
+    Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat,<br />
+    Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe<br />
+    That all was lost!
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Unit-like, complete, brilliant, sublime, awful, the poem dazzles
+criticism, and belittles the critic. It is the grandest poem ever written.
+It almost sets up a competition with Scripture. Milton's Adam and Eve walk
+before us instead of the Adam and Eve of Genesis. Milton's Satan usurps
+the place of that grotesque, malignant spirit of the Bible, which, instead
+of claiming our admiration, excites only our horror, as he goes about like
+a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He it is who can declare</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    The mind is its own place, and in itself<br />
+    Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.<br />
+    What matter where, if I be still the same,<br />
+    And what I should be?
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch19-3"><span class="sc">Milton and Dante.</span>&mdash;It has been usual for the literary critic to compare
+Milton and Dante; and it is certain that in the conception, at least, of
+his great themes, Milton took Dante for his guide. Without an odious
+comparison, and conceding the great value, principally historical, of the
+<i>Divina Commedia</i>, it must be said that the palm remains with the English
+poet. Take, for a single illustration, the fall of the arch-fiend. Dante's
+Lucifer falls with such force that he makes a conical hole in the earth to
+its centre, and forces out a hill on the other side&mdash;a physical
+prediction, as the anti<a id="p189" />podes had not yet been established. The cavity is
+the seat of Hell; and the mountain, that of Purgatory. So mathematical is
+his fancy, that in vignette illustrations we have right-lined drawings of
+these surfaces and their different circles. Science had indeed progressed
+in Milton's time, but his imagination scorns its aid; everything is with
+him grandly ideal, as well as rhetorically harmonious:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;... Him the Almighty power,<br />
+    Hurled headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky,<br />
+    With hideous ruin and combustion down<br />
+    To bottomless perdition, there to dwell<br />
+    In adamantine chains and penal power,<br />
+    Who durst defy th' Omnipotent in arms.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>And when a lesser spirit falls, what a sad &AElig;olian melody describes the
+downward flight:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;... How he fell<br />
+    From Heaven they fabled thrown by angry Jove,<br />
+    Sheer o'er the crystal battlements: from morn<br />
+    To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve<br />
+    A summer's day; and with the setting sun,<br />
+    Dropt from the zenith like a falling star.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The heavenly colloquies to which we have alluded between the Father and
+the Son, involve questions of theology, and present peculiar views&mdash;such
+as the subordination of the Son, and the relative unimportance of the
+third Person of the Blessed Trinity. They establish Milton's Arianism
+almost as completely as his Treatise on Christian Doctrine.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch19-4"><span class="sc">His Faults.</span>&mdash;Grand, far above all human efforts, his poems fail in these
+representations. God is a spirit; he is here presented as a body, and that
+by an uninspired pen. The poet has not been able to carry us up to those
+infinite heights, and so his attempt only ends in a humanitarian
+philosophy: he has been obliged to lower the whole heavenly<a id="p190" /> hierarchy to
+bring it within the scope of our objective comprehension. He blinds our
+poor eyes by the dazzling effulgence of that light which is</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    ... of the Eternal co-eternal beam.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>And it must be asserted that in this attempt Milton has done injury to the
+cause of religion, however much he has vindicated the power of the human
+intellect and the compass of the human imagination. He has made sensuous
+that which was entirely spiritual, and has attempted with finite powers to
+realize the Infinite.</p>
+
+<p>The fault is not so great when he delineates created intelligences,
+ranging from the highest seraph to him who was only &quot;less than archangel
+ruined.&quot; We gaze, unreproved by conscience, at the rapid rise of
+Pandemonium; we watch with eager interest the hellish crew as they &quot;open
+into the hill a spacious wound, and dig out ribs of gold.&quot; We admire the
+fabric which springs</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ... like an exhalation, with the sound<br />
+    Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Nothing can be grander or more articulately realized than that arched
+roof, from which,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Pendent by subtle magic, many a row<br />
+    Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed<br />
+    With naphtha and asphaltus, yields the light<br />
+    As from a sky.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It is an illustrative criticism that while the painter's art has seized
+these scenes, not one has dared to attempt his heavenly descriptions with
+the pencil. Art is less bold or more reverent than poetry, and rebukes the
+poet.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch19-5"><span class="sc">Characteristics of the Age.</span>&mdash;And here it is particularly to our purpose to
+observe, that in this very boldness of entrance into the holy of
+holies&mdash;in this attempted grasp <a id="p191" />with finite hands of infinite things,
+Milton was but a sublimated type of his age, and of the Commonwealth, when
+man, struggling for political freedom, went, as in the later age of the
+French Illuminati, too far in the regions of spirit and of faith. As
+Dante, with a powerful satire, filled his poem with the personages of the
+day, assigning his enemies to the <i>girone</i> of the Inferno, so Milton vents
+his gentler spleen by placing cowls and hood and habits in the limbo of
+vanity and paradise of fools:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;       ... all these upwhirled aloft<br />
+    Fly o'er the backside of the world far off,<br />
+    Into a limbo large and broad, since called<br />
+    The paradise of fools.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It was a setting forth of that spirit which, when the Cavaliers were many
+of them formalists, and the Puritans many of them fanatics, led to the
+rise of many sects, and caused rude soldiers to bellow their own riotous
+fancies from the pulpit. In the suddenness of change, when the earthly
+throne had been destroyed, men misconceived what was due to the heavenly;
+the fancy which had been before curbed by an awe for authority, and was
+too ignorant to move without it, now revelled unrebuked among the
+mysteries which are not revealed to angelic vision, and thus &quot;fools rushed
+in where angels fear to tread.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The book could not fail to bring him immense fame, but personally he
+received very little for it in money&mdash;less than &pound;20.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch19-6"><span class="sc">Paradise Regained.</span>&mdash;It was Thomas Ellwood, Milton's Quaker friend, who,
+after reading the <i>Paradise Lost</i>, suggested the <i>Paradise Regained</i>. This
+poem will bear no comparison with its great companion. It may, without
+irreverence, be called &quot;The gospel according to John Milton.&quot; Beauties it
+does contain; but the very foundation of it is false. Milton makes man
+regain Paradise by the success of Christ in withstanding the Devil's
+temptations in the wilderness; a <a id="p192" />new presentation of his Arian theology,
+which is quite transcendental; whereas, in our opinion, the gate of
+Paradise was opened only &quot;by His precious death and burial; His glorious
+resurrection and ascension; and by the coming of the Holy Ghost.&quot; But if
+it is immeasurably inferior in its conception and treatment, it is quite
+equal to the <i>Paradise Lost</i> in its execution.</p>
+
+<p>A few words as to Milton's vocabulary and style must close our notice of
+this greatest of English poets. With regard to the first, the Latin
+element, which is so manifest in his prose works, largely predominates in
+his poems, but accords better with the poetic license. In a list of
+authors which Mr. Marsh has prepared, down to Milton's time, which
+includes an analysis of the sixth book of the <i>Paradise Lost</i>, he is found
+to employ only eighty per cent. of Anglo-Saxon words&mdash;less than any up to
+that day. But his words are chosen with a delicacy of taste and ear which
+astonishes and delights; his works are full of an adaptive harmony, the
+suiting of sound to sense. His rhythm is perfect. We have not space for
+extended illustrations, but the reader will notice this in the lady's song
+in Comus&mdash;the address to</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Sweet Echo, sweeter nymph that liv'st unseen
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;    Within thy airy shell,<br />
+    By slow Meander's margent green!</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>    Sweet queen of parley, daughter of the sphere,<br />
+    So may'st thou be translated to the skies,<br />
+    And give resounding grace to all heaven's harmonies.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>And again, the description of Chastity, in the same poem, is inimitable in
+the language:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    So dear to Heaven is saintly Chastity,<br />
+    That when a soul is found sincerely so,<br />
+    A thousand liveried angels lackey her.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch19-7"><span class="sc">His Scholarship.</span>&mdash;It is unnecessary to state the well-known fact, attested
+by all his works, of his elegant and<a id="p193" /> versatile scholarship. He was the
+most learned man in England in his day. If, like J. C. Scaliger, he did
+not commit Homer to memory in twenty-one days, and the whole of the Greek
+poets in three months, he had all classical learning literally at his
+fingers' ends, and his works are absolutely glistening with drops which
+show that every one has been dipped in that Castalian fountain which, it
+was fabled, changed the earthly flowers of the mind into immortal jewels.</p>
+
+<p>Nor need we refer to what every one concedes, that a vein of pure but
+austere morals runs through all his works; but Puritan as he was, his
+myriad fancy led him into places which Puritanism abjured: the cloisters,
+with their dim religious light, in <i>Il Penseroso</i>&mdash;and anon with mirth he
+cries:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Come and trip it as you go,<br />
+    On the light fantastic toe.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch19-8"><span class="sc">Sonnets.</span>&mdash;His sonnets have been variously estimated: they are not as
+polished as his other poems, but are crystal-like and sententious, abrupt
+bursts of opinion and feeling in fourteen lines. Their masculine power it
+was which caused Wordsworth, himself a prince of sonneteers, to say:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In his hand,<br />
+    The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew<br />
+    Soul-animating strains....
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>That to his dead wife, whom he saw in a vision; that to Cyriac Skinner on
+his blindness, and that to the persecuted Waldenses, are the most known
+and appreciated. That to Skinner is a noble assertion of heart and hope:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Cyriac, this three-years-day these eyes, though clear<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To outward view, of blemish and of spot,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot:<br />
+    Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear<br />
+    Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot<br />
+    Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer<br />
+    <a id="p194" />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?<br />
+    The conscience friend to have lost them over-plied<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In liberty's defence, my noble task,<br />
+    Of which all Europe talks from side to side,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask<br />
+    Content, though blind, had I no better guide.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p id="ch19-9">Milton died in 1674, of gout, which had long afflicted him; and he left
+his name and works to posterity. Posterity has done large but mistaken
+justice to his fame. Men have not discriminated between his real merits
+and his faults: all parties have conceded the former, and conspired to
+conceal the latter. A just statement of both will still establish his
+great fame on the immutable foundations of truth&mdash;a fame, the honest
+pursuit of which caused him, throughout his long life,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    To scorn delights, and live laborious days.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>No writer has ever been the subject of more uncritical, ignorant, and
+senseless panegyric: like Bacon, he is lauded by men who never read his
+works, and are entirely ignorant of the true foundation of his fame. Nay,
+more; partisanship becomes very warlike, and we are reminded in this
+controversy of the Italian gentleman, who fought three duels in
+maintaining that Ariosto was a better poet than Tasso: in the third he was
+mortally wounded, and he confessed before dying that he had never read a
+line of either. A similar logomachy has marked the course of Milton's
+champions; words like sharp swords have been wielded by ignorance, and
+have injured the poet's true fame.</p>
+
+<p>He now stands before the world, not only as the greatest English poet,
+except Shakspeare, but also as the most remarkable example and
+illustration of the theory we have adopted, that literature is a very
+vivid and permanent interpreter of contemporary history. To those who ask
+for a philosophic summary of the age of Charles I. and Cromwell, the
+answer may be justly given: &quot;Study the works of John Milton, and you will
+find it.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch20">
+<h2 id="p195">Chapter XX.</h2>
+
+<h3>Cowley, Butler, and Walton.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch20-1">Cowley and Milton</a>. <a href="#ch20-2">Cowley's Life and Works</a>. <a href="#ch20-3">His Fame</a>. <a href="#ch20-4">Butler's Career</a>.
+   <a href="#ch20-5">Hudibras</a>. <a href="#ch20-6">His Poverty and Death</a>. <a href="#ch20-7">Izaak Walton</a>. <a href="#ch20-8">The Angler</a>; and <a href="#ch20-9">Lives</a>.
+   <a href="#ch20-10">Other Writers</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch20-1">Cowley and Milton.</h4>
+
+
+<p>In contrast with Milton, in his own age, both in political tenets and in
+the character of his poetry, stood Cowley, the poetical champion of the
+party of king and cavaliers during the civil war. Historically he belongs
+to two periods&mdash;antecedent and consequent&mdash;that of the rebellion itself,
+and that of the Restoration: the latter was a reaction from the former, in
+which the masses changed their opinions, in which the Puritan leaders were
+silenced, and in which the constant and consistent Cavaliers had their day
+of triumph. Both parties, however, modified their views somewhat after the
+whirlwind of excitement had swept by, and both deprecated the extreme
+violence of their former actions. This is cleverly set forth in a charming
+paper of Lord Macaulay, entitled <i>Cowley and Milton</i>. It purports to be
+the report of a pleasant colloquy between the two in the spring of 1665,
+&quot;set down by a gentleman of the Middle Temple.&quot; Their principles are
+courteously expressed, in a retrospective view of the great rebellion.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch20-2"><span class="sc">Cowley's Life and Works.</span>&mdash;Abraham Cowley, the posthumous son of a grocer,
+was born in London, in the year 1618. He is said to have been so
+precocious that he read <a id="p196" />Spenser with pleasure when he was twelve years
+old; and he published a volume of poems, entitled &quot;Poetical Blossoms,&quot;
+before he was fifteen. After a preliminary education at Westminster
+school, he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1636, and while
+there he published, in 1638, two comedies, one in English, entitled
+<i>Love's Riddle</i>, and one in Latin, <i>Naufragium Joculare, or, The Merry
+Shipwreck</i>.</p>
+
+<p>When the troubles which culminated in the civil war began to convulse
+England, Cowley, who was a strong adherent of the king, was compelled to
+leave Cambridge; and we find him, when the war had fairly opened, at
+Oxford, where he was well received by the Royal party, in 1643. He
+vindicated the justice of this reception by publishing in that year a
+satire called <i>Puritan and Papist</i>. Upon the retirement of the queen to
+Paris, he was one of her suite, and as secretary to Viscount St. Albans he
+conducted the correspondence in cipher between the queen and her
+unfortunate husband.</p>
+
+<p>He remained abroad during the civil war and the protectorate, returning
+with Charles II. in 1660. &quot;The Blessed Restoration&quot; he celebrated in an
+ode with that title, and would seem to have thus established a claim to
+the king's gratitude and bounty. But he was mistaken. Perhaps this led him
+to write a comedy, entitled <i>The Cutter of Coleman Street</i>, in which he
+severely censured the license and debaucheries of the court: this made the
+arch-debauchee, the king himself, cold toward the poet, who at once issued
+<i>A Complaint</i>; but neither satire nor complaint helped him to the desired
+preferment. He quitted London a disappointed man, and retired to the
+country, where he died on the 28th of July, 1667.</p>
+
+<p>His poems bear the impress of the age in a remarkable degree. His
+<i>Mistress, or, Love Verses</i>, and his other Anacreontics or paraphrases of
+Anacreon's odes, were eminently to the taste of the luxurious and immoral
+court of Charles II. His <i>Davideis</i> is an heroic poem on the troubles of
+King David.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p197" />His <i>Poem on the Late Civil War</i>, which was not published until 1679,
+twelve years after his death, is written in the interests of the monarchy.</p>
+
+<p>His varied learning gave a wide range to his pen. In 1661 appeared his
+<i>Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy</i>, which was
+followed in the next year by <i>Two Books of Plants</i>, which he increased to
+six books afterward&mdash;devoting two to herbs, two to flowers, and two to
+trees. If he does not appear in them to be profound in botanical
+researches, it was justly said by Dr. Johnson that in his mind &quot;botany
+turned into poetry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His prose pen was as ready, versatile, and charming as his poetic pencil.
+He produced discourses or essays on commonplace topics of general
+interest, such as <i>myself; the shortness of life; the uncertainty of
+riches; the danger of procrastination</i>, etc. These are well written, in
+easy-flowing language, evincing his poetic nature, and many of them are
+more truly poetic than his metrical pieces.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch20-3"><span class="sc">His Fame.</span>&mdash;Cowley had all his good things in his lifetime; he was the most
+popular poet in England, and is the best illustration of the literary
+taste of his age. His poetry is like water rippling in the sunlight,
+brilliant but dazzling and painful: it bewilders with far-fetched and
+witty conceits: varied but full of art, there is little of nature or real
+passion to be found even in his amatory verses. He suited the taste of a
+court which preferred an epigram to a proverb, and a repartee to an
+apothegm; and, as a consequence, with the growth of a better culture and a
+better taste, he has steadily declined in favor, so that at the present
+day he is scarcely read at all. Two authoritative opinions mark the
+history of this decline: Milton, in his own day, placed him with Spenser
+and Shakspeare as one of the three greatest English poets; while Pope, not
+much more than half a century later, asks:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><a id="p198" />
+    Who now reads Cowley? If he pleases yet,<br />
+    His moral pleases, not his pointed wit.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Still later, Dr. Johnson gives him the credit of having been the first to
+master the Pindaric ode in English; while Cowper expresses, in his Task,
+regret that his &quot;splendid wit&quot; should have been</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>But if he is neglected in the present day as a household poet, he stands
+prominently forth to the literary student as an historic personage of no
+mean rank, a type and representative of his age, country, and social
+conditions.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch20-4">Samuel Butler.</h4>
+
+
+<p class="sec"><span class="sc">Butler's Career.</span>&mdash;The author of Hudibras, a satirical poem which may as
+justly be called a comic history of England as any of those written in
+prose in more modern times, was born in Worcestershire, on the 8th of
+February, 1612. The son of poor parents, he received his education at a
+grammar school. Some, who have desired to magnify his learning, have said
+that he was for a time a student at Cambridge; but the chronicler Aubrey,
+who knew him well, denies this. He was learned, but this was due to the
+ardor with which he pursued his studies, when he was clerk to Mr.
+Jeffreys, an eminent justice of the peace, and as an inmate of the mansion
+of the Countess of Kent, in whose fine library he was associated with the
+accomplished Selden.</p>
+
+<p>We next find him domiciled with Sir Samuel Luke, a Presbyterian and a
+parliamentary soldier, in whose household he saw and noted those
+characteristics of the Puritans which he afterward ridiculed so severely
+in his great poem, a poem which he was quietly engaged in writing during
+the protectorate of Cromwell, in hope of the coming of a day when it could
+be issued to the world.</p>
+
+<p>This hope was fulfilled by the Restoration. In the new <a id="p199" />order he was
+appointed secretary to the Earl of Carbery, and steward of Ludlow Castle;
+and he also increased his frugal fortunes by marrying a widow, Mrs.
+Herbert, whose means, however, were soon lost by bad investments.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch20-5"><span class="sc">Hudibras.</span>&mdash;The only work of merit which Butler produced was <i>Hudibras</i>.
+This was published in three parts: the first appeared in 1663, the second
+in 1664, and the third not until 1678. Even then it was left unfinished;
+but as the interest in the third part seems to flag, it is probable that
+the author did not intend to complete it. His death, two years later,
+however, settled the question.</p>
+
+<p>The general idea of the poem is taken from Don Quixote. As in that
+immortal work, there are two heroes. Sir Hudibras, corresponding to the
+Don, is a Presbyterian justice of the peace, whose features are said to
+have been copied from those of the poet's former employer, Sir Samuel
+Luke. For this, Butler has been accused of ingratitude, but the nature of
+their connection does not seem to have been such as to warrant the charge.
+Ralph the squire, the humble Sancho of the poem, is a cross-grained
+dogmatic Independent.</p>
+
+<p>These two the poet sends forth, as a knight-errant with a squire, to
+correct existing abuses of all kinds&mdash;political, religious, and
+scientific. The plot is rambling and disconnected, but the author
+contrives to go over the whole ground of English history in his inimitable
+burlesque. Unlike Cervantes, who makes his reader always sympathize with
+his foolish heroes, Butler brings his knight and squire into supreme
+contempt; he lashes the two hundred religious sects of the day, and
+attacks with matchless ridicule all the Puritan positions. The poem is
+directly historical in its statement of events, tenets, and factions, and
+in its protracted religious discussions: it is indirectly historical in
+that it shows how this ridicule of the Puritans, only four years after the
+death of Cromwell, delighted the merry monarch and his vicious court, and<a id="p200" />
+was greatly acceptable to the large majority of the English people. This
+fact marks the suddenness of the historic change from the influence of
+Puritanism to that of the restored Stuarts.</p>
+
+<p>Hudibras is written in octosyllabic verse, frequently not rising above
+doggerel: it is full of verbal &quot;quips and cranks and wanton wiles:&quot; in
+parts it is eminently epigrammatic, and many of its happiest couplets seem
+to have been dashed off without effort. Walpole calls Butler &quot;the Hogarth
+of poetry;&quot; and we know that Hogarth illustrated Hudibras. The comparison
+is not inapt, but the pictorial element in Hudibras is not its best claim
+to our praise. This is found in its string of proverbs and maxims
+elucidating human nature, and set forth in such terse language that we are
+inclined to use them thus in preference to any other form of expression.</p>
+
+<p>Hudibras is the very prince of <i>burlesques</i>; it stands alone of its kind,
+and still retains its popularity. Although there is much that belongs to
+the age, and much that is of only local interest, it is still read to find
+apt quotations, of which not a few have become hackneyed by constant use.
+With these, pages might be filled; all readers will recognize the
+following:</p>
+
+<p>He speaks of the knight thus:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    On either side he would dispute,<br />
+    Confute, change hands, and still confute:</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>    For rhetoric, he could not ope<br />
+    His mouth but out there flew a trope.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Again: he refers, in speaking of religious characters, to</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Such as do build their faith upon<br />
+    The holy text of pike and gun,<br />
+    And prove their doctrine orthodox,<br />
+    By apostolic blows and knocks;<br />
+    Compound for sins they are inclined to<br />
+    By damning those they have no mind to.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><a id="p201" />Few persons of the present generation have patience to read Hudibras
+through. Allibone says &quot;it is a work to be studied once and gleaned
+occasionally.&quot; Most are content to glean frequently, and not to study at
+all.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch20-6"><span class="sc">His Poverty and Death.</span>&mdash;Butler lived in great poverty, being neglected by
+a monarch and a court for whose amusement he had done so much. They
+laughed at the jester, and let him starve. Indeed, he seems to have had
+few friends; and this is accounted for quaintly by Aubrey, who says:
+&quot;Satirical wits disoblige whom they converse with, and consequently make
+to themselves many enemies, and few friends; and this was his manner and
+case.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The best known of his works, after Hudibras, is the <i>Elephant in the
+Moon</i>, a satire on the Royal Society.</p>
+
+<p>It is significant of the popularity of Hudibras, that numerous imitations
+of it have been written from his day to ours.</p>
+
+<p>Butler died on the 25th of September, 1680. Sixty years after, the hand of
+private friendship erected a monument to him in Westminster Abbey. The
+friend was John Barber, Lord Mayor of London, whose object is thus stated:
+&quot;That he who was destitute of all things when alive, might not want a
+monument when he was dead.&quot; Upon the occasion of erecting this, Samuel
+Wesley wrote:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    While Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive,<br />
+    No generous patron would a dinner give;<br />
+    See him, when starved to death and turned to dust,<br />
+    Presented with a monumental bust.<br />
+    The poet's fate is here in emblem shown,<br />
+    He asked for bread, and he received a stone.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>To his own age he was the prince of jesters; to English literature he has
+given its best illustration of the burlesque in rhetoric. To the reader of
+the present day he presents rare historical pictures of his day, of far
+greater value than his wit or his burlesque.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch20-7">Izaak Walton.</h4>
+
+
+<p><a id="p202" />If men are to be measured by their permanent popularity, Walton deserves
+an enthusiastic mention in literary annals, not for the greatness of his
+achievements, but for his having touched a chord in the human heart which
+still vibrates without hint of cessation wherever English is spoken.</p>
+
+<p>Izaak Walton was born at Stafford, on the 9th of August, 1593. In his
+earlier life he was a linen-draper, but he had made enough for his frugal
+wants by his shop to enable him to retire from business in 1643, and then
+he quietly assumed a position as <i>pontifex piscatorum</i>. His fishing-rod
+was a sceptre which he swayed unrivalled for forty years. He gathered
+about him in his house and on the borders of fishing streams an admiring
+and congenial circle, principally of the clergy, who felt it a privilege
+to honor the retired linen-draper. There must have been a peculiar charm,
+a personal magnetism about him, which has also imbued his works. His first
+wife was Rachel Floud, a descendant of the ill-fated Cranmer; and his
+second was Anne Ken, the half-sister of the saintly Bishop Ken. Whatever
+may have been his deficiencies of early education, he was so constant and
+varied a reader that he made amends for these.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch20-8"><span class="sc">The Complete Angler.</span>&mdash;His first and most popular work was <i>The Complete
+Angler, or, The Contemplative Man's Recreation</i>. It has been the delight
+of all sorts of people since, and has gone through more than forty
+respectable editions in England, besides many in America. Many of these
+editions are splendidly illustrated and sumptuous. The dialogues are
+pleasant and natural, and his enthusiasm for the art of angling is quite
+contagious.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch20-9"><span class="sc">His Lives.</span>&mdash;Nor is Walton less esteemed by a smaller but more appreciative
+circle for his beautiful and finished biog<a id="p203" />raphies or <i>Lives</i> of Dr.
+Donne, Wotton, Richard Hooker, George Herbert, and Bishop Robert
+Sanderson.</p>
+
+<p>Here Walton has bestowed and received fame: the simple but exquisite
+portraitures of these holy and worthy men have made them familiar to
+posterity; and they, in turn, by the virtues which Walton's pen has made
+manifest, have given distinction to the hand which portrayed them.
+Walton's good life was lengthened out to fourscore and ten. He died at the
+residence of his son-in-law, the Reverend William Hawkins, prebendary of
+Winchester Cathedral, in 1683. Bishop Jebb has judiciously said of his
+<i>Lives</i>: &quot;They not only do ample justice to individual piety and learning,
+but throw a mild and cheerful light upon the manners of an interesting
+age, as well as upon the venerable features of our mother Church.&quot; Less,
+however, than any of his contemporaries can Walton be appreciated by a
+sketch of the man: his works must be read, and their spirit imbibed, in
+order to know his worth.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch20-10">Other Writers of the Age.</h4>
+
+
+<p>George Wither, born in Hampshire, June 11, 1588, died May 2, 1667: he was
+a voluminous and versatile writer. His chief work is <i>The Shepherd's
+Hunting</i>, which, with beautiful descriptions of rural life, abounds in
+those strained efforts at wit and curious conceits, which were acceptable
+to the age, but which have lost their charm in a more sensible and
+philosophic age. Wither was a Parliament man, and was imprisoned and
+ill-treated after the Restoration. He, and most of those who follow, were
+classed by Dr. Johnson as <i>metaphysical poets</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Francis Quarles, 1592-1644: he was a Royalist, but belongs to the literary
+school of Withers. He is best known by his collection of moral and
+religious poems, called <i>Divine Emblems</i>, which were accompanied with
+quaint engraved illustrations. These allegories are full of unnatural
+conceits, and are many of them borrowed from an older source. He was
+immensely popular as a poet in his own day, and there was truth in the
+statement of Horace Walpole, that &quot;Milton was forced to wait till the
+world had done admiring Quarles.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>George Herbert, 1593-1632: a man of birth and station, Herbert entered the
+Church, and as the incumbent of the living at Bemerton, he illus<a id="p204" />trated in
+his own piety and devotion &quot;the beauty of holiness.&quot; Conscientious and
+self-denying in his parish work, he found time to give forth those devout
+breathings which in harmony of expression, fervor of piety, and simplicity
+of thought, have been a goodly heritage to the Church ever since, while
+they still retain some of those &quot;poetical surprises&quot; which mark the
+literary taste of the age. His principal work is <i>The Temple, or, Sacred
+Poems and Private Ejaculations</i>. The short lyrics which form the stones of
+this temple are upon the rites and ceremonies of the Church and other
+sacred subjects: many of them are still in great favor, and will always
+be. In his portraiture of the <i>Good Parson</i>, he paints himself. He
+magnifies the office, and he fulfilled all the requirements he has laid
+down.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Herrick, 1591-1674: like Herbert, Herrick was a clergyman, but,
+unlike Herbert, he was not a holy man. He wrote Anacreontic poems, full of
+wine and love, and appears to us like a reveller masking in a surplice.
+Being a cavalier in sentiment, he was ejected from his vicarage in 1648,
+and went to London, where he assumed the lay habit. In 1647 he published
+<i>Hesperides</i>, a collection of small poems of great lyric beauty,
+Anacreontic, pastoral, and amatory, but containing much that is coarse and
+indelicate. In 1648 he in part atoned for these by publishing his <i>Noble
+Numbers</i>, a collection of pious pieces, in the beginning of which he asks
+God's forgiveness for his &quot;unbaptized rhymes,&quot; &quot;writ in my wild,
+unhallowed times.&quot; The best comment upon his works may be found in the
+words of a reviewer: &quot;Herrick trifled in this way solely in compliment to
+the age; whenever he wrote to please himself, he wrote from the heart to
+the heart.&quot; His <i>Litanie</i> is a noble and beautiful penitential petition.</p>
+
+<p>Sir John Suckling, 1609-1641: a writer of love songs. That by which he is
+most favorably known is his exquisite <i>Ballad upon a Wedding</i>. He was a
+man of versatile talents; an officer in the army of Gustavus Adolphus, and
+a captain of horse in the army of Charles I. He wrote several plays, of
+which the best are <i>Aglaura</i> and <i>The Discontented Colonel</i>. While
+evidently tinctured by the spirit of the age, he exceeded his
+contemporaries in the purity of his style and manliness of his expression.
+His wit is not so forced as theirs.</p>
+
+<p>Edmund Waller, 1605-1687: he was a cousin of John Hampden. By great care
+and adroitness he seems to have trimmed between the two parties in the
+civil war, but was suspected by both. His poetry was like himself,
+artificial and designed to please, but has little depth of sentiment. Like
+other poets, he praised Cromwell in 1654 in <i>A Pan<a id="p205" />egyric</i>, and welcomed
+Charles II. in 1660, upon <i>His Majesty's Happy Return</i>. His greatest
+benefaction to English poetry was in refining its language and harmonizing
+its versification. He has all the conceits and strained wit of the
+metaphysical school.</p>
+
+<p>Sir William Davenant, 1605-1668: he was the son of a vintner, but
+sometimes claimed to be the natural son of Shakspeare, who was intimate
+with his father and mother. An ardent Loyalist, he was imprisoned at the
+beginning of the civil war, but escaped to France. He is best known by his
+heroic poem <i>Gondibert</i>, founded upon the reign of King Aribert of
+Lombardy, in the seventh century. The French taste which he brought back
+from his exile, is shown in his own dramas, and in his efforts to restore
+the theatre at the Restoration. His best plays are the <i>Cruel Brother</i> and
+<i>The Law against Lovers</i>. He was knighted by Charles I., and succeeded Ben
+Jonson as poet laureate. On his monument in Westminster Abbey are these
+words: &quot;O rare Sir William Davenant.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Charles Cotton, 1630-1687: he was a wit and a poet, and is best known as
+the friend of Izaak Walton. He made an addition to <i>Walton's Complete
+Angler</i>, which is found in all the later editions. The companion of Walton
+in his fishing excursions on the river Dove, Cotton addressed many of his
+poems to his &quot;Adopted Father.&quot; He made travesties upon Virgil and Lucian,
+which are characterized by great licentiousness; and wrote a gossiping and
+humorous <i>Voyage to Ireland</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Henry Vaughan, 1614-1695: he was called the <i>Silurist</i>, from his residence
+in Wales, the country of the Silures. He is favorably known by the <i>Silex
+Scintillans, or, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations</i>. With a rigid
+religious tone, he has all the attempt at rhetorical effect which mark the
+metaphysical school, but his language is harsher and more rugged. He has
+more heart than most of his colleagues, and extracts of great terseness
+and beauty are still made from his poems. He reproves the corruptions of
+the age, and while acknowledging an indebtedness, he gives us a clue to
+his inspiration: &quot;The first, that with any effectual success attempted a
+diversion of this foul and overflowing stream, was that blessed man, Mr.
+George Herbert, whose holy life and verse gained many pious converts, of
+whom I am the least.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Earl of Clarendon, 1608-1674: Edward Hyde, afterward the Earl of
+Clarendon, played a conspicuous part in the history of England during his
+life, and also wrote a history of that period, which, although in the
+interests of the king's party, is an invaluable key to a knowledge of
+English life during the rebellion and just after the Restoration. A<a id="p206" />
+member of parliament in 1640, he rose rapidly in favor with the king, and
+was knighted in 1643. He left England in charge of the Prince of Wales in
+1646, and at once began his History of the Great Rebellion, which was to
+occupy him for many years before its completion. After the death of
+Charles I., he was the companion of his son's exile, and often without
+means for himself and his royal master, he was chancellor of the
+exchequer. At the Restoration in 1660, Sir Edward Hyde was created Earl of
+Clarendon, and entered upon the real duties of his office. He retained his
+place for seven years, but became disagreeable to Charles as a troublesome
+monitor, and at the same time incurred the hatred of the people. In 1667
+he was accused of high treason, and made his escape to France. Neglected
+by his master, ignored by the French monarch, he wandered about in France,
+from time to time petitioning his king to permit him to return and die in
+England, but without success. Seven years of exile, which he reminded the
+king &quot;was a time prescribed and limited by God himself for the expiation
+of some of his greatest judgments,&quot; passed by, and the ex-chancellor died
+at Rouen. He had begun his history in exile as the faithful servant of a
+dethroned prince; he ended it in exile, as the cast-off servant of an
+ungrateful monarch. As a writer of contemporary history, Clarendon has
+given us the form and color of the time. The book is in title and handling
+a Royalist history. Its faults are manifest: first those of partisanship;
+and secondly, those which spring from his absence, so that much of the
+work was written without an observant knowledge. His delineation of
+character is wonderful: the men of the times are more pictorially
+displayed than in the portraits of Van Dyk. The style is somewhat too
+pompous, being more that of the orator than of the historian, and
+containing long and parenthetic periods. Sir Walter Scott says: &quot;His
+characters may match those of the ancient historians, and one thinks he
+would know the very men if he were to meet them in society.&quot; Macaulay
+concedes to him a strong sense of moral and religious obligation, a
+sincere reverence for the laws of his country, and a conscientious regard
+for the honor and interests of the crown; but adds that &quot;his temper was
+sour, arrogant, and impatient of opposition.&quot; No one can rightly
+understand the great rebellion without reading Clarendon's history of it.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch21">
+<h2 id="p207">Chapter XXI.</h2>
+
+<h3>Dryden, and the Restored Stuarts.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch21-1">The Court of Charles II</a>. <a href="#ch21-2">Dryden's Early Life</a>. <a href="#ch21-3">The Death of Cromwell</a>.
+   <a href="#ch21-4">The Restoration</a>. <a href="#ch21-5">Dryden's Tribute</a>. <a href="#ch21-6">Annus Mirabilis</a>. <a href="#ch21-7">Absalom and
+   Achitophel</a>. <a href="#ch21-8">The Death of Charles</a>. <a href="#ch21-9">Dryden's Conversion</a>. <a href="#ch21-10">Dryden's Fall</a>.
+   <a href="#ch21-11">His Odes</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch21-1">The Court of Charles II.</h4>
+
+
+<p>The antithetic literature which takes its coloring from the great
+rebellion, was now to give place to new forms not immediately connected
+with it, but incident to the Restoration. Puritanism was now to be
+oppressed, and the country was to be governed, under a show of
+constitutional right, more arbitrarily than ever before. The moral
+rebound, too, was tremendous; the debaucheries of the cavaliers of Charles
+I. were as nothing in comparison with the lewdness and filth of the court
+of Charles II. To say that he brought in French fashions and customs, is
+to do injustice to the French: there never was a viler court in Europe
+than his own. It is but in accordance with our historical theory that the
+literature should partake of and represent the new condition of things;
+and the most remarkable illustrations of this are to be found in the works
+of Dryden.</p>
+
+<p>It may indeed with truth be said that we have now reached the most
+absolute of the literary types of English history. There was no great
+event, political or social, which is not mirrored in his poems; no
+sentiment or caprice of the age which does not there find expression; no
+kingly whim which he did not prostitute his great powers to gratify; no
+<a id="p208" />change of creed, political or religious, of which he was not the
+recorder&mdash;few indeed, where royal favor was concerned, to which he was not
+the convert. To review the life of Dryden himself, is therefore to enter
+into the chronicle and philosophy of the times in which he lived. With
+this view, we shall dwell at some length upon his character and works.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch21-2"><span class="sc">Early Life.</span>&mdash;Dryden was born on the 10th of August, 1631, and died on the
+1st of May, 1700. He lived, therefore, during the reign of Charles I., the
+interregnum of Parliament, the protectorate of Cromwell, the restoration
+and reign of Charles II., and the reign of James II.; he saw and suffered
+from the accession of William and Mary&mdash;a wonderful and varied volume in
+English history. And of all these Dryden was, more than any other man, the
+literary type. He was of a good family, and was educated at Westminster
+and Cambridge, where he gave early proofs of his literary talents.</p>
+
+<p>His father, a zealous Presbyterian, had reared his children in his own
+tenets; we are not therefore astonished to find that his earliest poetical
+efforts are in accordance with the political conditions of the day. He
+settled in London, under the protection of his kinsman, Sir Gilbert
+Pickering, who was afterward one of the king's judges in 1649, and one of
+the council of eight who controlled the kingdom after Charles lost his
+head. As secretary to Sir Gilbert, young Dryden learned to scan the
+political horizon, and to aspire to preferment.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch21-3"><span class="sc">Cromwell's Death, and Dryden's Monody.</span>&mdash;But those who had depended upon
+Cromwell, forgot that he was not England, and that his breath was in his
+nostrils. The time of his departure was at hand. He had been offered the
+crown (April 9, 1656,) by a subservient parliament, and wanted it; but his
+friends and family opposed his taking it; <a id="p209" />and the officers of the army,
+influenced by Pride, sent such a petition against it, that he felt obliged
+to refuse it. After months of mental anxiety and nervous torture&mdash;fearing
+assassination, keeping arms under his pillow, never sleeping above three
+nights together in the same chamber, disappointed that even after all his
+achievements, and with all his cunning efforts, he had been unable to put
+on the crown, and to be numbered among the English sovereigns&mdash;Cromwell
+died in 1658, leaving his title as Lord Protector to his son Richard, a
+weak and indolent man, who, after seven months' rule, fled the kingdom at
+the Restoration, to return after a generation had passed away, a very old
+man, to die in his native land. The people of Hertfordshire knew Richard
+Cromwell as the excellent and benevolent Mr. Clarke.</p>
+
+<p>Very soon after the death of Oliver Cromwell, Dryden, not yet foreseeing
+the Restoration, presented his tribute to the Commonwealth, in the shape
+of &quot;Heroic Stanzas on the Death of Oliver Cromwell; written after his
+funeral.&quot; A few stanzas will show his political principles, and are in
+strange contrast with what was soon to follow:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    How shall I then begin, or where conclude,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To draw a fame so truly circular?<br />
+    For, in a round, what order can be showed,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Where all the parts so equal perfect are?</p>
+
+<p>    He made us freemen of the continent,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Whom nature did like captives treat before;<br />
+    To nobler preys the English lion sent,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And taught him first in Belgian walks to roar.</p>
+
+<p>    His ashes in a peaceful urn shall rest;<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;His name a great example stands, to show<br />
+    How strangely high endeavors may be blest,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Where piety and valor jointly go.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch21-4"><span class="sc">The Restoration.</span>&mdash;Cromwell died in September: early in the next year these
+stanzas were written. One year later <a id="p210" />was the witness of a great event,
+which stirred England to its very depths, because it gave vent to
+sentiments for some time past cherished but concealed. The Long Parliament
+was dissolved on the 10th of March, 1660. The new parliament meets April
+25th; it is almost entirely of Royalist opinions; it receives Sir John
+Granville, the king's messenger, with loud acclamations; the old lords
+come forth once more in velvet, ermine, and lawn. It is proclaimed that
+General Monk, the representative of the army, soon to be Duke of
+Albemarle, has gone from St. Albans to Dover,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    To welcome home again discarded faith.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The strong are as tow, and the maker as a spark. From the house of every
+citizen, lately vocal with the praises of the Protector, issues a subject
+ready to welcome his king with the most enthusiastic loyalty.</p>
+
+<p>Royal proclamations follow each other in rapid succession: at length the
+eventful day has come&mdash;the 29th of May, 1660. All the bells of London are
+ringing their merriest chimes; the streets are thronged with citizens in
+holiday attire; the guilds of work and trade are out in their uniforms;
+the army, late the organ of Cromwell, is drawn up on Black Heath, and is
+cracking its myriad throat with cheers. In the words of Master Roger
+Wildrake, &quot;There were bonfires flaming, music playing, rumps roasting,
+healths drinking; London in a blaze of light from the Strand to
+Rotherhithe.&quot; At length the sound of herald trumpets is heard; the king is
+coming; a cry bursts forth which the London echoes have almost forgotten:
+&quot;God save the king! The king enjoys his own again!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It seems to the dispassionate reader almost incredible that the English
+people, who shed his father's blood, who rallied round the Parliament, and
+were fulsome in their praises of the Protector, should thus suddenly
+change; but, allowing for &quot;the madness of the people,&quot; we look for
+strength and consistency to the men of learning and letters. We feel sure<a id="p211" />
+that he who sang his eulogy of Cromwell dead, can have now no lyric burst
+for the returning Stuart. We are disappointed.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch21-5"><span class="sc">Dryden's Tribute.</span>&mdash;The first poetic garland thrown at the feet of the
+restored king was Dryden's <i>Astr&aelig;a Redux</i>, a poem on <i>The happy
+restoration of his sacred majesty Charles II.</i> To give it classic force,
+he quotes from the Pollio as a text.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Jam redit et virgo, redeunt saturnia regna;
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>thus hailing the saturnian times of James I. and Charles I. A few lines of
+the poem complete the curious contrast:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    While our cross stars deny us Charles his bed,<br />
+    Whom our first flames and virgin love did wed,<br />
+    For his long absence church and state did groan;<br />
+    Madness the pulpit, faction seized the throne.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>    How great were then our Charles his woes, who thus<br />
+    Was forced to suffer for himself and us.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>    Oh happy prince whom Heaven hath taught the way,<br />
+    By paying vows to have more vows to pay:<br />
+    Oh happy age! oh, times like those alone<br />
+    By Fate reserved for great Augustus' throne,<br />
+    When the joint growth of arts and arms foreshow<br />
+    The world a monarch, and that monarch you!
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The contrast assumes a clearer significance, if we remember that the real
+time which elapsed between the publications of these two poems was less
+than two years.</p>
+
+<p>This is greatly to Dryden's shame, as it is to Waller's, who did the same
+thing; but it must be clearly pointed out that in this the poets were
+really a type of all England, for whose suffrages they wrote thus. From
+this time the career of Dryden was intimately associated with that of the
+restored king. He wrote an ode for the coronation in 1661, and a poetical
+tribute to Clarendon, the Lord High Chancellor, the king's better self.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p212" />To Dryden, as a writer of plays, we shall recur in a later chapter, when
+the other dramatists of the age will be considered.</p>
+
+<p>A concurrence of unusual events in 1665, brought forth the next year the
+&quot;Annus Mirabilis,&quot; or <i>Wonderful Year</i>, in which these events are recorded
+with the minuteness of a chronicle. This is indeed its chief value; for,
+praised as it was at the time, it does not so well bear the analysis of
+modern criticism.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch21-6"><span class="sc">Annus Mirabilis.</span>&mdash;It describes the great naval battle with the Dutch; the
+fire of London; and the ravages of the plague. The detail with which these
+are described, and the frequent felicity of expression, are the chief
+charm of the poem. In the refreshingly simple diary of Pepy's, we find
+this jotting under date of 3d February, 1666-7: &quot;<i>Annus Mirabilis</i>. I am
+very well pleased this night with reading a poem I brought home with me
+last night from Westminster Hall, of Dryden's, upon the present war: a
+very good poem.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Dryden's subserviency, aided by the power of his pen, gained its reward.
+In 1668, on the death of Sir William Davenant, he was appointed Laureate,
+and historiographer to the king, with an annual salary of &pound;200. He soon
+became the most famous literary man in England. Milton, the Puritan, was
+producing his wonderful visions in darkened retirement, while at court, or
+in the seat of honor on the stage, or in his sacred chair at Will's
+Coffee-house in Covent Garden (near the fire-place in winter, and carried
+into the balcony in summer), &quot;Glorious John&quot; was the observed of all
+observers. Of Will's Coffee-house, Congreve says, in <i>Love for Love</i>, &quot;Oh,
+confound that Will's Coffee-house; it has ruined more young men than the
+Royal Oak Lottery:&quot; this speaks at once of the fashion and social license
+of the time.</p>
+
+<p>Charles II. was happy to have so fluent a pen, to lampoon <a id="p213" />or satirize his
+enemies, or to make indecent comedies for his amusement; while Dryden's
+aim seems to have been scarcely higher than preferment at court and
+honored contemporary notoriety for his genius. But if the great majority
+lauded and flattered him, he was not without his share in those quarrels
+of authors, which were carried on at that day not only with goose-quills,
+but with swords and bludgeons. It is recorded that he was once waylaid by
+the hired ruffians of the Earl of Rochester, and beaten almost to death:
+these broils generally had a political as well as a social significance.
+In his quarrels with the literary men, he used the shafts of satire. His
+contest with Thomas Shadwell has been preserved in his satire called
+McFlecknoe. Flecknoe was an Irish priest who wrote dull plays; and in this
+poem Dryden proposes Shadwell as his successor on the throne of dulness.
+It was the model or suggester of Pope's <i>Dunciad</i>; but the model is by no
+means equal to the copy.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch21-7"><span class="sc">Absalom and Achitophel.</span>&mdash;Nothing which he had yet written is so true an
+index to the political history as his &quot;Absalom and Achitophel,&quot; which he
+published in 1681. The history may be given in few words. Charles II. had
+a natural son by an obscure woman named Lucy Walters. This boy had been
+created Duke of Monmouth. He was put forward by the designing Earl of
+Shaftesbury as the head of a faction, and as a rival to the Duke of York.
+To ruin the Duke was their first object; and this they attempted by
+inflaming the people against his religion, which was Roman Catholic. If
+they could thus have him and his heirs put out of the succession to the
+throne, Monmouth might be named heir apparent; and Shaftesbury hoped to be
+the power behind the throne.</p>
+
+<p>Monmouth was weak, handsome, and vain, and was in truth a puppet in wicked
+hands; he was engaged in the Rye-house plot, and schemed not only against
+his uncle, but <a id="p214" />against the person of his father himself. To satirize and
+expose these plots and plotters, Dryden (at the instance of the king, it
+is said,) wrote <i>Absalom and Achitophel</i>, in which are introduced, under
+Scripture names, many of the principal political characters of the day,
+from the king down to Titus Oates. The number of the names is 61. Charles
+is, of course, David, and Monmouth, the wayward son, is Absalom.
+Shaftesbury is Achitophel, and Dr. Oates figures as Corah. The Ethnic plot
+is the popish plot, and Gath is that land of exile where Charles so long
+resided. Strong in his praise of David, the poet is discreet and delicate
+in his handling of Absalom; his instinct is as acute as that of Falstaff:
+&quot;Beware! instinct, the lion will not touch a true prince,&quot; or touch him so
+gently that the lion at least will not suffer. Thus, Monmouth is
+represented as</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Half loath, and half consenting to the ill,<br />
+    For royal blood within him struggled still;<br />
+    He thus replied: &quot;And what pretence have I<br />
+    To take up arms for public liberty?<br />
+    My father governs with unquestioned right,<br />
+    The faith's defender and mankind's delight;<br />
+    Good, gracious, just, observant of the laws,<br />
+    And heaven by wonders has espoused his cause.&quot;
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>But he may, and does, roundly rate Achitophel, who tempts with satanic
+seductions, and proves to the youth, from the Bible, his right to the
+succession, peaceably or forcibly obtained. Among those who conspired with
+Monmouth were honest hearts seeking for the welfare of the realm. Chief of
+these were Lord Russel and Sidney, of whom the latter was in favor of a
+commonwealth; and the former, only sought the exclusion of the Roman
+Catholic Duke of York, and the redress of grievances, but not the
+assassination or deposition of the king. Both fell on the scaffold; but
+they have both been considered martyrs in the cause of civil liberty.</p>
+
+<p>And here we must pause to say that in the literary structure, <a id="p215" />language,
+and rhythm of the poem, Dryden had made a great step toward that mastery
+of the rhymed pentameter couplet, which is one of his greatest claims to
+distinction.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch21-8"><span class="sc">Death of Charles.</span>&mdash;At length, in 1685, Charles II., after a sudden and
+short illness, was gathered to his fathers. His life had been such that
+England could not mourn: he had prostituted female honor, and almost
+destroyed political virtue; sold English territory and influence to France
+for beautiful strumpets; and at the last had been received, on his
+death-bed, into, the Roman Catholic Church, while nominally the supreme
+head of the Anglican communion. England cannot mourn, but Dryden tortures
+language into crocodile tears in his <i>Threnodia Augustalis, sacred to the
+happy memory of King Charles II</i>. A few lines will exhibit at once the
+false statements and the absolute want of a spark of sorrow&mdash;dead,
+inanimate words, words, words!</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Thus long my grief has kept me drunk:<br />
+    Sure there 's a lethargy in mighty woe;<br />
+    Tears stand congealed, and cannot flow.<br />
+    ........<br />
+    Tears for a stroke foreseen, afford relief;<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;But unprovided for a sudden blow,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Like Niobe, we marble grow,<br />
+    And petrify with grief!
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch21-9"><span class="sc">Dryden's Conversion.</span>&mdash;The Duke of York succeeded as James II.: he was an
+open and bigoted Roman Catholic, who at once blazoned forth the death-bed
+conversion of his brother; and who from the first only limited his hopes
+to the complete restoration of the realm to popery. Dryden's course was at
+once taken; but his instinct was at fault, as but three short years were
+to show. He gave in his adhesion to the new king's creed; he who had been
+Puritan with the commonwealth, and churchman with the Restoration, became
+Roman Catholic with the accession of a popish king. He had <a id="p216" />written the
+<i>Religio Laici</i> to defend the tenets of the Church of England against the
+attacks of papists and dissenters; and he now, to leave the world in no
+doubt as to his reasons and his honesty, published a poem entitled the
+<i>Hind and Panther</i>, which might in his earlier phraseology have been
+justly styled &quot;The Christian experience of pious John Dryden.&quot; It seems a
+shameless act, but it is one exponent of the loyalty of that day. There
+are some critics who believe him to have been sincere, and who insist that
+such a man &quot;is not to be sullied by suspicion that rests on what after all
+might prove a fortuitous coincidence.&quot; But such frequent changes with the
+government&mdash;with a reward for each change&mdash;tax too far even that charity
+which &quot;thinketh no evil.&quot; Dryden's pen was eagerly welcomed by the Roman
+Catholics. He began to write at once in their interest, and thus to
+further his own. Dr. Johnson says: &quot;That conversion will always be
+suspected which apparently concerns with interest. He that never finds his
+error till it hinders his progress toward wealth or honor, will not be
+thought to love truth only for herself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In this long poem of 2,000 lines, we have the arguments which conducted
+the poet to this change. The different beasts represent the different
+churches and sects. The Church of Rome is thus represented:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    A milk-white hind, immortal and unchanged,<br />
+    Fed on the lawns, and in the forest ranged;<br />
+    Without unspotted, innocent within,<br />
+    She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The other beasts were united to destroy her; but she could &quot;venture to
+drink with them at the common watering-place under the protection of her
+friend the kingly lion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Panther is the Church of England:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    The Panther, sure the noblest, next the hind,<br />
+    And fairest creature of the spotted kind;<br />
+    <a id="p217" />Oh, could her inborn stains be washed away,<br />
+    She were too good to be a beast of prey!
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Then he Introduces.&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+   The <i>Bloody Bear</i>, an <i>Independent</i> beast; the <i>Quaking Hare</i>, for the
+   <i>Quakers</i>; the <i>Bristled Baptist Boar</i>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In this fable, quite in the style of &AElig;sop, we find the Dame, <i>i.e.</i>, the
+Hind, entering into the subtle points of theology, and trying to prove her
+position. The poem, as might be supposed; was well received, and perhaps
+converted a few to the monarch's faith; for who were able yet to foresee
+that the monarch would so abuse his power, as to be driven away from his
+throne amid the execrations of his subjects.</p>
+
+<p>The harmony of Dryden and the power of James could control progressive
+England no longer. Like one man, the nation rose and uttered a mighty cry
+to William of Orange. James, trembling, flies hither and thither, and at
+length, fearing the fate of his father, he deserts his throne; the commons
+call this desertion abdication, and they give the throne to his nephew
+William and his daughter Mary. Such was the end of the restored Stuarts;
+and we can have no regret that it is: whatever sympathy we may have had
+with the sufferings of Charles I.,&mdash;and the English nation shared it, as
+is proved by the restoration of his son,&mdash;we can have none with his
+successors: they threw away their chances; they dissipated the most
+enthusiastic loyalty; they squandered opportunities; and had no enemies,
+even the bitterest, who were more fatal than themselves. And now it was
+manifest that Dryden's day was over. Nor does he shrink from his fate. He
+neither sings a Godspeeding ode to the runaway king, nor a salutatory to
+the new comers.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch21-10"><span class="sc">Dryden's Fall.</span>&mdash;Stripped of his laureate-wreath and all his emoluments, he
+does not sit down to fold his hands and repine. Sixty years of age, he
+girds up his loins to work manfully for his living. He translates from the
+classics; he <a id="p218" />renders Chaucer into modern English: in 1690 he produced a
+play entitled Don Sebastian, which has been considered his dramatic
+master-piece, and, as if to inform the world that age had not dimmed the
+fire of his genius, he takes as his caption,&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    ... nec tarda senectus<br />
+    Debilitat vires animi, mutat que vigorem.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This latter part of his life claims a true sympathy, because he is every
+inch a man.</p>
+
+<p>It must not be forgotten that Dryden presented Chaucer to England anew,
+after centuries of neglect, almost oblivion; for which the world owes him
+a debt of gratitude. This he did by modernizing several of the Canterbury
+Tales, and thus leading English scholars to seek the beauties and
+instructions of the original. The versions themselves are by no means well
+executed, it must be said. He has lost the musical words and fresh diction
+of the original, as a single comparison between the two will clearly show.
+Perhaps there is no finer description of morning than is contained in
+these lines of Chaucer:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    The besy lark, the messager of day,<br />
+    Saleweth in hir song the morwe gray;<br />
+    And firy Phebus riseth up so bright<br />
+    That all the orient laugheth of the sight.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>How expressive the words: the <i>busy</i> lark; the sun rising like a strong
+man; <i>all the orient</i> laughing. The following version by Dryden, loses at
+once the freshness of idea and the felicity of phrase:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    The morning lark, the messenger of day,<br />
+    Saluted in her song the morning gray;<br />
+    And soon the sun arose with beams so bright<br />
+    That all the horizon laughed to see the joyous sight.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The student will find this only one of many illustrations of<a id="p219" /> the manner
+in which Dryden has belittled Chaucer in his versions.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch21-11"><span class="sc">Odes.</span>&mdash;Dryden has been regarded as the first who used the heroic couplet
+with entire mastery. In his hands it is bold and sometimes rugged, but
+always powerful and handled with great ease: he fashioned it for Pope to
+polish. Of this, his larger poems are full of proof. But there is another
+verse, of irregular rhythm, in which he was even more successful,&mdash;lyric
+poetry as found in the irregular ode, varying from the short line to the
+&quot;Alexandrine dragging its slow length along;&quot; the staccato of a harp
+ending in a lengthened flow of melody.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Thus long ago,<br />
+    Ere heaving billows learned to blow,<br />
+    While organs yet were mute;<br />
+    Timotheus to his breathing flute<br />
+    And sounding lyre<br />
+    Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>When he became a Roman Catholic, St. Cecilia, &quot;inventress of the vocal
+frame,&quot; became his chief devotion; and the <i>Song on St. Cecilia's Day</i> and
+<i>An Ode to St. Cecilia</i>, are the principal illustrations of this new
+power.</p>
+
+<p>Gray, who was remarkable for his own lyric power, told Dr. Beattie that if
+there were any excellence in his own numbers, he had learned it wholly
+from Dryden.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Ode on St. Cecilia's Day</i>, also entitled &quot;<i>Alexander's Feast</i>,&quot; in
+which he portrays the power of music in inspiring that famous monarch to
+love, pity, and war, has to the scholar the perfect excellence of the best
+Greek lyric. It ends with a tribute to St. Cecilia.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    At last divine Cecilia came,<br />
+    Inventress of the vocal frame:<br />
+    Now let Timotheus yield the prize,<br />
+    Or both divide the crown.<br />
+    <a id="p220" />He raised a mortal to the skies;<br />
+    She drew an angel down,
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Dryden's prose, principally in the form of prefaces and dedications, has
+been admired by all critics; and one of the greatest has said, that if he
+had turned his attention entirely in that direction, he would have been
+<i>facile princeps</i> among the prose writers of his day. He has, in general
+terms, the merit of being the greatest refiner of the English language,
+and of having given system and strength to English poetry above any writer
+up to his day; but more than all, his works are a transcript of English
+history&mdash;political, religious, and social&mdash;as valuable as those of any
+professed historian. Dryden married Lady Elizabeth Howard, the daughter of
+an earl, who, it is said, was not a congenial companion, and who
+afterwards became insane. He died from a gangrene in the foot. He declared
+that he died in the profession of the Roman Catholic faith; which raises a
+new doubt as to his sincerity in the change. Near the monument of old
+father Chaucer, in Westminster, is one erected, by the Duke of Buckingham,
+to Dryden. It merely bears name and date, as his life and works were
+supposed to need no eulogy.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch22">
+<h2 id="p221">Chapter XXII.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Religious Literature of the Great Rebellion and of the Restoration.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch22-1">The English Divines</a>. <a href="#ch22-2">Hall</a>. <a href="#ch22-3">Chillingworth</a>. <a href="#ch22-4">Taylor</a>. <a href="#ch22-5">Fuller</a>. <a href="#ch22-6">Sir T.
+   Browne</a>. <a href="#ch22-7">Baxter</a>. <a href="#ch22-8">Fox</a>. <a href="#ch22-9">Bunyan</a>. <a href="#ch22-10">South</a>. <a href="#ch22-11">Other Writers</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch22-1">The English Divines.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Having come down, in the course of English Literature, to the reign of
+William and Mary, we must look back for a brief space to consider the
+religious polemics which grew out of the national troubles and
+vicissitudes. We shall endeavor to classify the principal authors under
+this head from the days of Milton to the time when the Protestant
+succession was established on the English throne.</p>
+
+<p>The Established Church had its learned doctors before the civil war, many
+of whom contributed to the literature; but when the contest between king
+and parliament became imminent, and during the progress of the quarrel,
+these became controversialists,&mdash;most of them on the side of the
+unfortunate but misguided monarch,&mdash;and suffered with his declining
+fortunes.</p>
+
+<p>To go over the whole range of theological literature in this extended
+period, would be to study the history of the times from a theological
+point of view. Our space will only permit a brief notice of the principal
+writers.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch22-2"><span class="sc">Hall.</span>&mdash;First among these was Joseph Hall, who was born in 1574. He was
+educated at Cambridge, and was appointed <a id="p222" />to the See of Exeter in 1624,
+and transferred to that of Norwich in 1641, the year before Charles I.
+ascended the throne. The scope of his writings was quite extensive. As a
+theological writer, he is known by his numerous sermons, his <i>Episcopacy
+by Divine Right Asserted</i>, his <i>Christian Meditations</i>, and
+various commentaries and <i>Contemplations</i> upon the Scriptures.
+He was also a poet and a satirist, and excelled in this field. His
+<i>Satires&mdash;Virgidemiarium</i>&mdash;were published at the early age of
+twenty-three; but they are highly praised by the critics, who rank him
+also, for eloquence and learning, with Jeremy Taylor. He suffered for his
+attachment to the king's cause, was driven from his see, and spent the
+last portion of his life in retirement and poverty. He died in 1656.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch22-3"><span class="sc">Chillingworth.</span>&mdash;The next in chronological order is William Chillingworth,
+who was born in 1602, and is principally known as the champion of
+Protestantism against Rome and Roman innovations. While a student at
+Oxford, he had been won over to the Roman Catholic Church by John Perse, a
+famous Jesuit; and he went at once to pursue his studies in the Jesuit
+college at Douay. He was so notable for his acuteness and industry, that
+every effort was made to bring him back. Archbishop Laud, his god-father,
+was able to convince him of his errors, and in two months he returned to
+England. A short time after this he left the Roman Catholics, and became
+tenfold more a Protestant than before. He entered into controversies with
+his former friends the Jesuits, and in answer to one of their treatises
+entitled, <i>Mercy and Truth, or Charity maintained by the Roman Catholics</i>,
+he wrote his most famous work, <i>The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to
+Salvation</i>. Chillingworth was a warm adherent of Charles I.; and was
+captured by the parliamentary forces in 1643. He died the next year. His
+double change of faith gave him the full range of the controversial field;
+and, in addition to this knowledge, the clearness of his language and the<a id="p223" />
+perspicuity of his logic gave great effect to his writings. Tillotson
+calls him &quot;the glory of this age and nation.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch22-4"><span class="sc">Taylor.</span>&mdash;One of the greatest names in the annals of the English Church and
+of English literature is that of Jeremy Taylor. He was the son of a
+barber, and was born at Cambridge in 1613. A remarkably clever youth, he
+was educated at Cambridge, and soon owed his preferment to his talents,
+eloquence, and learning. An adherent of the king, he was appointed
+chaplain in the royal army, and was several times imprisoned. When the
+king's cause went down, and during the protectorate of Cromwell, he
+retired to Wales, where he kept a school, and was also chaplain to the
+Earl of Carberry. The vicissitudes of fortune compelled him to leave for a
+while this retreat, and he became a teacher in Ireland. The restoration of
+Charles II. gave him rest and preferment: he was made Bishop of Down and
+Connor. Taylor is now principally known for his learned, quaint, and
+eloquent discourses, which are still read. A man of liberal feelings and
+opinions, he wrote on &quot;The liberty of prophesying, showing the
+unreasonableness of prescribing to other men's faith, and the iniquity of
+persecuting different opinions:&quot; the title itself being a very liberal
+discourse. He upholds the Ritual in <i>An Apology for fixed and set Forms of
+Worship</i>. In this he considers the divine precepts to be contained within
+narrow limits, and that beyond this everything is a matter of dispute, so
+that we cannot unconditionally condemn the opinions of others.</p>
+
+<p>His <i>Great Exemplar of Sanctity and Holy Life</i>, his <i>Rule and Exercises of
+Holy Living and of Holy Dying</i>, and his <i>Golden Grove</i>, are devotional
+works, well known to modern Christians of all denominations. He has been
+praised alike by Roman Catholic divines and many Protestant Christians not
+of the Anglican Church. There is in all his writings a splendor of
+imagery, combined with harmony of style, and <a id="p224" />wonderful variety,
+readiness, and accuracy of scholarship. His quotations from the whole
+range of classic authors would furnish the Greek and Latin armory of any
+modern writer. What Shakspeare is in the Drama, Spenser in the Allegory,
+and Milton in the religious Epic, Taylor may claim to be in the field of
+purely religious literature. He died at Lisburn, in 1667.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch22-5"><span class="sc">Fuller.</span>&mdash;More quaint and eccentric than the writers just mentioned, but a
+rare representative of his age, stands Thomas Fuller. He was born in 1608;
+at the early age of twelve, he entered Cambridge, and, after completing
+his education, took orders. In 1631, he was appointed prebendary of
+Salisbury. Thence he removed to London in 1641, when the civil war was
+about to open. When the king left London, in 1642, Fuller preached a
+sermon in his favor, to the great indignation of the opposite party. Soon
+after, he was appointed to a chaplaincy in the royal army, and not only
+preached to the soldiers, but urged them forward in battle. In 1646 he
+returned to London, where he was permitted to preach, under
+<i>surveillance</i>, however. He seems to have succeeded in keeping out of
+trouble until the Restoration, when he was restored to his prebend. He did
+not enjoy it long, as he died in the next year, 1661. His writings are
+very numerous, and some of them are still read. Among these are <i>Good
+Thoughts in Bad Times, Good Thoughts in Worse Times</i>, and <i>Mixt
+Contemplations in Better Times</i>. The <i>bad</i> and <i>worse</i> times mark the
+progress of the civil war: the <i>better</i> times he finds in the Restoration.</p>
+
+<p>One of his most valuable works is <i>The Church History of Britain, from the
+birth of Christ to 1648</i>, in 11 books. Criticized as it has been for its
+puns and quibbles and its occasional caricatures, it contains rare
+descriptions and very vivid stories of the important ecclesiastical eras
+in England.</p>
+
+<p>Another book containing important information is his <a id="p225" /><i>History of the
+Worthies of England</i>, a posthumous work, published by his son the year
+after his death. It contains accounts of eminent Englishmen in different
+countries; and while there are many errors which he would perhaps have
+corrected, it is full of odd and interesting information not to be found
+collated in any other book.</p>
+
+<p>Representing and chronicling the age as he does, he has perhaps more
+individuality than any writer of his time, and this gives a special
+interest to his works.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch22-6"><span class="sc">Sir Thomas Browne.</span>&mdash;Classed among theological writers, but not a
+clergyman, Sir Thomas Browne is noted for the peculiarity of his subjects,
+and his diction. He was born in 1605, and was educated at Oxford. He
+studied medicine, and became a practising physician. He travelled on the
+continent, and returning to England in 1633, he began to write his most
+important work, <i>Religio Medici</i>, at once a transcript of his own life and
+a manifesto of what the religion of a physician should be. It was kept in
+manuscript for some time, but was published without his knowledge in 1642.
+He then revised the work, and published several editions himself. No
+description of the treatise can give the reader a just idea of it; it
+requires perusal. The criticism of Dr. Johnson is terse and just: it is
+remarkable, he says, for &quot;the novelty of paradoxes, the dignity of
+sentiment, the quick succession of images, the multitude of abstruse
+allusions, the subtilty of disquisition, and the strength of language.&quot; As
+the portraiture of an inner life, it is admirable; and the accusation of
+heterodoxy brought against him on account of a few careless passages is
+unjust.</p>
+
+<p>Among his other works are <i>Essays on Vulgar Errors</i> (<i>Pseudoxia
+Epidemica</i>), and <i>Hydriotaphica</i> or <i>Urne burial</i>; the latter suggested by
+the exhumation of some sepulchral remains in Norfolk, which led him to
+treat with great learning of the funeral rites of all nations. To this he
+afterwards added <i>The<a id="p226" /> Garden of Cyrus, or The Quincunxial Lozenge</i>, in
+which, in the language of Coleridge, he finds quincunxes &quot;in heaven above,
+in the earth below, in the mind of man, in tones, optic nerves, in the
+roots of trees, in leaves, in everything.&quot; He died in 1682.</p>
+
+<p>Numerous sects, all finding doctrine and forms in the Bible, were the
+issue of the religious and political controversies of the day. Without
+entering into a consideration or even an enumeration of these, we now
+mention a few of the principal names among them.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch22-7"><span class="sc">Richard Baxter.</span>&mdash;Among the most devout, independent, and popular of the
+religious writers of the day, Richard Baxter occupies a high rank. He was
+born in 1615, and was ordained a clergyman in 1638. In the civil troubles
+he desired to remain neutral, and he opposed Cromwell when he was made
+Protector. In 1662 he left the Church, and was soon the subject of
+persecution: he was always the champion of toleration. In prison, poor,
+hunted about from place to place, he was a martyr in spirit. During his
+great earthly troubles he was solaced by a vision, which he embodied in
+his popular work, <i>The Saints' Everlasting Rest</i>; and he wrote with great
+fervor <i>A Call to the Unconverted</i>. He was a very voluminous writer; the
+brutal Judge Jeffries, before whom he appeared for trial, called him &quot;an
+old knave, who had written books enough to load a cart.&quot; He wrote a
+paraphrase of the New Testament, and numerous discourses. Dr. Johnson
+advised Boswell, when speaking of Baxter's works: &quot;Read any of them; they
+are all good.&quot; He continued preaching until the close of his life, and
+died peacefully in 1691.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch22-8"><span class="sc">George Fox.</span>&mdash;The founder of the Society of Friends was born in 1624, in an
+humble condition of life, and at an early age was apprenticed to a
+shoemaker and grazier. Uneducated and unknown, he considered himself as
+the subject of special <a id="p227" />religious providence, and at length as
+supernaturally called of God. Suddenly abandoning his servile occupation,
+he came out in 1647, at the age of twenty-three, as the founder of a new
+sect; an itinerant preacher, he rebuked the multitudes which he assembled
+by his fervent words. Much of his success was due to his earnestness and
+self-abnegation. He preached in all parts of England, and visited the
+American colonies. The name Quaker is said to have been applied to this
+sect in 1650, when Fox, arraigned before Judge Bennet, told him to
+&quot;tremble at the word of the Lord.&quot; The establishment of this sect by such
+a man is one of the strongest illustrations of the eager religious inquiry
+of the age.</p>
+
+<p>The works of Fox are a very valuable <i>Journal of his Life and Travels</i>;
+<i>Letters and Testimonies</i>; <i>Gospel Truth Demonstrated</i>,&mdash;all of which form
+the best statement of the origin and tenets of his sect. Fox was a solemn,
+reverent, absorbed man; a great reader and fluent expounder of the
+Scriptures, but fanatical and superstitious; a believer in witchcraft, and
+in his power to detect witches. The sect which he founded, and which has
+played so respectable a part in later history, is far more important than
+the founder himself. He died in London in 1690.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec"><span class="sc">William Penn.</span>&mdash;The fame of Fox in America has been eclipsed by that of his
+chief convert William Penn. In an historical or biographical work, the
+life of Penn would demand extended mention; but his name is introduced
+here only as one of the theological writers of the day. He was born in
+1644, and while a student at Oxford was converted to the Friends' doctrine
+by the preaching of Thomas Loe, a colleague of George Fox. The son of
+Admiral Sir William Penn, he was the ward of James II., and afterwards
+Lord Proprietary and founder of Pennsylvania. Persecuted for his tenets,
+he was frequently imprisoned for his preaching and writings. In 1668 he
+wrote <i>Truth Exalted</i> and <i>The Sandy <a id="p228" />Foundation</i>, and when imprisoned for
+these, he wrote in jail his most famous work, <i>No Cross, no Crown</i>.</p>
+
+<p>After the expulsion of James II., Penn was repeatedly tried and acquitted
+for alleged attempts to aid the king in recovering his throne. The
+malignity of Lord Macaulay has reproduced the charges, but reversed, most
+unjustly, the acquittals. His record occupies a large space in American
+history, and he is reverenced for having established a great colony on the
+basis of brotherly love. Poor and infirm, he died in 1718.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec"><span class="sc">Robert Barclay</span>, who was born in 1648, is only mentioned in this connection
+on account of his Latin apology for the Quakers, written in 1676, and
+translated since into English.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch22-9"><span class="sc">John Bunyan.</span>&mdash;Among the curious religious outcroppings of the civil war,
+none is more striking and singular than John Bunyan. He produced a work of
+a decidedly polemical character, setting forth his peculiar doctrines,
+and&mdash;a remarkable feature in the course of English literature&mdash;a story so
+interesting and vivid that it has met with universal perusal and
+admiration. It is at the same time an allegory which has not its equal in
+the language. Rhetoricians must always mention the Pilgrim's Progress as
+the most splendid example of the allegory.</p>
+
+<p>Bunyan was born in Elston, Bedfordshire, in 1628. The son of a tinker, his
+childhood and early manhood were idle and vicious. A sudden and sharp
+rebuke from a woman not much better than himself, for his blasphemy, set
+him to thinking, and he soon became a changed man. In 1653 he joined the
+Baptists, and soon, without preparation, began to preach. For this he was
+thrown into jail, where he remained for more than twelve years. It was
+during this period that, with no other books than the Bible and Fox's Book
+of Martyrs, he excogitated his allegory. In 1672 he was released <a id="p229" />through
+the influence of Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln. He immediately began to
+preach, and continued to do so until 1688, when he died from a fever
+brought on by exposure.</p>
+
+<p>In his first work, <i>Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners</i>, he gives us
+his own experience,&mdash;fearful dreams of early childhood, his sins and
+warnings in the parliamentary army, with divers temptations, falls, and
+struggles.</p>
+
+<p>Of his great work, <i>The Pilgrim's Progress</i>, it is hardly necessary to
+speak at length. The story of the Pilgrim, Christian, is known to all
+English readers, large and little; how he left the City of Destruction,
+and journeyed towards the Celestial City; of his thrilling adventures; of
+the men and things that retarded his progress, and of those who helped him
+forward. No one has ever discoursed with such vivid description and
+touching pathos of the Land of Beulah, the Delectable Mountains, the
+Christian's inward rapture at the glimpse of the Celestial City, and his
+faith-sustaining descent into the Valley of the Shadow of Death! As a work
+of art, it is inimitable; as a book of religious instruction, it is more
+to be admired for sentiment than for logic; its influence upon children is
+rather that of a high-wrought romance than of godly precept. It is a
+curious reproduction, with a slight difference in cast, of the morality
+play of an earlier time. Mercy, Piety, Christian, Hopeful, Greatheart,
+Faithful, are representatives of Christian graces; and, as in the
+morality, the Prince of Darkness figures as Apollyon.</p>
+
+<p>Bunyan also wrote <i>The Holy War</i>, an allegory, which describes the contest
+between Immanuel and Diabolus for the conquest of the city of Mansoul.
+This does not by any means share the popularity of <i>The Pilgrim's
+Progress</i>. The language of all his works is common and idiomatic, but
+precise and strong: it is the vigorous English of an unpretending man,
+without the graces of the schools, but expressing his meaning with
+remarkable clearness. Like Milton's Paradise Lost, Bunyan's allegory has
+been improperly placed by many<a id="p230" /> persons on a par with the Bible as a body
+of Christian doctrine, and for instruction in righteousness.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch22-10"><span class="sc">Robert South.</span>&mdash;This eccentric clergyman was born in 1633. While king's
+scholar at Dr. Busby's school in London, he led the devotions on the day
+of King Charles' execution, and prayed for his majesty by name. At first a
+Puritan, he became a churchman, and took orders. He was learned and
+eloquent; but his sermons, which were greatly admired at the time, contain
+many oddities, forced conceits, and singular anti-climaxes, which gained
+for him the appellation of the witty churchman.</p>
+
+<p>He is accused of having been too subservient to Charles II.; and he also
+is considered as displaying not a little vindictiveness in his attacks on
+his former colleagues the Puritans. He is only known to this age by his
+sermons, which are still published and read.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch22-11">Other Theological Writers.</h4>
+
+
+<p><i>Isaac Barrow</i>, 1630-1677: a man of varied learning, a traveller in the
+East, and an oriental scholar. He was appointed Professor of Greek at
+Cambridge, and also lectured on Mathematics. He was a profound thinker and
+a weighty writer, principally known by his courses of sermons on the
+Decalogue, the Creed, and the Sacraments.</p>
+
+<p><i>Edward Stillingfleet</i>, 1635-1699: a clergyman of the Church of England,
+he was appointed Bishop of Worcester. Many of his sermons have been
+published. Among his treatises is one entitled, <i>Irenicum, a Weapon-Salve
+for the Churches Wounds, or the Divine Right of Particular Forms of Church
+Government Discussed and Examined</i>. &quot;The argument,&quot; says Bishop Burnet,
+&quot;was managed with so much learning and skill that none of either side ever
+undertook to answer it.&quot; He also wrote <i>Origines Sacr&aelig;, or a Rational
+Account of the Christian Faith</i>, and various treatises in favor of
+Protestantism and against the Church of Rome.</p>
+
+<p><i>William Sherlock</i>, 1678-1761: he was Dean of St. Paul's, and a writer of
+numerous doctrinal discourses, among which are those on <i>The Trinity</i>, and
+on <i>Death and the Future Judgment</i>. His son, Thomas<a id="p231" /> Sherlock, D.D., born
+1678, was also a distinguished theological writer.</p>
+
+<p><i>Gilbert Burnet</i>, 1643-1715: he was very much of a politician, and played
+a prominent part in the Revolution. He was made Bishop of Salisbury in
+1689. He is principally known by his <i>History of the Reformation</i>, written
+in the Protestant interest, and by his greater work, the <i>History of my
+Own Times</i>. Not without a decided bias, this latter work is specially
+valuable as the narration of an eye-witness. The history has been
+variously criticized for prejudice and inaccuracy; but it fills what would
+otherwise have been a great vacuum in English historical literature.</p>
+
+<p><i>John Locke</i>, 1632-1704. In a history of philosophy, the name of this
+distinguished philosopher would occupy a prominent place, and his works
+would require extended notice. But it is not amiss to introduce him
+briefly in this connection, because his works all have an ethical
+significance. He was educated as a physician, and occupied several
+official positions, in which he suffered from the vicissitudes of
+political fortune, being once obliged to retreat from persecution to
+Holland. His <i>Letters on Toleration</i> is a noble effort to secure the
+freedom of conscience: his <i>Treatises on Civil Government</i> were specially
+designed to refute Sir John Filmer's <i>Patriarcha</i>, and to overthrow the
+principle of the <i>Jus Divinum</i>. His greatest work is an <i>Essay on the
+Human Understanding</i>. This marks an era in English thought, and has done
+much to invite attention to the subject of intellectual philosophy. He
+derives our ideas from the two sources, <i>sensation</i> and <i>reflection</i>; and
+although many of his views have been superseded by the investigations of
+later philosophers, it is due to him in some degree that their inquiries
+have been possible.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4>Diarists and Antiquarians.</h4>
+
+
+<p><i>John Evelyn</i>, 1620-1705. Among the unintentional historians of England,
+none are of more value than those who have left detailed and gossiping
+diaries of the times in which they lived: among these Evelyn occupies a
+prominent place. He was a gentleman of education and position, who, after
+the study of law, travelled extensively, and resided several years in
+France. He had varied accomplishments. His <i>Sylva</i> is a discourse on
+forest trees and on the propagation of timber in his majesty's dominions.
+To this he afterwards added <i>Pomona</i>, or a treatise on fruit trees. He was
+also the author of an essay on <i>A Parallel of the Ancient Architecture
+with the Modern</i>. But the work by which he is now best known is his
+<i>Diary</i> from 1641 to 1705; it is a necessary <a id="p232" />companion to the study of
+the history of that period; and has been largely consulted by modern
+writers in making up the historic record of the time.</p>
+
+<p><i>Samuel Pepys</i>, 1637-1703. This famous diarist was the son of a London
+tailor. He received a collegiate education, and became a connoisseur in
+literature and art. Of a prying disposition, he saw all that he could of
+the varied political, literary, and social life of England; and has
+recorded what he saw in a diary so quaint, simple, and amusing, that it
+has retained its popularity to the present day, and has greatly aided the
+historian both in facts and philosophy. He held an official position as
+secretary in the admiralty, the duties of which he discharged with great
+system and skill. In addition to this <i>Diary</i>, we have also his
+<i>Correspondence</i>, published after his death, which is historically of
+great importance. In both diary and correspondence he has the charm of
+great <i>na&iuml;vet&eacute;</i>,&mdash;as of a curious and gossiping observer, who never
+dreamed that his writings would be made public. Men and women of social
+station are painted in pre-Raphaelite style, and figure before us with
+great truth and vividness.</p>
+
+<p><i>Elias Ashmole</i>, 1617-1693. This antiquarian and virtuoso is principally
+known as the founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. He studied law,
+chemistry, and natural philosophy. Besides an edition of the manuscript
+works of certain English chemists, he wrote <i>Bennevennu</i>,&mdash;the description
+of a Roman road mentioned in the Itinerary of Antoninus,&mdash;and a <i>History
+of the Order of the Garter</i>. His <i>Diary</i> was published nearly a century
+after his death, but is by no means equal in value to those of Evelyn and
+Pepys.</p>
+
+<p><i>John Aubrey</i>, 1627-1697: a man of curious mind, Aubrey investigated the
+supernatural topics of the day, and presented them to the world in his
+<i>Miscellanies</i>. Among these subjects it is interesting to notice &quot;blows
+invisible,&quot; and &quot;knockings,&quot; which have been resuscitated in the present
+day. He was a &quot;perambulator,&quot; and, in the words of one of his critics,
+&quot;picked up information on the highway, and scattered it everywhere as
+authentic.&quot; His most valuable contribution to history is found in his
+<i>Letters Written by Eminent Persons in the 17th and 18th Centuries, with
+Lives of Eminent Men</i>. The searcher for authentic material must carefully
+scrutinize Aubrey's <i>facts</i>; but, with much that is doubtful, valuable
+information may be obtained from his pages.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch23">
+<h2 id="p233">Chapter XXIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Drama of the Restoration.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch23-1">The License of the Age</a>. <a href="#ch23-2">Dryden</a>. <a href="#ch23-3">Wycherley</a>. <a href="#ch23-4">Congreve</a>. <a href="#ch23-5">Vanbrugh</a>.
+   <a href="#ch23-6">Farquhar</a>. <a href="#ch23-7">Etherege</a>. <a href="#ch23-8">Tragedy</a>. <a href="#ch23-9">Otway</a>. <a href="#ch23-10">Rowe</a>. <a href="#ch23-11">Lee</a>. <a href="#ch23-12">Southern</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch23-1">The License of the Age.</h4>
+
+
+<p>There is no portion of the literature of this period which so fully
+represents and explains the social history of the age as the drama. With
+the restoration of Charles it returned to England, after a time in which
+the chief faults had been too great rigor in morals. The theatres had been
+closed, all amusements checked, and even poetry and the fine arts placed
+under a ban. In the reign of Charles I., Prynne had written his <i>Histrio
+Mastix</i>, or Scourge of the Stage, in which he not only denounced all stage
+plays, but music and dancing; and also declaimed against hunting, festival
+days, the celebration of Christmas, and Maypoles. For this he was indicted
+in the Star Chamber for libel, and was sentenced to stand in the pillory,
+to lose his ears, to pay the king a fine of &pound;5000, and to be imprisoned
+for life. For his attack there was much excuse in the license of the
+former period; but when puritanism, in its turn, was brought under the
+three spears, the drama was to come back tenfold more injurious and more
+immoral than before.</p>
+
+<p>From the stern and gloomy morals of the Commonwealth we now turn to the
+debaucheries of the court,&mdash;from cropped <a id="p234" />heads and dark cloaks to plumes
+and velvet, gold lace and embroidery,&mdash;to the varied fashions of every
+kind for which Paris has always been renowned, and which Charles brought
+back with him from his exile;&mdash;from prudish morals to indiscriminate
+debauchery; from the exercisings of brewers' clerks, the expounding of
+tailors, the catechizing of watermen, to the stage, which was now loudly
+petitioned to supply amusement and novelty. Macaulay justly says: &quot;The
+restraints of that gloomy time were such as would have been impatiently
+borne, if imposed by men who were universally believed to be saints; these
+restraints became altogether insupportable when they were known to be kept
+up for the profit of hypocrites! It is quite certain that if the royal
+family had never returned, there would have been a great relaxation of
+manners.&quot; It is equally certain, let us add, that morals would not have
+been correspondingly relaxed. The revulsion was terrible. In no period of
+English history was society ever so grossly immoral; and the drama, which
+we now come to consider, displays this immorality and license with a
+perfect delineation.</p>
+
+<p>The English people had always been fond of the drama in all its forms, and
+were ready to receive it even contaminated as it was by the licentious
+spirit of the time. An illiterate and ignorant people cannot think for
+themselves; they act upon the precepts and example of those above them in
+knowledge and social station: thus it is that a dissolute monarch and a
+subservient aristocracy corrupt the masses.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch23-2"><span class="sc">Dryden's Plays.</span>&mdash;Although Dryden's reputation is based on his other poems,
+and although his dramas have conduced scarcely at all to his fame, he did
+play a principal part in this department of literary work. Dryden made
+haste to answer the call, and his venal muse wrote to please the town. The
+names of many of his plays and personages are foreign; but their vitality
+is purely English. Of his first play, <i>The Duke of Guise</i>, which was
+unsuccessful, he tells us: &quot;I undertook this <a id="p235" />as the fairest way which the
+Act of Indemnity had left us, as setting forth the rise of the great
+rebellion, and of exposing the villanies of it upon the stage, to
+precaution posterity against the like errors;&quot;&mdash;a rebellion the
+master-spirit of which he had eulogized upon his bier!</p>
+
+<p>His second play, <i>The Wild Gallant</i>, may be judged by the fact that it won
+for him the favor of Charles II. and of his mistress, the Duchess of
+Cleveland. Pepys saw it &quot;well acted;&quot; but says, &quot;It hath little good in
+it.&quot; It is not our purpose to give a list of Dryden's plays; besides their
+occasional lewdness, they are very far inferior to his poems, and are now
+rarely read except by the historical student. They paid him in ready
+money, and he cannot ask payment from posterity in fame.</p>
+
+<p>On the 13th of January, 1667-8, (we are told by Pepys,) the ladies and the
+Duke of Monmouth acted <i>The Indian Emperour</i> at court.</p>
+
+<p>The same chronicler says: <i>The Maiden Queene</i> was &quot;mightily commended for
+the regularity of it, and the strain and wit;&quot; but of the <i>Ladys &agrave; la
+Mode</i> he says it was &quot;so mean a thing&quot; that, when it was announced for the
+next night, the pit &quot;fell a laughing, because the house was not a quarter
+full.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But Dryden, as a playwright, does not enjoy the infamous honor of a high
+rank among his fellow-dramatists. The proper representations of the drama
+in that age were, in Comedy, Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar;
+and, in Tragedy, Otway, Rowe, and Lee.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch23-3"><span class="sc">Wycherley.</span>&mdash;Of the comedists of this period, where all were evil, William
+Wycherley was the worst. In his four plays, <i>Love in a Wood</i>, <i>The
+Gentleman Dancing-Master</i>, <i>The Country Wife</i>, and <i>The Plain Dealer</i>, he
+outrages all decency, ridicules honesty and virtue, and makes vice always
+triumphant. As a young man, profligate with pen and in his life, he<a id="p236" /> was a
+wicked old man; for, when sixty-four years of age, he published a
+miscellany of verses of which Macaulay says: &quot;The style and versification
+are beneath criticism: the morals are those of Rochester.&quot; And yet it is
+sad to be obliged to say that his characters pleased the age, because such
+men and women really lived then, and acted just as he describes them. He
+depicted vice to applaud and not to punish it. Wycherley was born in 1640,
+and died in 1715.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch23-4"><span class="sc">Congreve.</span>&mdash;William Congreve, who is of the same school of morals, is far
+superior as a writer; indeed, were one name to be selected in illustration
+of our subject, it would be his. He was born in 1666, and, after being
+educated at Trinity College, Dublin, was a student at the Middle Temple.
+His first play, <i>The Old Bachelor</i>, produced in his twenty-first year, was
+a great success, and won for him the patronage of Lord Halifax. His next,
+<i>The Double Dealer</i>, caused Dryden to proclaim him the equal of
+Shakspeare! Perhaps his most famous comedy is <i>Love for Love</i>, which is
+besides an excellent index to the morality of the age. The author was
+quoted and caressed; Pope dedicated to him his Translation of the Iliad;
+and Voltaire considered him the most successful English writer of comedy.
+His merit consists in some degree of originality, and in the liveliness of
+his colloquies. His wit is brilliant and flashing, but, in the words of
+Thackeray, the world to him &quot;seems to have had no moral at all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>How much he owed to the French school, and especially to Moli&egrave;re, may be
+judged from the fact that a whole scene in <i>Love for Love</i> is borrowed
+from the <i>Don Juan</i> of Moli&egrave;re. It is that in which Trapland comes to
+collect his debt from Valentine Legend. Readers of Moli&egrave;re will recall the
+scene between Don Juan, Sganarelle and M. Dimanche, which is here, with
+change of names, taken almost word for word. His men are gallants neither
+from love or passion, but from the custom of the age, of which it is said,
+&quot;it would break<a id="p237" /> Mr. Tattle's heart to think anybody else should be
+beforehand with him;&quot; and Mr. Tattle was the type of a thousand fine
+gentlemen in the best English society of that day.</p>
+
+<p>His only tragedy, <i>The Mourning Bride</i>, although far below those of
+Shakspeare, is the best of that age; and Dr. Johnson says he would go to
+it to find the most poetical paragraph in the range of English poetry.
+Congreve died in 1729, leaving his gains to the Duchess of Marlborough,
+who cherished his memory in a very original fashion. She had a statue of
+him in ivory, which went by clockwork, and was daily seated at her table;
+and another wax-doll imitation, whose feet she caused to be blistered and
+anointed by physicians, as the poet's gouty extremities had been.</p>
+
+<p>Congreve was not ashamed to vindicate the drama, licentious as it was. In
+the year 1698, Jeremy Collier, a distinguished nonjuring clergyman,
+published <i>A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English
+Stage</i>; a very vigorous and severe criticism, containing a great deal of
+wholesome but bitter truth. Congreve came to the defence of the stage, and
+his example was followed by his brother dramatists. But Collier was too
+strong for his enemies, and the defences were very weak. There yet existed
+in England that leaven of purity which has steadily since been making its
+influence felt.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch23-5"><span class="sc">Vanbrugh.</span>&mdash;Sir John Vanbrugh (born in 1666, died in 1726) was an architect
+as well as a dramatist, but not great in either r&ocirc;le. His principal dramas
+are <i>The Provoked Wife</i>, <i>The City Wives' Confederacy</i>, and <i>The Journey
+to London</i> (finished by Colley Cibber). His personages are vicious and
+lewd, but quite real; and his wit is constant and flowing. <i>The Provoked
+Wife</i> is so licentious a play that it is supposed Vanbrugh afterwards
+conceived and began his <i>Provoked Husband</i> to make some amends for it.
+This latter play, however, he did not complete: it was finished after his
+death by Cibber, who says in the Prologue:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    <a id="p238" />This play took birth from principles of truth,<br />
+    To make amends for errors past of youth.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>    Though vice is natural, 't was never meant<br />
+    The stage should show it but for punishment.<br />
+    Warm with such thoughts, his muse once more took flame,<br />
+    Resolved to bring licentious life to shame.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>If Vanbrugh was not born in France, it is certain that he spent many years
+there, and there acquired the taste and handling of the comic drama, which
+then had its halcyon days under Moli&egrave;re. His dialogue is very spirited,
+and his humor is greater than that of Congreve, who, however, excelled him
+in wit.</p>
+
+<p>The principal architectural efforts of Vanbrugh were the design for Castle
+Howard, and the palace of Blenheim, built for Marlborough by the English
+nation, both of which are greater titles to enduring reputation than any
+of his plays.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch23-6"><span class="sc">Farquhar.</span>&mdash;George Farquhar was born in Londonderry, in 1678, and began his
+studies at Trinity College, Dublin, but was soon stage-struck, and became
+an actor. Not long after, he was commissioned in the army, and began to
+write plays in the style and moral tone of the age. Among his nine
+comedies, those which present that tone best are his <i>Love in a Bottle</i>,
+<i>The Constant Couple</i>, <i>The Recruiting Officer</i>, and <i>The Beaux'
+Stratagem</i>. All his productions were hastily written, but met with great
+success from their gayety and clever plots, especially the last two
+mentioned, which are not, besides, so immoral as the others, and which are
+yet acted upon the British stage.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch23-7"><span class="sc">Etherege.</span>&mdash;Sir George Etherege, a coxcomb and a diplomatist, was born in
+1636, and died in 1694. His plays are, equally with the others mentioned,
+marked by the licentiousness of the age, which is rendered more insidious
+by their <a id="p239" />elegance. Among them are <i>The Comical Revenge, or Love in a
+Tub</i>, and <i>The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch23-8">Tragedy.</h4>
+
+
+<p>The domain of tragedy, although perhaps not so attractive to the English
+people as comedy, was still sufficiently so to invite the attention of the
+literati. The excitement which is produced by exaggerated scenes of
+distress and death has always had a charm for the multitude; and although
+the principal tragedies of this period are based upon heroic stories, many
+of them of classic origin, the genius of the writer displayed itself in
+applying these to his own times, and in introducing that &quot;touch of nature&quot;
+which &quot;makes the whole world kin.&quot; Human sympathy is based upon a
+community of suffering, and the sorrows of one age are similar to those of
+another. Besides, tragedy served, in the period of which we are speaking,
+to give variety and contrast to what would otherwise have been the gay
+monotony of the comic muse.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch23-9"><span class="sc">Otway.</span>&mdash;The first writer to be mentioned in this field, is Thomas Otway
+(born in 1651, died in 1685). He led an irregular and wretched life, and
+died, it is said, from being choked by a roll of bread which, after great
+want, he was eating too ravenously.</p>
+
+<p>His style is extravagant, his pathos too exacting, and his delineation of
+the passions sensational and overwrought. He produced in his earlier
+career <i>Alcibiades</i> and <i>Don Carlos</i>, and, later, <i>The Orphan</i>, and <i>The
+Soldier's Fortune</i>. But the piece by which his fame was secured is <i>Venice
+Preserved</i>, which, based upon history, is fictional in its details. The
+original story is found in the Abb&eacute; de St. Real's <i>Histoire de la
+Conjuration du Marquis de Bedamar</i>, or the account of a Spanish conspiracy
+in which the marquis, who was ambassador, took part. It is still put upon
+the stage, with the omission, however, of the licentious comic portions
+found in the original play.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch23-10"><a id="p240" /><span class="sc">Nicholas Rowe</span>, who was born in 1673, a man of fortune and a government
+official, produced seven tragedies, of which <i>The Fair Penitent</i>, <i>Lady
+Jane Grey</i>, and <i>Jane Shore</i> are the best. His description of the lover,
+in the first, has become a current phrase: &quot;That haughty, gallant, gay
+Lothario,&quot;&mdash;the prototype of false lovers since. The plots are too broad,
+but the moral of these tragedies is in most cases good.</p>
+
+<p>In <i>Jane Shore</i>, he has followed the history of the royal mistress, and
+has given a moral lesson of great efficacy.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch23-11"><span class="sc">Nathaniel Lee</span>, 1657-1692: was a man of dissolute life, for some time
+insane, and met his death in a drunken brawl. Of his ten tragedies, the
+best are <i>The Rival Queens</i>, and <i>Theodosius, or The Force of Love</i>. The
+rival queens of Alexander the Great&mdash;Roxana and Statira&mdash;figure in the
+first, which is still presented upon the stage. It has been called, with
+just critical point, &quot;A great and glorious flight of a bold but frenzied
+imagination, having as much absurdity as sublimity, and as much
+extravagance as passion; the poet, the genius, the scholar are everywhere
+visible.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch23-12"><span class="sc">Thomas Southern</span>, 1659-1746: wrote <i>Isabella, or The Fatal Marriage</i>, and
+<i>Oronooko</i>. In the latter, although yielding to the corrupt taste of the
+time in his comic parts, he causes his captive Indian prince to teach that
+period a lesson by his pure and noble love for Imoinda. Oronooko is a
+prince taken by the English at Surinam and carried captive to England.</p>
+
+<p>These writers are the best representatives of those who in tragedy and
+comedy form the staple of that age. Their models were copied in succeeding
+years; but, with the expulsion of the Stuarts, morals were somewhat
+mended; and while light, gay, and witty productions for the stage were
+still in demand, the extreme licentiousness was repudiated by the public;
+and the plays of Cibber, Cumberland, Colman, and Sheridan, reflecting
+these better tastes, are free from much of the pollution to which we have
+referred.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 id="p241">Chapter XXIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>Pope, and the Artificial School.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch24-1">Contemporary History</a>. <a href="#ch24-2">Birth and Early Life</a>. <a href="#ch24-3">Essay on Criticism</a>. <a href="#ch24-4">Rape of
+   the Lock</a>. <a href="#ch24-5">The Messiah</a>. <a href="#ch24-6">The Iliad</a>. <a href="#ch24-7">Value of the Translation</a>. <a href="#ch24-8">The
+   Odyssey</a>. <a href="#ch24-9">Essay on Man</a>. <a href="#ch24-10">The Artificial School</a>. <a href="#ch24-11">Estimate of Pope</a>. <a href="#ch24-12">Other
+   Writers</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<p>Alexander Pope is at once one of the greatest names in English literature
+and one of the most remarkable illustrations of the fact that the
+literature is the interpreter of English history. He was also a man of
+singular individuality, and may, in some respects, be considered a <i>lusus
+natur&aelig;</i> among the literary men of his day.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch24-1"><span class="sc">Contemporary History.</span>&mdash;He was born in London on the 21st of May, 1688, the
+year which witnessed the second and final expulsion of the Stuarts, in
+direct line, and the accession of a younger branch in the persons of Mary
+and her husband, William of Orange. Pope comes upon the literary scene
+with the new order of political affairs. A dynasty had been overthrown,
+and the power of the parliament had been established; new charters of
+right had secured the people from kingly oppression; but there was still a
+strong element of opposition and sedition in the Jacobite party, which had
+by no means abandoned the hope of restoring the former rule. They were
+kept in check, indeed, during the reign of William and Mary, but they
+became bolder upon the accession of Queen Anne. They hoped to find their
+efforts facilitated by the fact that she was childless; and they even
+asserted that upon her death-bed she had favored the succession of the
+pretender, whom they called James III.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p242" />In 1715, the year after the accession of George I., the electoral prince
+of Hanover,&mdash;whose grandmother was the daughter of James I.,&mdash;they broke
+out into open rebellion. The pretender landed in Scotland, and made an
+abortive attempt to recover the throne. The nation was kept in a state of
+excitement and turmoil until the disaster of Culloden, and the final
+defeat of Charles Edward, the young pretender, in 1745, one year after the
+death of Pope.</p>
+
+<p>These historical facts had a direct influence upon English society: the
+country was divided into factions; and political conflicts sharpened the
+wits and gave vigor to the conduct of men in all ranks. Pope was an
+interpreter of his age, in politics, in general culture, and in social
+manners and morals. Thus he was a politician among the statesmen
+Bolingbroke, Buckingham, Oxford, Sunderland, Halifax, Harley, and
+Marlborough. His <i>Essay on Criticism</i> presents to us the artificial taste
+and technical rules which were established as a standard in literature.
+His <i>Essay on Man</i>, his <i>Moral Epistles</i>, and his <i>Universal Prayer</i> are
+an index to the semi-Christian, semi-Grecian ethics of an age too selfish
+to be orthodox, and too progressive to be intolerant. His <i>Rape of the
+Lock</i> is a striking picture of social life, sketched by the hand of a
+gentle satire. His translations of Homer, and their great success, are
+significant of a more extended taste for scholarship; not attended,
+however, with many incentives to originality of production. The nobles
+were still the patrons of literature, and they fancied old things which
+were grand, in new and gaudy English dresses. The age was also marked by
+rapid and uniform progress in the English language. The sonorous, but
+cumbrous English of Milton had been greatly improved by Dryden; and we
+have seen, also, that the terse and somewhat crude diction of Dryden's
+earlier works had been polished and rendered more harmonious in his later
+poems.</p>
+
+<p>This harmony of language seemed to Pope and to his<a id="p243" /> patrons the chief aim
+of the poet, and to make it still more tuneful and melodious was the
+purpose of his life.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch24-2"><span class="sc">Birth and Early Life.</span>&mdash;Pope was the son of a respectable linen-draper, who
+had achieved a competency and retired to enjoy it. The mother of the poet
+must have been a good one, to have retained the ardent and eulogistic
+affection of her son to the close of her life, as she did. This attachment
+is a marked feature in his biography, and at last finds vent in her
+epitaph, in which he calls her &quot;<i>mater optima, mulierum amantissima</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Pope was a sickly, dwarfed, precocious child. His early studies in Latin
+and Greek were conducted by priests of the Roman Catholic Church, to which
+his parents belonged; but he soon took his education into his own hands.
+Alone and unaided he pursued his classical studies, and made good progress
+in French and German.</p>
+
+<p>Of his early rhyming powers he says:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    &quot;I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.&quot;
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>At the age of twelve, he was taken to Will's Coffee-house, to see the
+great Dryden, upon whom, as a model, he had already determined to fashion
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>His first efforts were translations. He made English versions of the first
+book of the <i>Thebais</i> of Statius; several of the stories of Chaucer, and
+one of Ovid's Epistles, all of which were produced before he was fifteen.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch24-3"><span class="sc">Essay on Criticism.</span>&mdash;He was not quite twenty-one when he wrote his <i>Essay
+on Criticism</i>, in which he lays down the canons of just criticism, and the
+causes which prevent it. In illustration, he attacks the multitude of
+critics of that day, and is particularly harsh in his handling of a few
+among them. He gained a name by this excellent poem, but he made many
+enemies, and among them one John Dennis, whom he had <a id="p244" />satirized under the
+name of Appius. Dennis was his life-long foe.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps there is no better proof of the lasting and deserved popularity of
+this Essay, than the numerous quotations from it, not only in works on
+rhetoric and literary criticism, but in our ordinary intercourse with men.
+Couplets and lines have become household words wherever the English
+language is spoken. How often do we hear the sciolist condemned in these
+words:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    A little learning is a dangerous thing;<br />
+    Drink deep, or touch not the Pierian spring?
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Irreverence and rash speculation are satirized thus:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Nay, fly to altars; there they'll talk you dead,<br />
+    For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We may waive a special notice of his <i>Pastorals</i>, which, like those of
+Dryden, are but clever imitations of Theocritus and anachronisms of the
+Alexandrian period. Of their merits, we may judge from his own words. &quot;If
+they have any merit, it is to be attributed to some good old authors,
+whose works as I had leisure to study, so I hope I have not wanted care to
+imitate.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch24-4"><span class="sc">Rape of the Lock.</span>&mdash;The poem which displays most originality of invention
+is the <i>Rape of the Lock</i>. It is, perhaps, the best and most charming
+specimen of the mock-heroic to be found in English; and it is specially
+deserving of attention, because it depicts the social life of the period
+in one of its principal phases. Miss Arabella Fermor, one of the reigning
+beauties of London society, while on a pleasure party on the Thames, had a
+lock of her hair surreptitiously cut off by Lord Petre. Although it was
+designed as a joke, the belle was very angry; and Pope, who was a friend
+of both persons, wrote this poem to assuage her wrath and to reconcile
+them. It has all the system and construction of an epic. <a id="p245" />The poet
+describes, with becoming delicacy, the toilet of the lady, at which she is
+attended by obsequious sylphs.</p>
+
+<p>The party embark upon the river, and the fair lady is described in the
+splendor of her charms:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    This nymph, to the destruction of mankind,<br />
+    Nourished two locks, which graceful hung behind<br />
+    In equal curls, and well conspired to deck,<br />
+    With shining ringlets, the smooth, ivory neck.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>    Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare.<br />
+    And beauty draws us by a single hair.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Surrounding sylphs protect the beauty; and one to whom the lock has been
+given in charge, flutters unfortunately too near, and is clipped in two by
+the scissors that cut the lock. It is a rather extravagant conclusion,
+even in a mock-heroic poem, that when the strife was greatest to restore
+the lock, it flew upward:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    A sudden star, it shot through liquid air,<br />
+    And drew behind a radiant trail of hair,
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>and thus, and always, it</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Adds new glory to the shining sphere.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>With these simple and meagre materials, Pope has constructed an harmonious
+poem in which the sylphs, gnomes, and other sprites of the Rosicrucian
+philosophy find appropriate place and service. It failed in its principal
+purpose of reconciliation, but it has given us the best mock-heroic poem
+in the language. As might have been expected, it called forth bitter
+criticisms from Dennis; and there were not wanting those who saw in it a
+political significance. Pope's pleasantry was aroused at this, and he
+published <i>A Key to the Lock</i>, in which he further mystifies these sage
+readers: Belinda becomes Great Britain; the Baron is the Earl of Oxford;
+and Thalestris is the Duchess of Marlborough.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch24-5"><a id="p246" /><span class="sc">The Messiah.</span>&mdash;In 1712 there appeared in one of the numbers of <i>The
+Spectator</i>, his <i>Messiah, a Sacred Eclogue</i>, written with the purpose of
+harmonizing the prophecy of Isaiah and the singular oracles of the Pollio,
+or Fourth Eclogue of Virgil. Elevated in thought and grand in diction, the
+Messiah has kept its hold upon public favor ever since, and portions of it
+are used as hymns in general worship. Among these will be recognized that
+of which the opening lines are:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise;<br />
+    Exalt thy towering head and lift thine eyes.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In 1713 he published a poem on <i>Windsor Forest</i>, and an <i>Ode on St.
+Cecilia's Day</i>, in imitation of Dryden. He also furnished the beautiful
+prologue to Addison's Cato.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch24-6"><span class="sc">Translation of the Iliad.</span>&mdash;He now proposed to himself a task which was to
+give him more reputation and far greater emolument than anything he had
+yet accomplished&mdash;a translation of the Iliad of Homer. This was a great
+desideratum, and men of all parties conspired to encourage and reward him.
+Chapman's Homer, excellent as it was, was not in a popular measure, and
+was known only to scholars.</p>
+
+<p>In the execution of this project, Pope labored for six years&mdash;writing by
+day and dreaming of his work at night; translating thirty or forty lines
+before rising in the morning, and jotting down portions even while on a
+journey. Pope's polished pentameters, when read, are very unlike the
+full-voiced hexameters of Homer; but the errors in the translation are
+comparatively few and unimportant, and his own poetry is in his best vein.
+The poem was published by subscription, and was a great pecuniary success.
+This was in part due to the blunt importunity of Dean Swift, who said:
+&quot;The author shall not begin to print until I have a thousand guineas for
+him.&quot; Parnell, one of the most accomplished Greek scholars of the day,
+wrote a life of Homer, to be pre<a id="p247" />fixed to the work; and many of the
+critical notes were written by Broome, who had translated the Iliad into
+English prose. Pope was not without poetical rivals. Tickell produced a
+translation of the first book of the Iliad, which was certainly revised,
+and many thought partly written, by Addison. A coolness already existing
+between Pope and Addison was increased by this circumstance, which soon
+led to an open rupture between them. The public, however, favored Pope's
+version, while a few of the <i>dilettanti</i> joined Addison in preferring
+Tickell's.</p>
+
+<p>The pecuniary results of Pope's labors were particularly gratifying. The
+work was published in six quarto volumes, and had more than six hundred
+subscribers, at six guineas a copy: the amount realized by Pope on the
+first and subsequent issues was upwards of five thousand pounds&mdash;an
+unprecedented payment of bookseller to author in that day.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch24-7"><span class="sc">Value of the Translation.</span>&mdash;This work, in spite of the criticism of exact
+scholars, has retained its popularity to the present time. Chapman's Homer
+has been already referred to. Since the days of Pope numerous authors have
+tried their hands upon Homer, translating the whole or a part. Among these
+is a very fine poem by Cowper, in blank verse, which is praised by the
+critics, but little read. Lord Derby's translation is distinguished for
+its prosaic accuracy. The recent version of our venerable poet, Wm. C.
+Bryant, is acknowledged to be at once scholarly, accurate, and harmonious,
+and will be of permanent value and reputation. But the exquisite tinkling
+of Pope's lines, the pleasant refrain they leave in the memory, like the
+chiming of silver bells, will cause them to last, with undiminished favor,
+unaffected by more correct rivals, as long as the language itself. &quot;A very
+pretty poem, Mr. Pope,&quot; said the great Bentley; &quot;but pray do not call it
+Homer.&quot; Despite this criticism of the Greek scholar, the world has taken<a id="p248" />
+it for Homer, and knows Homer almost solely through this charming medium.</p>
+
+<p>The Iliad was issued in successive years, the last two volumes appearing
+in 1720. Of course it was savagely attacked by Dennis; but Pope had won
+more than he had hoped for, and might laugh at his enemies.</p>
+
+<p>With the means he had inherited, increased by the sale of his poem, Pope
+leased a villa on the Thames, at Twickenham, which he fitted up as a
+residence for life. He laid out the grounds, built a grotto, and made his
+villa a famous spot.</p>
+
+<p>Here he was smitten by the masculine charms of the gifted Lady Mary
+Wortley Montagu, who figures in many of his verses, and particularly in
+the closing lines of the <i>Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard</i>. It was a singular
+alliance, destined to a speedy rupture. On her return from Turkey, in
+1718, where her husband had been the English ambassador, she took a home
+near Pope's villa, and, at his request, sat for her portrait. When, later,
+they became estranged, she laughed at the poet, and his coldness turned
+into hatred.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch24-8"><span class="sc">The Odyssey.</span>&mdash;The success of his version of the Iliad led to his
+translation of the Odyssey; but this he did with the collaboration of
+Fenton and Broome, the former writing four and the latter six books. The
+volumes appeared successively in 1725-6, and there was an appendix
+containing the <i>Batrachomiomachia</i>, or Battle of the Frogs and Mice,
+translated by Parnell. For this work Pope received the lion's share of
+profits, his co-laborers being paid only &pound;800.</p>
+
+<p>Among his miscellaneous works must be mentioned portions of <i>Martinus
+Scriblerus</i>. One of these, <i>Peri Bathous</i>, or <i>Art of Sinking in Poetry</i>,
+was the germ of The Dunciad.</p>
+
+<p>Like Dryden, he was attacked by the <i>soi-disant</i> poets of the day, and
+retorted in similar style and taste. In imitation of Dryden's
+<i>MacFlecknoe</i>, he wrote <i>The Dunciad</i>, or epic of the Dunces, in the first
+edition of which Theobald was promoted<a id="p249" /> to the vacant throne. It roused a
+great storm. Authors besieged the publisher to hinder him from publishing
+it, while booksellers and agents were doing all in their power to procure
+it. In a later edition a new book was added, deposing Theobald and
+elevating Colley Cibber to the throne of Dulness. This was ill-advised, as
+the ridicule, which was justly applied to Theobald, is not applicable to
+Cibber.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch24-9"><span class="sc">Essay on Man.</span>&mdash;The intercourse of the poet with the gifted but sceptical
+Lord Bolingbroke is apparent in his <i>Essay on Man</i>, in which, with much
+that is orthodox and excellent, the principles and influence of his
+lordship are readily discerned. The first part appeared in 1732, and the
+second some years later. The opinion is no longer held that Bolingbroke
+wrote any part of the poem; he has only infected it. It is one of Pope's
+best poems in versification and diction, and abounds with pithy proverbial
+sayings, which the English world has been using ever since as current
+money in conversational barter. Among many that might be selected, the
+following are well known:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    All are but parts of one stupendous whole<br />
+    Whose body nature is, and God the soul.</p>
+
+<p>    Know thou thyself, presume not God to scan;<br />
+    The proper study of mankind is man.</p>
+
+<p>    A wit's a feather, and a chief's a rod;<br />
+    An honest man's the noblest work of God.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Among the historical teachings of Pope's works and career, and also among
+the curiosities of literature, must be noticed the publication of Pope's
+letters, by Curll the bookseller, without the poet's permission. They were
+principally letters to Henry Cromwell, Wycherley, Congreve, Steele,
+Addison, and Swift. There were not wanting those who believed that it was
+a trick of the poet himself to increase his notoriety;<a id="p250" /> but such an
+opinion is hardly warranted. These letters form a valuable chapter in the
+social and literary history of the period.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec"><span class="sc">Pope's Death and Character.</span>&mdash;On the 30th of May, 1744, Pope passed away,
+after a long illness, during which he said he was &quot;dying of a hundred good
+symptoms.&quot; Indeed, so frail and weak had he always been, that it was a
+wonder he lived so long. His weakness of body seems to have acted upon his
+strong mind, which must account for much that is satirical and splenetic
+in his writings. Very short, thin, and ill-shaped, his person wanted the
+compactness necessary to stand alone, until it was encased in stays. He
+needed a high chair at table, such as children use; but he was an epicure,
+and a fastidious one; and despite his infirmities, his bright,
+intellectual eye and his courtly manners caused him to be noted quite as
+much as his defects.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch24-10"><span class="sc">The Artificial School.</span>&mdash;Pope has been set forth as the head of the
+<i>Artificial School</i>. This is, perhaps, rather a convenient than an exact
+designation. He had little of original genius, but was an apt imitator and
+reproducer&mdash;what in painting would be an excellent copyist. His greatest
+praise, however, is that he reduced to system what had gone before him;
+his poems present in themselves an art of poetry, with technical canons
+and illustrations, which were long after servilely obeyed, and the
+influence of which is still felt to-day.</p>
+
+<p>And this artificial school was in the main due to the artificial character
+of the age. Nature seemed to have lost her charms; pastorals were little
+more than private theatricals, enacted with straw hats and shepherd's
+crook in drawing-rooms or on close-clipped lawns. Culture was confined to
+court and town, and poets found little inducement to consult the heart or
+to woo nature, but wrote what would please the town or court. This taste
+gave character to the technical<a id="p251" /> standards, to which Pope, more than any
+other writer, gave system and coherence. Most of the literati were men of
+the town; many were fine gentlemen with a political bias; and thus it is
+that the school of poets of which Pope is the unchallenged head, has been
+known as the Artificial School.</p>
+
+<p id="ch24-11">In the passage of time, and with the increase of literature, the real
+merits of Pope were for some time neglected, or misrepresented. The world
+is beginning to discern and recognize these again. Learned, industrious,
+self-reliant, controversial, and, above all, harmonious, instead of giving
+vent to the highest fancies in simple language, he has treated the
+common-place&mdash;that which is of universal interest&mdash;in melodious and
+splendid diction. But, above all, he stands as the representative of his
+age: a wit among the comic dramatists who were going out and the essayists
+who were coming in; a man of the world with Lady Mary and the gay parties
+on the Thames; a polemic, who dealt keen thrusts and who liked to see them
+rankle, and who yet writhed in agony when the <i>riposte</i> came; a Roman
+Catholic in faith and a latitudinarian in speech;&mdash;such was Pope as a type
+of that world in which he lived.</p>
+
+<p>A poet of the first rank he was not; he invented nothing; but he
+established the canons of poetry, attuned to exquisite harmony the rhymed
+couplet which Dryden had made so powerful an instrument, improved the
+language, discerned and reconnected the discordant parts of literature;
+and thus it is that he towers above all the poets of his age, and has sent
+his influence through those that followed, even to the present day.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch24-12">Other Writers of the Period.</h4>
+
+
+<p><i>Matthew Prior</i>, 1664-1721: in his early youth he was a waiter in his
+uncle's tap-room, but, surmounting all difficulties, he rose to be a
+distinguished poet and diplomatist. He was an envoy to France, where he
+was noted for his wit and ready repartee. His love songs are somewhat
+immoral, but exquisitely melodious. His chief poems are: <i>Alma</i>, <a id="p252" />a
+philosophic piece in the vein of Hudibras; <i>Solomon</i>, a Scripture poem;
+and, the best of all, <i>The City and Country Mouse</i>, a parody on Dryden's
+<i>Hind and Panther</i>, which he wrote in conjunction with Mr. Montague. He
+was imprisoned by the Whigs in 1715, and lost all his fortune. He was
+distinguished by having Dr. Johnson as his biographer, in the <i>Lives of
+the Poets</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>John Arbuthnot</i>, 1667-1735: born in Scotland. He was learned, witty, and
+amiable. Eminent in medicine, he was physician to the court of Queen Anne.
+He is chiefly known in literature as the companion of Pope and Swift, and
+as the writer with them of papers in the Martinus Scriblerus Club, which
+was founded in 1714, and of which Pope, Gay, Swift, Arbuthnot, Harvey,
+Atterbury, and others, were the principal members. Arbuthnot wrote a
+<i>History of John Bull</i>, which was designed to render the war then carried
+on by Marlborough unpopular, and certainly conduced to that end.</p>
+
+<p><i>John Gay</i>, 1688-1732: he was of humble origin, but rose by his talents,
+and figured at court. He wrote several dramas in a mock-tragic vein. Among
+these are <i>What D'ye Call It?</i> and <i>Three Hours after Marriage</i>; but that
+which gave him permanent reputation is his <i>Beggar's Opera</i>, of which the
+hero is a highwayman, and the characters are prostitutes and Newgate
+gentry. It is interspersed with gay and lyrical songs, and was rendered
+particularly effective by the fine acting of Miss Elizabeth Fenton, in the
+part of <i>Polly</i>. The <i>Shepherd's Week</i>, a pastoral, contains more real
+delineations of rural life than any other poem of the period. Another
+curious piece is entitled, <i>Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of
+London</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Thomas Parnell</i>, 1679-1718: he was the author of numerous poems, among
+which the only one which has retained popular favor is <i>The Hermit</i>, a
+touching poem founded upon an older story. He wrote the life of Homer
+prefixed to Pope's translation; but it was very much altered by Pope.</p>
+
+<p><i>Thomas Tickell</i>, 1686-1740: particularly known as the friend of Addison.
+He wrote a translation of the First Book of Homer's Iliad, which was
+corrected by Addison, and contributed several papers to <i>The Spectator</i>.
+But he is best known by his <i>Elegy</i> upon Addison, which Dr. Johnson calls
+a very &quot;elegant funeral poem.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><i>Isaac Watts</i>, 1674-1765: this great writer of hymns was born at
+Southampton, and became one of the most eminent of the dissenting
+ministers of England. He is principally known by his metrical versions of
+the Psalms, and by a great number of original hymns, which have been<a id="p253" />
+generally used by all denominations of Christians since. He also produced
+many hymns for children, which have become familiar as household words. He
+had a lyrical ear, and an easy, flowing diction, but is sometimes careless
+in his versification and incorrect in his theology. During the greater
+part of his life the honored guest of Sir Thomas Abney, he devoted himself
+to literature. Besides many sermons, he produced a treatise on <i>The First
+Principles of Geology and Astronomy</i>; a work on <i>Logic, or the Right Use
+of the Reason in the Inquiry after Truth</i>; and <i>A Supplement on the
+Improvement of the Mind</i>. These latter have been superseded as text-books
+by later and more correct inquiry.</p>
+
+<p><i>Edward Young</i>, 1681-1765: in his younger days he sought preferment at
+court, but being disappointed in his aspirations, he took orders in the
+Church, and led a retired life. He published a satire entitled, <i>The Love
+of Fame, the Universal Passion</i>, which was quite successful. But his chief
+work, which for a long time was classed with the highest poetic efforts,
+is the <i>Night Thoughts</i>, a series of meditations, during nine nights, on
+Life, Death, and Immortality. The style is somewhat pompous, the imagery
+striking, but frequently unnatural; the occasional descriptions majestic
+and vivid; and the effect of the whole is grand, gloomy, and peculiar. It
+is full of apothegms, which have been much quoted; and some of his lines
+and phrases are very familiar to all.</p>
+
+<p>He wrote papers on many topics, and among his tragedies the best known is
+that entitled <i>The Revenge</i>. Very popular in his own day, Young has been
+steadily declining in public favor, partly on account of the superior
+claims of modern writers, and partly because of the morbid and gloomy
+views he has taken of human nature. His solemn admonitions throng upon the
+reader like phantoms, and cause him to desire more cheerful company. A
+sketch of the life of Young may be found in Dr. Johnson's <i>Lives of the
+Poets</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch25">
+<h2 id="p254">Chapter XXV.</h2>
+
+<h3>Addison, and the Reign of Queen Anne.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch25-1">The Character of the Age</a>. <a href="#ch25-2">Queen Anne</a>. <a href="#ch25-3">Whigs and Tories</a>. <a href="#ch25-4">George I</a>.
+   <a href="#ch25-5">Addison&mdash;The Campaign</a>. <a href="#ch25-6">Sir Roger de Coverley</a>. <a href="#ch25-7">The Club</a>. <a href="#ch25-8">Addison's
+   Hymns</a>. <a href="#ch25-9">Person and Literary Character</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch25-1">The Character of the Age.</h4>
+
+
+<p>To cater further to the Artificial Age, the literary cravings of which far
+exceeded those of any former period, there sprang up a school of
+Essayists, most of whom were also poets, dramatists, and politicians.
+Among these Addison, Steele, and Swift stand pre-eminent. Each of them was
+a man of distinct and interesting personality. Two of them&mdash;Addison and
+Swift&mdash;presented such a remarkable contrast, that it has been usual for
+writers on this period of English Literature to bring them together as
+foils to each other. This has led to injustice towards Swift; they should
+be placed in juxtaposition because they are of the same period, and
+because of their joint efforts in the literary development of the age. The
+period is distinctly marked. We speak as currently of the wits and the
+essayists of Queen Anne's reign as we do of the authors of the Elizabethan
+age.</p>
+
+<p>A glance at contemporary history will give us an intelligent clue to our
+literary inquiries, and cause us to observe the historical character of
+the literature.</p>
+
+<p>To a casual observer, the reign of Queen Anne seems particularly
+untroubled and prosperous. English history calls it the time of &quot;Good
+Queen Anne;&quot; and it is referred to with great unction by the <i>laudator
+temporis acti</i>, in unjust <a id="p255" />comparison with the period which has since
+intervened, as well as with that which preceded it.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch25-2"><span class="sc">Queen Anne.</span>&mdash;The queen was a Protestant, as opposed to the Romanists and
+Jacobites; a faithful wife, and a tender mother in her memory of several
+children who died young. She was merciful, pure, and gracious to her
+subjects. Her reign was tolerant. There was plenty at home; rebellion and
+civil war were at least latent. Abroad, England was greatly distinguished
+by the victories of Marlborough and Eugene. But to one who looks through
+this veil of prosperity, a curious history is unfolded. The fires of
+faction were scarcely smouldering. It was the transition period between
+the expiring dynasty of the direct line of Stuarts and the coming of the
+Hanoverian house. Women took part in politics; sermons like that of
+Sacheverell against the dissenters and the government were thundered from
+the pulpit. Volcanic fires were at work; the low rumblings of an
+earthquake were heard from time to time, and gave constant cause of
+concern to the queen and her statesmen. Men of rank conspired against each
+other; the moral license of former reigns seems to have been forgotten in
+political intrigue. When James II. had been driven out in 1688, the
+English conscience compromised on the score of the divine right of kings,
+by taking his daughter Mary and her husband as joint monarchs. To do this,
+they affected to call the king's son by his second wife, born in that
+year, a pretender. It was said that he was the child of another woman, and
+had been brought to the queen's bedside in a warming-pan, that James might
+be able to present, thus fraudulently, a Roman Catholic heir to the
+throne. In this they did the king injustice, and greater injustice to the
+queen, Maria de Modena, a pleasing and innocent woman, who had, by her
+virtues and personal popularity alone, kept the king on his throne, in
+spite of his pernicious measures.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p256" />When the dynasty was overthrown, the parliament had presented to William
+and Mary <i>A Bill of Rights</i>, in which the people's grievances were set
+forth, and their rights enumerated and insisted upon; and this was
+accepted by the monarchs as a condition of their tenure.</p>
+
+<p>Mary died in 1695, and when William followed her, in 1702, Anne, the
+second daughter of James, ascended the throne. Had she refused the
+succession, there would have been a furious war between the Jacobites and
+the Hanoverians. In 1714, Anne died childless, but her reign had bridged
+the chasm between the experiment of William and Mary and the house of
+Hanover. In default of direct heirs to Queen Anne, the succession was in
+this Hanoverian house; represented in the person of the Electress Sophia,
+the granddaughter of James I., through his daughter, Elizabeth of Bohemia.
+But this lineage of blood had lost all English affinities and sympathies.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the child born to James II., in 1688, had grown to be a man,
+and stood ready, on the death of Queen Anne, to re-affirm his claim to the
+throne. It was said that, although, on account of the plottings of the
+Jacobites, a price had been put upon his head, the queen herself wished
+him to succeed, and had expressed scruples about her own right to reign.
+She greatly disliked the family of Hanover, and while she was on her
+death-bed, the pretender had been brought to England, in the hope that she
+would declare him her successor. The elements of discord asserted
+themselves still more strongly. Whigs and Tories in politics, Romanists
+and Protestants in creed, Jacobite and Hanoverian in loyalty, opposed each
+other, harassing the feeble queen, and keeping the realm in continual
+ferment.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch25-3"><span class="sc">Whigs and Tories.</span>&mdash;The Whigs were those who declared that kingly power was
+solely for the good of the subject; that the reformed creed was the
+religion of the realm; that James <a id="p257" />had forfeited the throne, and that his
+son was a pretender; and that the power justly passed to the house of
+Hanover. The Tories asserted that monarchs ruled by <i>divine right</i>; and
+that if, when religion was at stake, the king might be deposed, this could
+not affect the succession.</p>
+
+<p>Anne escaped her troubles by dying, in 1714. Sophia, the Electress of
+Hanover, who had only wished to live, she said, long enough to have
+engraved upon her tombstone: &quot;Here lies Sophia, Queen of England,&quot; died,
+in spite of this desire, only a few weeks before the queen; and the new
+heir to the throne was her son, George Louis of Brunswick-Luneburg,
+electoral prince of Hanover.</p>
+
+<p id="ch25-4">He came cautiously and selfishly to the throne of England; he felt his
+way, and left a line of retreat open; he brought not a spice of honest
+English sentiment, but he introduced the filth of the electoral court. As
+gross in his conduct as Charles II., he had indeed a prosperous reign,
+because it was based upon a just and tolerant Constitution; because the
+English were in reality not governed by a king, but by well-enacted laws.</p>
+
+<p>The effect of all this political turmoil upon the leading men in England
+had been manifest; both parties had been expectant, and many of the
+statesmen had been upon the fence, ready to get down on one side or the
+other, according to circumstances. Marlborough left the Tories and joined
+the Whigs; Swift, who had been a Whig, joined the Tories. The queen's
+first ministry had consisted of Whigs and the more moderate Tories; but as
+she fell away from the Marlboroughs, she threw herself into the hands of
+the Tories, who had determined, and now achieved, the downfall of
+Marlborough.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the reign of good Queen Anne. With this brief sketch as a
+preliminary, we return to the literature, which, like her coin, bore her
+image and carried it into succeeding reigns. In literature, the age of
+Queen Anne extends far beyond her lifetime.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch25-5"><a id="p258" /><span class="sc">Addison.</span>&mdash;The principal name of this period is that of Joseph Addison. He
+was the son of the rector of Milston, in Wiltshire, and was born in 1672.
+Old enough in 1688 to appreciate the revolution, as early as he could
+wield his pen, he used it in the cause of the new monarchs. At the age of
+fifteen he was sent from the Charter-House to Oxford; and there he wrote
+some Latin verses, for which he was rewarded by a university scholarship.
+After pursuing his studies at Oxford, he began his literary career. In his
+twenty-second year he wrote a poetical address to Dryden; but he chiefly
+sought preferment through political poetry. In 1695 he wrote a poem to the
+king, which was well received; and in 1699 he received a pension of &pound;300.
+In 1701 he went upon the Continent, and travelled principally in France
+and Italy. On his return, he published his travels, and a <i>Poetical
+Epistle from Italy</i>, which are interesting as delineating continental
+scenes and manners in that day. Of the travels, Dr. Johnson said, &quot;they
+might have been written at home;&quot; but he praised the poetical epistle as
+the finest of Addison's poetical works.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the accession of Queen Anne, he continued to pay his court in verse.
+When the great battle of Blenheim was fought, in 1704, he at once
+published an artificial poem called <i>The Campaign</i>, which has received the
+fitting name of the <i>Rhymed Despatch</i>. Eulogistic of Marlborough and
+descriptive of his army man&oelig;uvres, its chief value is to be found in
+its historical character, and not in any poetic merit. It was a political
+paper, and he was rewarded for it by the appointment of Commissioner of
+Appeals, in which post he succeeded the philosopher Locke.</p>
+
+<p>The spirit of this poem is found in the following lines:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Fiction may deck the truth with spurious rays,<br />
+    And round the hero cast a borrowed blaze;<br />
+    Marlboro's exploits appear divinely bright,<br />
+    And proudly shine in their own native light.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><a id="p259" />If we look for a contrast to this poem, indicating with it the two
+political sides of the question, it may be found in Swift's tract on <i>The
+Conduct of the Allies</i>, which asserts that the war had been maintained to
+gratify the ambition and greed of Marlborough, and also for the benefit of
+the Allies. Addison was appointed, as a reward for his poem,
+Under-Secretary of State.</p>
+
+<p>To this extent Addison was the historian by purpose. A moderate partisan,
+he eulogized King William, Marlborough, Lord Somers, Lord Halifax, and
+others, and thus commended himself to the crown; and in several elegant
+articles in <i>The Spectator</i>, he sought to mitigate the fierce party spirit
+of the time.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch25-6"><span class="sc">Sir Roger De Coverley.</span>&mdash;But it is the unconscious historian with whom we
+are most charmed, and by whom we are best instructed. It is in this
+character that Addison presents himself in his numerous contributions to
+<i>The Spectator</i>, <i>The Tatler</i>, and <i>The Guardian</i>. Amid much that is now
+considered pedantic and artificial, and which, in those faults, marks the
+age, are to be found as striking and truthful delineations of English life
+and society in that day as Chaucer has given us of an earlier period.</p>
+
+<p>Those who no longer read <i>The Spectator</i> as a model of style and learning,
+must continue to prize it for these rare historic teachings. The men and
+women walk before us as in some antique representation in a social
+festival, when grandmothers' brocades are taken out, when curious fashions
+are displayed, when Honoria and Flavia, Fidelia and Gloriana dress and
+speak and ogle and flirt just as Addison saw and photographed them. We
+have their subjects of interest, their forms of gossip, the existing
+abuses of the day, their taste in letters, their opinions upon the works
+of literature, in all their freshness.</p>
+
+<p>The fullest and most systematic of these social delineations is found in
+the sketch of <i>The Club</i> and <i>Sir Roger de Coverley</i>. The creation of
+character is excellent. Each member, individual and distinct, is also the
+type of a class.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch25-7"><a id="p260" /><span class="sc">The Club.</span>&mdash;There is Will Honeycomb, the old beau, &quot;a gentleman who,
+according to his years, should be in the decline of his life, but having
+ever been careful of his person, and always had an easy fortune, time has
+made but very little impression, either by wrinkles on his forehead or
+traces on his brain.&quot; He knew from what French woman this manner of
+curling the hair came, who invented hoops, and whose vanity to show her
+foot brought in short dresses. He is a woman-killer, sceptical about
+marriage; and at length he gives the fair sex ample satisfaction for his
+cruelty and egotism by marrying, unknown to his friends, a farmer's
+daughter, whose face and virtues are her only fortune.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Sentry, the nephew of Sir Roger, is, it may be supposed, the
+essayist's ideal of what an English officer should be&mdash;a courageous
+soldier and a modest gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Andrew Freeport is the retired merchant, drawn to the life. He is
+moderate in politics, as expediency in that age would suggest. Thoroughly
+satisfied of the naval supremacy of England, he calls the sea, &quot;the
+British Common.&quot; He is the founder of his own fortune, and is satisfied to
+transmit to posterity an unsullied name, a goodly store of wealth, and the
+title he has so honorably won.</p>
+
+<p>In <i>The Templar</i>, we have a satire upon a certain class of lawyers. It is
+indicative of that classical age, that he understands Aristotle and
+Longinus better than Littleton and Coke, and is happy in anything but
+law&mdash;a briefless barrister, but a gentleman of consideration.</p>
+
+<p>But the most charming, the most living portrait is that of Sir Roger de
+Coverley, an English country gentleman, as he ought to be, and as not a
+few really were. What a generous humanity for all wells forth from his
+simple and loving heart! <a id="p261" />He has such a mirthful cast in his behavior that
+he is rather loved than esteemed. Repulsed by a fair widow, several years
+before, he keeps his sentiment alive by wearing a coat and doublet of the
+same cut that was in fashion at the time, which, he tells us, has been out
+and in twelve times since he first wore it. All the young women profess to
+love him, and all the young men are glad of his company.</p>
+
+<p>Last of all is the clergyman, whose piety is all reverence, and who talks
+and acts &quot;as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and
+conceives hope from his decays and infirmities.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It is said that Addison, warned by the fate of Cervantes,&mdash;whose noble
+hero, Don Quixote, was killed by another pen,&mdash;determined to conduct Sir
+Roger to the tomb himself; and the knight makes a fitting end. He
+congratulates his nephew, Captain Sentry, upon his succession to the
+inheritance; he is thoughtful of old friends and old servants. In a word,
+so excellent was his life, and so touching the story of his death, that we
+feel like mourners at a real grave. Indeed he did live, and still
+lives,&mdash;one type of the English country gentleman one hundred and fifty
+years ago. Other types there were, not so pleasant to contemplate; but
+Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley and Fielding's Squire Allworthy vindicate
+their class in that age.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch25-8"><span class="sc">Addison's Hymns.</span>&mdash;Addison appears to us also as the writer of beautiful
+hymns, and has paraphrased some of the Psalms. In this, like Watts, he
+catered to a decided religious craving of that day. In a Protestant realm,
+and by reason of religious controversy, the fine old hymns of the Latin
+church, which are now renewing their youth in an English dress, had fallen
+into disrepute: hymnody had, to some extent, superseded the plain chant.
+Hymns were in demand. Poets like Addison and Watts provided for this new
+want; and from the beauty of his few contributions, our great regret <a id="p262" />is
+that Addison wrote so few. Every one he did write is a gem in many
+collections. Among them we have that admirable paraphrase of the
+<i>Twenty-third Psalm</i>:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    The Lord my pasture shall prepare,<br />
+    And feed me with a shepherd's care;
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>and the hymn</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    When all Thy mercies, O my God,<br />
+    My rising soul surveys.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>None, however, is so beautiful, stately, and polished as the Divine Ode,
+so pleasant to all people, little and large,&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    The spacious firmament on high.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch25-9"><span class="sc">His Person and Character.</span>&mdash;In closing this brief sketch of Addison, a few
+words are necessary as to his personality, and an estimate of his powers.
+In 1716 he married the Countess-Dowager of Warwick, and parted with
+independence to live with a coronet. His married life was not happy. The
+lady was cold and exacting; and, it must be confessed, the poet loved a
+bottle at the club-room or tavern better than the luxuries of Holland
+House; and not infrequently this conviviality led him to excess. He died
+in 1719, in his forty-eighth year, and made a truly pious end. He wished,
+he said, to atone for any injuries he had done to others, and sent for his
+sceptical and dissolute step-son, Lord Warwick, to show him how a
+Christian could die. A monument has been erected to his memory in the
+Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey, and the closing words of the
+inscription upon it calls him &quot;the honor and delight of the English
+nation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As a man, he was grave and retiring: he had a high opinion of his own
+powers; in company he was extremely diffident; in the main, he was moral,
+just, and consistent. His intemperance was in part the custom of the age
+and in part a physi<a id="p263" />cal failing, and it must have been excessive to be
+distinguished in that age. In the Latin-English of Dr. Johnson, &quot;It is not
+unlikely that Addison was first seduced to excess by the manumission which
+he obtained from the servile timidity of his sober hours.&quot; This failing
+must be regarded as a blot on his fame.</p>
+
+<p>He was the most accomplished writer of his own age, and in elegance of
+style superior to all who had gone before him.</p>
+
+<p>In the words of his epitaph, his prose papers &quot;encouraged the good and
+reformed the improvident, tamed the wicked, and in some degree made them
+in love with virtue.&quot; His poetry is chiefly of historical value, in that
+it represents so distinctly the Artificial School; but it is now very
+little read. His drama entitled <i>Cato</i> was modelled upon the French drama
+of the classical school, with its singular preservation of the unities.
+But his contributions to <i>The Spectator</i> and other periodicals are
+historically of great value. Here he abandons the artificial school;
+nothing in his delineations of character is simply statuesque or
+pictorial. He has done for us what the historians have left undone. They
+present processions of automata moving to the sound of trumpet and drum,
+ushered by Black Rod or Garter King-at-arms; but in Addison we find that
+Promethean heat which relumes their life; the galvanic motion becomes a
+living stride; the puppet eyes emit fire; the automata are men. Thus it
+is, that, although <i>The Spectator</i>, once read as a model of taste and
+style, has become antiquated and has been superseded, it must still be
+resorted to for its life-like portraiture of men and women, manners and
+customs, and will be found truer and more valuable for these than history
+itself.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch26">
+<h2 id="p264">Chapter XXVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>Steele and Swift.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch26-1">Sir Richard Steele</a>. <a href="#ch26-2">Periodicals</a>. <a href="#ch26-3">The Crisis</a>. <a href="#ch26-4">His Last Days</a>. <a href="#ch26-5">Jonathan
+   Swift</a>&mdash;<a href="#ch26-6">Poems</a>. <a href="#ch26-7">The Tale of a Tub</a>. <a href="#ch26-8">Battle of the Books</a>. <a href="#ch26-9">Pamphlets</a>. <a href="#ch26-10">M. B.
+   Drapier</a>. <a href="#ch26-11">Gulliver's Travels</a>. <a href="#ch26-12">Stella and Vanessa</a>. <a href="#ch26-13">His Character and
+   Death</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<p>Contemporary with Addison, and forming with him a literary fraternity,
+Steele and Swift were besides men of distinct prominence, and clearly
+represent the age in which they lived.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch26-1"><span class="sc">Sir Richard Steele.</span>&mdash;If Addison were chosen as the principal literary
+figure of the period, a sketch of his life would be incomplete without a
+large mention of his lifelong friend and collaborator, Steele. If to Bacon
+belongs the honor of being the first writer and the namer of the English
+<i>essay</i>, Steele may claim that of being the first periodical essayist.</p>
+
+<p>He was born in Dublin, in 1671, of English parents; his father being at
+the time secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He received his
+early education at the Charter-House school, in London, an institution
+which has numbered among its pupils many who have gained distinguished
+names in literature. Here he met and formed a permanent friendship with
+Addison. He was afterwards entered as a student at Merton College, Oxford;
+but he led there a wild and reckless life, and leaving without a degree,
+he enlisted as a private in the Horse Guards. Through the influence of his
+friends, <a id="p265" />he was made a cornet, and afterwards a captain, in the
+Fusileers; but this only gave him opportunity for continued dissipation.
+His principles were better than his conduct; and, haunted by conscience,
+he made an effort to reform himself by writing a devotional work called
+<i>The Christian Hero</i>; but there was such a contrast between his precepts
+and his life, that he was laughed at by the town. Between 1701 and 1704 he
+produced his three comedies. <i>The Funeral, or Grief &agrave; la Mode</i>; <i>The
+Tender Husband</i>, and <i>The Lying Lover</i>. The first two were successful upon
+the stage, but the last was a complete failure. Disgusted for the time
+with the drama, he was led to find his true place as the writer of those
+light, brilliant, periodical essays which form a prominent literary
+feature of the reign of Queen Anne. These <i>Essays</i> were comments,
+suggestions, strictures, and satires upon the age. They were of immediate
+and local interest then, and have now a value which the writers did not
+foresee: they are unconscious history.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch26-2"><span class="sc">Periodicals.</span>&mdash;The first of these periodicals was <i>The Tatler</i>, a penny
+sheet, issued tri-weekly, on post-days. The first number appeared on the
+12th of April, 1709, and asserted the very laudable purpose &quot;to expose the
+deceits, sins, and vanities of the former age, and to make virtue,
+simplicity, and plain-dealing the law of social life.&quot; &quot;For this purpose,&quot;
+in the words of Dr. Johnson,<sup><a href="#fn-34" id="fna-34">34</a></sup> &quot;nothing is so proper as the frequent
+publication of short papers, which we read not as study, but amusement. If
+the subject be slight, the treatise is short. The busy may find time, and
+the idle may find patience.&quot; One <i>nom de plume</i> of Steele was <i>Isaac
+Bickerstaff</i>, which he borrowed from Swift, who had issued party-pamphlets
+under that name.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Tatler</i> was a success. The fluent pen of Addison gave it valuable
+assistance; and in January, 1711, it was merged <a id="p266" />into, rather than
+superseded by, <i>The Spectator</i>, which was issued six days in the week.</p>
+
+<p>In this new periodical, Steele wrote the paper containing the original
+sketch of Sir Roger de Coverley and The Club; but, as has been already
+said, Addison adopted, elaborated, and finished this in several later
+papers. Steele had been by far the larger contributor to <i>The Tatler</i>. Of
+all the articles in <i>The Spectator</i>, Steele wrote two hundred and forty,
+and Addison two hundred and seventy-four; the rest were by various hands.
+In March, 1713, when <i>The Spectator</i> was commencing its seventh volume,
+<i>The Guardian</i> made its appearance. For the first volume of <i>The
+Guardian</i>, Addison wrote but one paper; but for the second he wrote more
+than Steele. Of the one hundred and seventy-six numbers of that
+periodical, eighty-two of the papers were by Steele and fifty-three by
+Addison. If the writings of Addison were more scholarly and elegant, those
+of Steele were more vivacious and brilliant; and together they have
+produced a series of essays which have not been surpassed in later times,
+and which are vividly delineative of their own.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch26-3"><span class="sc">The Crisis.</span>&mdash;The career of Steele was varied and erratic. He held several
+public offices, was a justice of the peace, and a member of parliament. He
+wrote numerous political tracts, which are not without historical value.
+For one pamphlet of a political character, entitled <i>The Crisis</i>, he was
+expelled from parliament for libel; but upon the death of Queen Anne, he
+again found himself in favor. He was knighted in 1715, and received
+several lucrative appointments.</p>
+
+<p>He was an eloquent orator, and as a writer rapid and brilliant, but not
+profound. Even thus, however, he catered to an age at once artificial and
+superficial. Very observant of what he saw, he rushed to his closet and
+jotted down his views in electrical words, which made themselves
+immediately and distinctly felt.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch26-4"><a id="p267" /><span class="sc">His Last Days.</span>&mdash;Near the close of his life he produced a very successful
+comedy, entitled <i>The Conscious Lover</i>, which would have been of pecuniary
+value to him, were it not that he was already overwhelmed with debt. His
+end was a sad one; but he reaped what his extravagance and recklessness
+had sown. Shattered in health and ruined in fortune, he retreated from the
+great world into homely retirement in Wales, where he lived, poor and
+hidden, in a humble cottage at Llangunnor. His end was heralded by an
+attack of paralysis, and he died in 1729.</p>
+
+<p>After his death, his letters were published; and in the private history
+which they unfold, he appears, notwithstanding all his follies, in the
+light of a tender husband and of an amiable and unselfish man. He had
+principle, but he lacked resolution; and the wild, vacillating character
+of his life is mirrored in his writings, where <i>The Christian Hero</i> stands
+in singular contrast to the comic personages of his dramas. He was a
+genial critic. His exuberant wit and humor reproved without wounding; he
+was not severe enough to be a public censor, nor pedantic enough to be the
+pedagogue of an age which often needed the lash rather than the gentle
+reproof, and upon which a merciful clemency lost its end if not its
+praises. He deserves credit for an attempt, however feeble, to reward
+virtue upon the stage, after the wholesale rewards which vice had reaped
+in the age of Charles II.</p>
+
+<p>Steele has been overshadowed, in his connection with Addison, by the more
+dignified and consistent career, the greater social respectability, and
+the more elegant and scholarly style of his friend; and yet in much that
+they jointly accomplished, the merit of Steele is really as great, and
+conduces much to the reputation of Addison. The one husbanded and
+cherished his fame; the other flung it away or lavished it upon his
+colleagues. As contributors to history, they claim an equal share of our
+gratitude and praise.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch26-5"><a id="p268" /><span class="sc">Jonathan Swift.</span>&mdash;The grandfather of Swift was vicar of Goodrich, in
+Herefordshire. His father and mother were both English, but he was born in
+Dublin, in the year 1667. A posthumous child, he came into the world seven
+months after his father's death. From his earliest youth, he deplored the
+circumstances among which his lot had been cast. He was dependent upon his
+uncle, Godwin Swift, himself a poor man; but was not grateful for his
+assistance, always saying that his uncle had given him the education of a
+dog. At the University of Dublin, where he was entered, he did not bear a
+good character: he was frequently absent from his duties and negligent of
+his studies; and although he read history and poetry, he was considered
+stupid as well as idle. He was more than once admonished and suspended,
+but at length received his degree, <i>Speciali gratia</i>; which special act of
+grace implied that he had not fairly earned it. Piqued by this, he set to
+work in real earnest, and is said to have studied eight hours a day for
+eight years. Thus, from an idle and unsuccessful collegian, he became a
+man of considerable learning and a powerful writer.</p>
+
+<p>He was a distant connection of Sir William Temple, through Lady Temple;
+and he went, by his mother's advice, to live with that distinguished man
+at his seat, Shene, in Moor Park, as private secretary.</p>
+
+<p>In this position Swift seems to have led an uncomfortable life, ranking
+somewhere between the family and the upper servants. Sir William Temple
+was disposed to be kind, but found it difficult to converse with him on
+account of his moroseness and other peculiarities. At Shene he met King
+William III., who talked with him, and offered him a captaincy in the
+army. This Swift declined, knowing his unfitness for the post, and
+doubtless feeling the promptings of a higher ambition. It was also at
+Shene that he met a young girl, whose history was thenceforth to be
+mingled with his in sadness and sorrow, during their lives. This was
+Esther John<a id="p269" />son, the daughter of Temple's housekeeper, and surmised, at a
+later day, to be the natural daughter of Temple himself. When the young
+secretary first met her, she was fourteen years of age, very clever and
+beautiful; and they fell in love with each other.</p>
+
+<p>We cannot dwell at length upon the events of his life. His versatile pen
+was prolific of poetry, sentimental and satirical; of political allegories
+of great potency, of fiction erected of impossible materials, and yet so
+creating and peopling a world of fancy as to illude the reader into
+temporary belief in its truth.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch26-6"><span class="sc">Poems.</span>&mdash;His poems are rather sententious than harmonious. His power,
+however, was great; he managed verse as an engine, and had an entire
+mastery over rhyme, which masters so many would-be poets. His <i>Odes</i> are
+classically constructed, but massive and cumbrous. His satirical poems are
+eminently historical, ranging over and attacking almost every topic,
+political, religious, and social. Among the most characteristic of his
+miscellaneous verses are <i>Epigrams and Epistles, Clever Tom Pinch Going to
+be Hanged, Advice to Grub Street Writers, Helter-Skelter, The Puppet
+Show</i>, and similar odd pieces, frequently scurrilous, bitter, and lewd in
+expression. The writer of English history consults these as he does the
+penny ballads, lampoons, and caricatures of the day,&mdash;to discern the
+<i>animus</i> of parties and the methods of hostile factions.</p>
+
+<p>But it is in his inimitable prose writings that Swift is of most value to
+the historical student. Against all comers he stood the Goliath of
+pamphleteers in the reign of Queen Anne, and there arose no David who
+could slay him.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch26-7"><span class="sc">The Tale of a Tub.</span>&mdash;While an unappreciated student at the university, he
+had sketched a satirical piece, which he finished and published in 1704,
+under the title of <i>The Tale <a id="p270" />of a Tub</i>. As a tub is thrown overboard at
+sea to divert a whale, so this is supposed to be a sop cast out to the
+<i>Leviathan</i> of Hobbes, to prevent it from injuring the vessel of state.
+The story is a satire aimed against the Roman Catholics on the one hand,
+and the Presbyterians on the other, in order that he may exalt the Church
+of England as, in his judgment, free from the errors of both, and a just
+and happy medium between the two extremes. His own opinion of its merits
+is well known: in one of his later years, when his hand had lost its
+cunning, he is said to have exclaimed, as he picked it up, &quot;What a genius
+I had when I wrote that book!&quot; The characters of the story are <i>Peter</i>
+(representing St. Peter, or the Roman Catholic Church), <i>Martin</i> (Luther,
+or the Church of England), and <i>Jack</i> (John Calvin, or the Presbyterians).
+By their father's will each had been left a suit of clothes, made in the
+fashion of his day. To this Peter added laces and fringes; Martin took off
+some of the ornaments of doubtful taste; but Jack ripped and tore off the
+trimmings of his dress to such an extent that he was in clanger of
+exposing his nakedness. It is said that the invective was so strong and
+the satire so bitter, that they presented a bar to that preferment which
+Swift might otherwise have obtained. He appears at this time to have cared
+little for public opinion, except that it should fear his trenchant wit
+and do homage to his genius.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch26-8"><span class="sc">The Battle of the Books.</span>&mdash;In the same year, 1704, he also published <i>The
+Battle of the Books</i>, the idea of which was taken from a French work of
+Courtraye, entitled &quot;<i>Histoire de la guerre nouvellement d&eacute;clar&eacute;e entre
+les Anciens et les Modernes</i>.&quot; Swift's work was written in furtherance of
+the views of his patron, Temple, who had some time before engaged in the
+controversy as to the relative merits of ancient and modern learning, and
+who, in the words of Macaulay, &quot;was so absurd as to set up his own
+authority <a id="p271" />against that of Bentley on questions of Greek history and
+philology.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><i>The Battle of the Books</i> is of present value, as it affords information
+upon the opinions then held on a question which, in various forms, has
+been agitating the literary world ever since. In it Swift compares Dryden,
+Wotten, and Bentley with the old authors in St. James's Library, where the
+battle of the books is said to have taken place.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the death of Sir William Temple, in 1699, Swift had gone to London.
+He was ambitious of power and money, and when he found little chance of
+preferment among the Whigs, he became a Tory. It must be said, in
+explanation of this change, that, although he had called himself a Whig,
+he had disliked many of their opinions, and had never heartily espoused
+their cause. Like others already referred to, he watched the political
+horizon, and was ready for a change when circumstances should warrant it.
+This change and its causes are set forth in his <i>Bickerstaff's Ridicule of
+Astrology</i> and <i>Sacramental Test</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The Whigs tried hard to retain him; the Tories were rejoiced to receive
+him, and modes of preferment for him were openly canvassed. One of these
+was to make him Bishop of Virginia, with metropolitan powers in America;
+but it failed. He was also recommended for the See of Hereford; but
+persons near the queen advised her &quot;to be sure that the man she was going
+to make a bishop was a Christian.&quot; Thus far he had only been made rector
+of Agher and vicar of Laracor and Rathbeggin.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch26-9"><span class="sc">Various Pamphlets.</span>&mdash;His <i>Argument Against the Abolition of Christianity</i>,
+Dr. Johnson calls &quot;a very happy and judicious irony.&quot; In 1710 he wrote a
+paper, at the request of the Irish primate, petitioning the queen to remit
+the first-fruits and twentieth parts to the Irish clergy. In 1712, ten
+days before the meeting of parliament, he published his <i>Con<a id="p272" />duct of the
+Allies</i>, which, exposing the greed of Marlborough, persuaded the nation to
+make peace. A supplement to this is found in <i>Reflections on the Barrier
+Treaty</i>, in which he shows how little English interests had been consulted
+in that negotiation.</p>
+
+<p>His pamphlet on <i>The Public Spirit of the Whigs</i>, in answer to Steele's
+<i>Crisis</i>, was so terrible a bomb-shell thrown into the camp of his former
+friends, and so insulting to the Scotch, that &pound;300 were offered by the
+queen, at the instance of the Scotch lords, for the discovery of the
+author; but without success.</p>
+
+<p>At last his versatile and powerful pen obtained some measure of reward: in
+1713 he was made Dean of St. Patrick's, in Dublin, with a stipend of &pound;700
+per annum. This was his greatest and last preferment.</p>
+
+<p id="ch26-10">On the accession of George I., in the following year, he paid his court,
+but was received with something more than coldness. He withdrew to his
+deanery in Dublin, and, in the words of Johnson, &quot;commenced Irishman for
+life, and was to contrive how he might be best accommodated in a country
+where he considered himself as in a state of exile.&quot; After some
+misunderstanding between himself and his Irish fellow-citizens, he
+espoused their cause so warmly that he became the most popular man in
+Ireland. In 1721 he could write to Pope, &quot;I neither know the names nor the
+number of the family which now reigneth, further than the prayer-book
+informeth me.&quot; His letters, signed <i>M. B. Drapier</i>, on Irish manufactures,
+and especially those in opposition to Wood's monopoly of copper coinage,
+in 1724, wrought upon the people, producing such a spirit of resistance
+that the project of a debased coinage failed; and so influential did Swift
+become, that he was able to say to the Archbishop of Dublin, &quot;Had I raised
+my finger, the mob would have torn you to pieces.&quot; This popularity was
+increased by the fact that a reward of &pound;300 was offered by Lord Carteret
+and the privy<a id="p273" /> council for the discovery of the authorship of the fourth
+letter; but although it was commonly known that Swift was the author,
+proof could not be obtained. Carteret, the Lord Lieutenant, afterwards
+said, &quot;When people ask me how I governed Ireland, I said that I pleased
+Doctor Swift.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Thus far Swift's literary labors are manifest history: we come now to
+consider that great work, <i>Gulliver's Travels</i>,&mdash;the most successful of
+its kind ever written,&mdash;in which, with all the charm of fiction in plot,
+incident, and description, he pictures the great men and the political
+parties of the day.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch26-11"><span class="sc">Gulliver's Travels.</span>&mdash;Lemuel Gulliver, a surgeon's mate, finds himself
+shipwrecked on the shore of the country of Lilliput, the people of which
+are only six inches in height. His adventures are so vividly described
+that our charmed fancy places us among them as we read, and we, for a
+time, abandon ourselves to a belief in their reality. It was, however,
+begun as a political satire; in the insignificance of the court of
+pigmies, he attacks the feebleness and folly of the new reign. <i>Flimnap</i>,
+the prime minister of Lilliput, is a caricature of Walpole; the <i>Big
+Indians</i> and <i>Little Indians</i> represent the Protestants and Roman
+Catholics; the <i>High Heels</i> and <i>Low Heels</i> stand for the Whigs and
+Tories; and the heir-apparent, who wears one heel high and the other low,
+is the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II., who favored both parties in
+order to gain both to his purpose.</p>
+
+<p>In his second voyage, that to Brobdignag, his satirical imagination took a
+wider range&mdash;European politics as they appear to a superior intelligence,
+illustrated by a man of <i>sixty</i> feet in comparison with one of <i>six</i>. As
+Gulliver had looked with curious contempt upon the united efforts of the
+Lilliputians, he now found himself in great jeopardy and fear when in the
+hands of a giant of Brobdignag. As the pigmy metropolis, five hundred
+yards square, was to London, so were London and other European capitals to
+the giants' city, <a id="p274" />two thousand miles in circumference. And what are the
+armies of Europe, when compared with that magnificent cavalry
+man&oelig;uvring on a parade-ground twenty miles square, each mounted
+trooper ninety feet high, and all, as they draw their swords at command,
+representing ten thousand flashes of lightning?</p>
+
+<p>The third part contains the voyage of Gulliver&mdash;no less improbable than
+the former ones&mdash;to <i>Laputa</i>, the flying island of projectors and
+visionaries. This is a varied satire upon the Royal Society, the
+eccentricities of the savans, empirics of all kinds, mathematical magic,
+and the like. In this, political schemes to restore the pretender are
+aimed at. The Mississippi Scheme and the South Sea bubble are denounced.
+Here, too, in his journey to Luggnagg, he introduces the sad and revolting
+picture of the Struldbrugs, those human beings who live on, losing all
+their power and becoming hideously old.</p>
+
+<p>In his last voyage&mdash;to the land of the <i>Houyhnhnms</i>&mdash;his misanthropy is
+painfully manifest. This is the country where horses are masters, and men
+a servile and degraded race; and he has painted the men so brutish and
+filthy that the satire loses its point. The power of satire lies in
+contrast; we must compare the evil in men with the good: when the whole
+race is included in one sweeping condemnation, and an inferior being
+exalted, in opposition to all possibility, the standard is absurd, and the
+satirist loses his pains.</p>
+
+<p>The horses are the <i>Houyhnhnms</i>, (the name is an attempt to imitate a
+neigh,) a noble race, who are amazed and disgusted at the Yahoos,&mdash;the
+degraded men,&mdash;upon whom Swift, in his sweeping misanthropy, has exhausted
+his bitterness and his filth.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch26-12"><span class="sc">Stella and Vanessa.</span>&mdash;While Swift's mysterious associations with Stella and
+Vanessa have but little to do with the course of English Literature, they
+largely affect his person<a id="p275" />ality, and no sketch of him would be complete
+without introducing them to the reader. We cannot conjure up the tall,
+burly form, the heavy-browed, scowling, contemptuous face, the sharp blue
+eye, and the bushy black hair of the dean, without seeing on one side and
+the other the two pale, meek-eyed, devoted women, who watch his every
+look, shrink from his sudden bursts of wrath, receive for their
+infatuation a few fair words without sentiment, and earnestly crave a
+little love as a return for their whole hearts. It is a wonderful,
+touching, baffling story.</p>
+
+<p>Stella he had known and taught in her young maidenhood at Sir William
+Temple's. As has been said, she was called the daughter of his steward and
+housekeeper, but conjectures are rife that she was Sir William's own
+child. When Swift removed to Ireland, she came, at Swift's request, with a
+matron friend, Mrs. Dingley, to live near him. Why he did not at once
+marry her, and why, at last, he married her secretly, in 1716, are
+questions over which curious readers have puzzled themselves in vain, and
+upon which, in default of evidence, some perhaps uncharitable conclusions
+have been reached. The story of their association may be found in the
+<i>Journal to Stella</i>.</p>
+
+<p>With Miss Hester Vanhomrigh (Vanessa) he became acquainted in London, in
+1712: he was also her instructor; and when with her he seems to have
+forgotten his allegiance to Stella. Cadenus, as he calls himself, was too
+tender and fond: Vanessa became infatuated; and when she heard of Swift's
+private marriage with Stella, she died of chagrin or of a broken heart.
+She had cancelled the will which she had made in Swift's favor, and left
+it in charge to her executors to publish their correspondence. Both sides
+of the history of this connection are fully displayed in the poem of
+<i>Cadenus and Vanessa</i>, and in the <i>Correspondence of Swift and Vanessa</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch26-13"><a id="p276" /><span class="sc">Character and Death.</span>&mdash;Pride overbearing and uncontrollable, misanthropy,
+excessive dogmatism, a singular pleasure in giving others pain, were among
+his personal faults or misfortunes. He abused his companions and servants;
+he never forgave his sister for marrying a tradesman; he could attract
+with winning words and repel with furious invective; and he was always
+anxiously desiring the day of his death, and cursing that of his birth.
+His common farewell was &quot;Good-bye; I hope we may never meet again.&quot; There
+is a painful levity in his verses <i>On the Death of Doctor Swift</i>, in which
+he gives an epitome of his life:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    From Dublin soon to London spread,<br />
+    'Tis told at court the dean is dead!<br />
+    And Lady Suffolk, in the spleen,<br />
+    Runs laughing up to tell the queen:<br />
+    The queen, so gracious, mild, and good,<br />
+    Cries, &quot;Is he gone? it's time he should.&quot;
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>At last the end came. While a young man, he had suffered from a painful
+attack of vertigo, brought on by a surfeit of fruit; &quot;eating,&quot; he says, in
+a letter to Mrs. Howard, &quot;an hundred golden pippins at a time.&quot; This had
+occasioned a deafness; and both giddiness and deafness had recurred at
+intervals, and at last manifestly affected his mind. Once, when walking
+with some friends, he had pointed to an elm-tree, blasted by lightning,
+and had said, &quot;I shall be like that tree: I shall die first at the top.&quot;
+And thus at last the doom fell. Struck on the brain, he lingered for nine
+years in that valley of spectral horrors, of whose only gates idiocy and
+madness are the hideous wardens. From this bondage he was released by
+death on the 19th of October, 1745.</p>
+
+<p>Many have called it a fearful retribution for his sins, and especially for
+his treatment of Stella and Vanessa. A far more reasonable and charitable
+verdict is that the evil in his conduct through life had its origin in
+congenital disorder;<a id="p277" /> and in his days of apparent sanity, the character of
+his eccentric actions is to be palliated, if not entirely excused, on the
+plea of insanity. Additional force is given to this judgment by the fact
+that, when he died, it was found that he had left his money to found a
+hospital for the insane, illustrating the line,&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In that day of great classical scholars, Swift will hardly rank among the
+most profound; but he possessed a creative power, a ready and versatile
+fancy, a clear and pleasing but plain style. He has been unjustly accused
+by Lady Montagu of having stolen plot and humor from Cervantes and
+Rabelais: he drew from the same source as they; and those suggestions
+which came to him from them owe all their merit to his application of
+them. As a critic, he was heartless and rude; but as a polemic and a
+delineator of his age, he stands prominently forth as an historian, whose
+works alone would make us familiar with the period.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4>Other Writers of the Age.</h4>
+
+
+<p><i>Sir William Temple</i>, 1628-1698: he was a statesman and a political
+writer; rather a man of mark in his own day than of special interest to
+the present time. After having been engaged in several important
+diplomatic affairs, he retired to his seat of Moor Park, and employed
+himself in study and with his pen. His <i>Essays and Observations on
+Government</i> are valuable as a clue to the history. In his controversy with
+Bentley on the <i>Epistles of Phalaris</i>, and the relative merits of ancient
+and modern authors, he was overmatched in scholarship. In a literary point
+of view, Temple deserves praise for the ease and beauty of his style. Dr.
+Johnson says he &quot;was the first writer who gave cadence to English prose.&quot;
+&quot;What can be more pleasant,&quot; says Charles Lamb, &quot;than the way in which the
+retired statesman peeps out in his essays, penned in his delightful
+retreat at Shene?&quot; He is perhaps better known in literary history as the
+early patron of Swift, than for his own works.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Sir Isaac Newton</i>, 1642-1727: the chief glory of Newton is not connected
+with literary effort: he ranks among the most profound and original
+philosophers, and was one of the purest and most unselfish of men. <a id="p278" />The
+son of a farmer, he was born at Woolsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, after his
+father's death,&mdash;a feeble, sickly child. The year of his birth was that in
+which Galileo died. At the age of fifteen he was employed on his mother's
+farm, but had already displayed such an ardor for learning that he was
+sent first to school and then to Cambridge, where he was soon conspicuous
+for his talents and his genius. In due time he was made a professor. His
+discoveries in astronomy, mechanics, and optics are of world-wide renown.
+The law of gravitation was established by him, and set forth in his paper
+<i>De Motu Corporum</i>. His treatise on <i>Fluxions</i> prepared the way for that
+wonderful mathematical, labor-saving instrument&mdash;the differential
+calculus. In 1687 he published his <i>Philosophi&aelig; Naturalis Principia
+Mathematica</i>, in which all his mathematical theories are propounded. In
+1696 he was made Warden of the Mint, and in 1699 Master of the Mint. Long
+a member of the Royal Society, he was its president for the last
+twenty-four years of his life. In 1688 he was elected member of parliament
+for the university of Cambridge. Of purely literary works he left two,
+entitled respectively, <i>Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the
+Apocalypse of St. John</i>, and a <i>Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended</i>;
+both of which are of little present value except as the curious remains of
+so great a man.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Viscount Bolingbroke</i> (Henry St. John), 1678-1751: as an erratic
+statesman, a notorious free-thinker, a dissipated lord, a clever political
+writer, and an eloquent speaker, Lord Bolingbroke was a centre of
+attraction in his day, and demands observation in literary history. During
+the reign of Queen Anne he was a plotter in favor of the pretender, and
+when she died, he fled the realm to avoid impeachment for treason. In
+France he joined the pretender as Secretary of State, but was dismissed
+for intrigue; and on being pardoned by the English king, he returned to
+England. His writings are brilliant but specious. His influence was felt
+in the literary society he drew around him,&mdash;Swift, Pope, and
+others,&mdash;and, as has been already said, his opinions are to be found in
+that <i>Essay on Man</i> which Pope dedicated to him. In his meteoric political
+career he represents and typifies one phase of the time in which he lived.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>George Berkeley</i>, 1684-1753: he was educated at Trinity College, Dublin,
+and soon engaged in metaphysical controversy. In 1724 he was made Dean of
+Derry, and in 1734, Bishop of Cloyne. A man of great philanthropy, he set
+forth a scheme for the founding of the <i>Bermudas College</i>, to train
+missionaries for the colonies and to labor among the North American
+Indians. As a metaphysician, he was an <i>absolute idealist</i>. This is no
+place to discuss his theory. In the words of Dr. Reid, &quot;He <a id="p279" />maintains ...
+that there is no such thing as matter in the universe; that the sun and
+moon, earth and sea, our own bodies and those of our friends, are nothing
+but ideas in the minds of those who think of them, and that they have no
+existence when they are not objects of thought; that all that is in the
+universe may be reduced to two categories, to wit, <i>minds</i> and <i>ideas in
+the mind</i>.&quot; The reader is referred, for a full discussion of this
+question, to Sir William Hamilton's <i>Metaphysics</i>. Berkeley's chief
+writings are: <i>New Theory of Vision, Treatise Concerning the Principles of
+Human Knowledge</i>, and <i>Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous</i>. His name
+and memory are especially dear to the American people; for, although his
+scheme of the training-college failed, he lived for two years and a half
+in Newport, where his house still stands, and where one of his children is
+buried. He presented to Yale College his library and his estate in Rhode
+Island, and he wrote that beautiful poem with its kindly prophecy:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Westward the course of empire takes its way:<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The four first acts already past,<br />
+    A fifth shall close the drama with the day;<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Time's noblest offspring is the last.
+</p></blockquote>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch27">
+<h2 id="p280">Chapter XXVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Rise and Progress of Modern Fiction.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch27-1">The New Age</a>. <a href="#ch27-2">Daniel Defoe</a>. <a href="#ch27-3">Robinson Crusoe</a>. <a href="#ch27-4">Richardson</a>. <a href="#ch27-5">Pamela, and
+   Other Novels</a>. <a href="#ch27-6">Fielding</a>. <a href="#ch27-7">Joseph Andrews</a>. <a href="#ch27-8">Tom Jones</a>. <a href="#ch27-9">Its Moral</a>. <a href="#ch27-10">Smollett</a>.
+   <a href="#ch27-11">Roderick Random</a>. <a href="#ch27-12">Peregrine Pickle</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch27-1">The New Age.</h4>
+
+
+<p>We have now reached a new topic in the course of English
+Literature&mdash;contemporaneous, indeed, with the subjects just named, but
+marked by new and distinct development. It was a period when numerous and
+distinctive forms appeared; when genius began to segregate into schools
+and divisions; when the progress of letters and the demands of popular
+curiosity gave rise to works which would have been impossible, because
+uncalled for, in any former period. English enterprise was extending
+commerce and scattering useful arts in all quarters of the globe, and thus
+giving new and rich materials to English letters. Clive was making himself
+a lord in India; Braddock was losing his army and his life in America.
+This spirit of English enterprise in foreign lands was evoking literary
+activity at home: there was no exploit of English valor, no extension of
+English dominion and influence, which did not find its literary
+reproduction. Thus, while it was an age of historical research, it was
+also that of actual delineations of curious novelties at home and abroad.</p>
+
+<p>Poetry was in a transition state; it was taking its leave of the unhealthy
+satire and the technical wit of Queen Anne's <a id="p281" />reign, and attempting, on
+the one hand, the impostures of Macpherson and Chatterton,&mdash;to which we
+shall hereafter refer,&mdash;and, on the other, the restoration of the pastoral
+from the theatrical to the real, in Thomson's song of the Rolling Year,
+and Cowper's pleasant Task, so full of life and nature. Swallow-like,
+English poetry had hung about the eaves or skimmed the surface of town and
+court; but now, like the lark, it soared into freer air&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    C&#339;tusque vulgares et udam<br />
+    Spernit humum fugiente penna.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In short, it was a day of general awakening. The intestine troubles
+excited by the Jacobites were brought to an end by the disaster of
+Culloden, in 1745. The German campaigns culminating at Minden, in 1759,
+opened a door to the study of German literature, and of the Teutonic
+dialects as elements of the English language.</p>
+
+<p>It is, therefore, not astonishing that in this period Literature should
+begin to arrange itself into its present great divisions. As in an earlier
+age the drama had been born to cater to a popular taste, so in this, to
+satisfy the public demand, arose English <i>prose fiction</i> in its peculiar
+and enduring form. There had been grand and desultory works preceding
+this, such as <i>Robinson Crusoe, The Pilgrim's Progress</i>, and Swift's
+inimitable story of <i>Gulliver</i>; but the modern novel, unlike these, owes
+its origin to a general desire for delineations of private life and
+manners. &quot;Show us ourselves!&quot; was the cry.</p>
+
+<p>A novel may be defined as a fictitious story of modern life describing the
+management and mastery of the human passions, and especially the universal
+passion of love. Its power consists in the creation of ideal characters,
+which leave a real impress upon the reader's mind; it must be a prose
+<i>epic</i> in that there is always a hero, or, at least, a heroine, generally
+both, and a <i>drama</i> in its presentation of scenes and supplementary
+person<a id="p282" />ages. Thackeray calls his <i>Vanity Fair</i> a novel without a hero: it
+is impossible to conceive a novel without a heroine. There must also be a
+<i>d&eacute;nouement</i>, or consummation; in short, it must have, in the words of
+Aristotle, a beginning, middle, and ending, in logical connection and
+consecutive interest.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch27-2"><span class="sc">Daniel Defoe.</span>&mdash;Before, however, proceeding to consider the modern novel,
+we must make mention of one author, distinctly of his own age as a
+political pamphleteer, but who, in his chief and inimitable work, stands
+alone, without antecedent or consequent. <i>Robinson Crusoe</i> has had a host
+of imitators, but no rival.</p>
+
+<p>Daniel Foe, or, as he afterwards called himself, De Foe, was born in
+London, in the year 1661. He was the son of a butcher, but such was his
+early aptitude, for learning, that he was educated to become a dissenting
+minister. His own views, however, were different: he became instead a
+political author, and wrote with great force against the government of
+James II. and the Established Church, and in favor of the dissenters. When
+the Duke of Monmouth landed to make his fatal campaign, Defoe joined his
+standard; but does not seem to have suffered with the greater number of
+the duke's adherents.</p>
+
+<p>He was a warm supporter of William III.; and his famous poem, <i>The
+True-Born Englishman</i>, was written in answer to an attack upon the king
+and the Dutch, called <i>The Foreigners</i>. Of his own poem he says, in the
+preface, &quot;When I see the town full of lampoons and invectives against the
+Dutch, only because they are foreigners, and the king reproached and
+insulted by insolent pedants and ballad-making poets for employing
+foreigners and being a foreigner himself, I confess myself moved by it to
+remind our nation of their own original, thereby to let them see what a
+banter they put upon themselves, since&mdash;speaking of Englishmen <i>ab
+origine</i>&mdash;we are really all foreigners ourselves:&quot;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    <a id="p283" />The Pict and painted Briton, treach'rous Scot,<br />
+    By hunger, theft, and rapine hither brought;<br />
+    Norwegian pirates, buccaneering Danes,<br />
+    Whose red-haired offspring everywhere remains;<br />
+    Who, joined with Norman-French, compound the breed<br />
+    From whence your true-born Englishmen proceed.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In 1702, just after the death of King William, Defoe published his
+severely ironical pamphlet, <i>The Shortest Way with the Dissenters</i>.
+Assuming the character of a High Churchman, he says: &quot;'Tis vain to trifle
+in the matter. The light, foolish handling of them by fines is their glory
+and advantage. If the gallows instead of the compter, and the galleys
+instead of the fines, were the reward of going to a conventicle, there
+would not be so many sufferers.&quot; His irony was at first misunderstood: the
+High Churchmen hailed him as a champion, and the Dissenters hated him as
+an enemy. But when his true meaning became apparent, a reward of &pound;50 was
+offered by the government for his discovery. His so-called &quot;scandalous and
+seditious pamphlet&quot; was burnt by the common hangman: he was tried, and
+sentenced to pay two hundred marks, to stand three times in the pillory,
+and to be imprisoned during the queen's pleasure. He bore his sentence
+bravely, and during his two years' residence in prison he published a
+periodical called <i>The Review</i>. In 1709 he wrote a <i>History of the Union</i>
+between England and Scotland.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch27-3"><span class="sc">Robinson Crusoe.</span>&mdash;But none of these things, nor all combined, would have
+given to Defoe that immortality which is his as the author of <i>Robinson
+Crusoe</i>. Of the groundwork of the story not much need be said.</p>
+
+<p>Alexander Selkirk, the sailing-master of an English privateer, was set
+ashore, in 1704, at his own request, on the uninhabited island Juan
+Fernandez, which lies several hundred miles from the coast of Chili, in
+the Pacific Ocean. He was supplied with clothing and arms, and remained
+there alone for<a id="p284" /> four years and four months. It is supposed that his
+adventures suggested the work. It is also likely that Defoe had read the
+journal of Peter Serrano, who, in the sixteenth century, had been
+<i>marooned</i> in like manner on a desolate island lying off the mouth of the
+Oroonoque (Orinoco). The latter locality was adopted by Defoe. But it is
+not the fact or the adventures which give power to <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>. It
+is the manner of treating what might occur to any fancy, even the dullest.
+The charm consists in the simplicity and the verisimilitude of the
+narrative, the rare adaptation of the common man to his circumstances, his
+projects and failures, the birth of religion in his soul, his conflicting
+hopes and fears, his occasional despair. We see in him a brother, and a
+suffering one. We live his life on the island; we share his terrible fear
+at the discovery of the footprint, his courage in destroying the cannibal
+savages and rescuing the victim. Where is there in fiction another man
+Friday? From the beginning of his misfortunes until he is again sailing
+for England, after nearly thirty years of captivity, he holds us
+spellbound by the reality, the simplicity, and the pathos of his
+narrative; but, far beyond the temporary illusion of the modern novel,
+everything remains real: the shipwrecked mariner spins his yarns in sailor
+fashion, and we believe and feel every word he says. The book, although
+wonderfully good throughout, is unequal: the prime interest only lasts
+until he is rescued, and ends with his embarkation for England. The
+remainder of his travels becomes, as a narrative, comparatively tiresome
+and tame; and we feel, besides, that, after his unrivalled experience, he
+should have remained in England, &quot;the observed of all observers.&quot; Yet it
+must be said that we are indebted to his later journey in Spain and
+France, his adventures in the Eastern Seas, his caravan ride overland from
+China to Europe, for much which illustrates the manners and customs of
+navigation and travel in that day.</p>
+
+<p><i>Robinson Crusoe</i> stands alone among English books, a per<a id="p285" />ennial fountain
+of instruction and pleasure. It aids in educating each new generation:
+children read it for its incident; men to renew their youth; literary
+scholars to discover what it teaches of its time and of its author's
+genius. Its influence continues unabated; it incites boys to maritime
+adventure, and shows them how to use in emergency whatever they find at
+hand. It does more: it tends to reclaim the erring by its simple homilies;
+it illustrates the ruder navigation of its day; shows us the habits and
+morals of the merchant marine, and the need and means of reforming what
+was so very bad.</p>
+
+<p>Defoe's style is clear, simple, and natural. He wrote several other works,
+of which few are now read. Among these are the <i>Account of the Plague, The
+Life and Piracies of Captain Singleton</i>, and <i>The Fortunes and Misfortunes
+of Moll Flanders</i>. He died on the 24th of April, 1731.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch27-4"><span class="sc">Richardson.</span>&mdash;Samuel Richardson, who, notwithstanding the peculiar merits
+of Defoe, must be called the <i>Father of Modern Prose Fiction</i>, was born in
+Derbyshire, in 1689. The personal events of his life are few and
+uninteresting. A carpenter's son, he had but little schooling, and owed
+everything to his own exertions. Apprenticed to a printer in London, at
+the age of fifteen, he labored assiduously at his trade, and it rewarded
+him with fortune: he became, in turn, printer of the Journals of the House
+of Commons, Master of the Stationers' Company, and Printer to the King.
+While young, he had been the confidant of three young women, and had
+written or corrected their love-letters for them. He seems to have had
+great fluency in letter-writing; and being solicited by a publisher to
+write a series of familiar letters on the principal concerns of life,
+which might be used as models,&mdash;a sort of &quot;Easy Letter-Writer,&quot;&mdash;he began
+the task, but, changing his plan, he wrote a story in a series of letters.
+The first volume was published in 1741, and was no less a work than
+<i>Pamela</i>. The author was then fifty years old;<a id="p286" /> and he presents in this
+work a matured judgment concerning the people and customs of the day,&mdash;the
+printer's notions of the social condition of England,&mdash;shrewd, clever, and
+defective.</p>
+
+<p>Wearied as the world had been by what Sir Walter Scott calls the &quot;huge
+folios of inanity&quot; which had preceded him, the work was hailed with
+delight. There was a little affectation; but the sentiment was moral and
+natural. Ladies carried <i>Pamela</i> about in their rides and walks. Pope,
+near his end, said it was a better moral teacher than sermons: Sherlock
+recommended it from the pulpit.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch27-5"><span class="sc">Pamela, and Other Novels.</span>&mdash;<i>Pamela</i> is represented as a poor servant-maid,
+but beautiful and chaste, whose honor resists the attack of her dissolute
+master, and whose modesty and virtue overcome his evil nature. Subdued and
+reclaimed by her chastity and her charms, he reforms, and marries her.
+Some pictures which are rather warmly colored and indelicate in our day
+were quite in keeping with the taste of that time, and gave greater effect
+to the moral lesson assigned to be taught.</p>
+
+<p>In his next work, <i>Clarissa Harlowe</i>, which appeared in 1749, he has drawn
+the picture of a perfect woman preserving her purity amid seductive
+gayeties, and suffering sorrows to which those of the Virgin Martyr are
+light. We have, too, an excellent portraiture of a bold and wicked, but
+clever and gifted man&mdash;Lovelace.</p>
+
+<p>His third and last novel, <i>Sir Charles Grandison</i>, appeared in 1753. The
+hero, <i>Sir Charles</i>, is the model of a Christian gentleman; but is,
+perhaps, too faultless for popular appreciation.</p>
+
+<p>In his delineations of humbler natures,&mdash;country girls like
+<i>Pamela</i>,&mdash;Richardson is happiest: in his descriptions of high life he has
+failed from ignorance. He was not acquainted with the best society, and
+all his grandees are<a id="p287" /> stilted, artificial, and affected; but even in this
+fault he is of value, for he shows us how men of his class at that time
+regarded the society of those above them.</p>
+
+<p>These works, which, notwithstanding their length, were devoured eagerly as
+soon as they appeared, are little read at present, and exist rather as
+historical interpreters of an age that is past, than as present light
+literature: they have been driven from our shelves by Scott, Dickens,
+Thackeray, and a host of charming novelists since his day.</p>
+
+<p>Richardson lived the admired of a circle of ladies,&mdash;to whose sex he had
+paid so noble a tribute,&mdash;the hero of tea-drinkings at his house on
+Parson's Green; his books gave him fame, but his shop&mdash;in the back office
+of which he wrote his novels, when not pressed by business&mdash;gave him money
+and its comforts. He died at the age of seventy-two, on the 4th of July,
+1761.</p>
+
+<p>He was an unconscious actor in a great movement which had begun in France.
+The brilliant theories of Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and
+Dalembert&mdash;containing much truth and many heresies&mdash;were felt in England,
+and had given a new impetus to English intellect; indeed, it is not
+strange, when we come to consider, that while Richardson's works were
+praised in English pulpits, Voltaire and the French atheists declared that
+they saw in them an advance towards human perfectibility and
+self-redemption, of which, if true, Richardson himself was unconscious.
+From the amours of men and women of fashion, aided by intriguing
+maid-servants and lying valets, Richardson turned away to do honor to
+untitled merit, to exalt the humble, and to defy gilded vice. Whatever
+were the charms of rank, he has elevated our humanity; thus far, and thus
+far only, has he sympathized with the Frenchmen who attacked the
+corruptions of the age, but who assaulted also its faith and its
+reverence.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch27-6"><a id="p288" /><span class="sc">Henry Fielding.</span>&mdash;The path of prose fiction, so handsomely opened by
+Richardson, was immediately entered and pursued by a genius of higher
+order, and as unlike him as it was possible to be. Richardson still clung
+to romantic sentiment, Fielding eschewed it; Richardson was a teacher of
+morality, Fielding shielded immorality; Richardson described artificial
+manners in a society which he did not frequent, Fielding, in the words of
+Coleridge, &quot;was like an open lawn on a breezy day in May;&quot; Richardson was
+a plebeian, a carpenter's son, a successful printer; Fielding was a
+gentleman, the son of General Fielding, and grandson of the Earl of
+Denbigh; Richardson steadily rose, by his honest exertions, to independent
+fortune, Fielding passed from the high estate of his ancestors into
+poverty and loose company; the one has given us mistaken views of high
+life, the other has been enabled, by his sad experience, to give us
+truthful pictures of every grade of English society in his day from the
+lord, the squire, and the fop to the thief-taker, the prostitute, and the
+thief.</p>
+
+<p id="ch27-7">Henry Fielding was born on the 22d of April, 1707, at Sharpham Park,
+Somersetshire. While yet a young man, he had read <i>Pamela</i>; and to
+ridicule what he considered its prudery and over-righteousness, he hastily
+commenced his novel of <i>Joseph Andrews</i>. This Joseph is represented as the
+brother of Pamela,&mdash;a simple country lad, who comes to town and finds a
+place as Lady Booby's footman. As Pamela had resisted her master's
+seductions, he is called upon to oppose the vile attempts of his mistress
+upon his virtue.</p>
+
+<p>In that novel, as well as in its successors, <i>Tom Jones</i> and <i>Amelia</i>,
+Fielding has given us rare pictures of English life, and satires upon
+English institutions, which present the social history of England a
+century ago: in this view our sympathies are not lost upon purely ideal
+creations.</p>
+
+<p>In him, too, the French <i>illuminati</i> claimed a co-laborer; and their
+influence is more distinctly seen than in Richard<a id="p289" />son's works: great
+social problems are discussed almost in the manner of a Greek chorus;
+mechanical forms of religion are denounced. The French philosophers
+attacked errors so intertwined with truth, that the violent stabs at the
+former have cut the latter almost to death; Richardson attacked the errors
+without injuring the truth: he is the champion of purity. If <i>Joseph
+Andrews</i> was to rival <i>Pamela</i> in chastity, <i>Tom Jones</i> was to be
+contrasted with both in the same particular.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch27-8"><span class="sc">Tom Jones.</span>&mdash;Fielding has received the highest commendations from literary
+men. Byron calls him the &quot;prose Homer of human nature;&quot; and Gibbon, in
+noticing that the Lords of Denbigh were descended, like Charles V., from
+Rudolph of Hapsburg, says: &quot;The successors of Charles V. may despise their
+brethren of England, but the romance of <i>Tom Jones</i>&mdash;that exquisite
+picture of human manners&mdash;will outlive the Palace of the Escurial and the
+Imperial Eagle of Austria.&quot; We cannot go so far; we quote the praise but
+doubt the prophecy. The work is historically valuable, but technically
+imperfect and unequal. The plot is rambling, without method: most of the
+scenes lie in the country or in obscure English towns; the meetings are as
+theatrical as stage encounters; the episodes are awkwardly introduced, and
+disfigure the unity; the classical introductions and invocations are
+absurd. His heroes are men of generous impulses but dissolute lives, and
+his women are either vile, or the puppets of circumstance.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch27-9"><span class="sc">Its True Value.</span>&mdash;What can redeem his works from such a category of
+condemnation? Their rare portraiture of character and their real glimpses
+of nature: they form an album of photographs of life as it was&mdash;odd,
+grotesque, but true. They have no mysterious Gothic castles like that of
+Otranto, nor enchanted forests like that of Mrs. Radcliffe. They present
+homely English life and people,&mdash;<i>Partridge</i>, barber, schoolmaster, and
+coward; <i>Mrs. Honor</i>, the type of maid-servants, devoted to her mistress,
+and yet artful; <i>Squire Western</i>, the<a id="p290" /> foul and drunken country gentleman;
+<i>Squire Allworthy</i>, a noble specimen of human nature; <i>Parson Adams</i>, who
+is regarded by the critics as the best portrait among all his characters.</p>
+
+<p>And even if we can neither commend nor recommend heroes like <i>Tom Jones</i>,
+such young men really existed, and the likeness is speakingly drawn: we
+bear with his faults because of his reality. Perhaps our verdict may be
+best given in the words of Thackeray. &quot;I am angry,&quot; he says, &quot;with Jones.
+Too much of the plum-cake and the rewards of life fall to that boisterous,
+swaggering young scapegrace. Sophia actually surrenders without a proper
+sense of decorum; the fond, foolish, palpitating little creature. 'Indeed,
+Mr. Jones,' she says, 'it rests with you to name the day.' ... And yet
+many a young fellow, no better than Mr. Thomas Jones, has carried by a
+<i>coup-de-main</i> the heart of many a kind girl who was a great deal too good
+for him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When <i>Joseph Andrews</i> appeared, and Richardson found that so profane a
+person as Fielding had dared to burlesque his <i>Pamela</i>, he was angry; and
+his little tea-drinking coterie was warm in his defence; but Fielding's
+party was then, and has remained, the stronger.</p>
+
+<p>In his novel of <i>Amelia</i>, we have a general autobiography of Fielding.
+Amelia, his wife, is lovely, chaste, and constant. Captain Booth&mdash;Fielding
+himself&mdash;is errant, guilty, generous, and repentant. We have besides in it
+many varieties of English life,&mdash;lords, clergymen, officers; Vauxhall and
+the masquerade; the sponging-house and its inmates, debtors and
+criminals,&mdash;all as Fielding saw and knew them.</p>
+
+<p>The condition of the clergy is more clearly set forth in Fielding's novels
+than in the pages of Echard, Oldham, Wood, Macaulay, or Churchill
+Babington. So changed was their estate since the Reformation, that few
+high-born youths, except the weak or lame, took holy orders. Many
+clergymen worked during the week. One, says South, was a cobbler on
+weekdays, and preached on Sundays. Wilmot says: &quot;We <a id="p291" />are struck by the
+phenomenon of a learned man sitting down to prove, with the help of logic,
+that a priest or a chaplain in a family is not a servant,&quot;&mdash;Jeremy
+Collier: <i>Essays on Pride and the Office of a Chaplain</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Fielding drew them and their condition from the life. Parson Adams is the
+most excellent of men. His cassock is ten years old; over it he dons a
+coarse white overcoat, and travels on foot to London to sell nine volumes
+of sermons, wherewithal to buy food for his family. He engages the
+innkeeper in serious talk; he does desperate battle to defend a young
+woman who has fallen into the hands of ruffians on the highway; and when
+he is arrested, his manuscript Eschylus is mistaken for a book of ciphers
+unfolding a dreadful plot against the government. This is a hit against
+the ignorance and want of education among the people; for it is some time
+before some one in the company thinks he saw such characters many years
+ago when he was young, and that it may be Greek. The incident of Parson
+Trulliber mistaking his fellow-priest for a pork-merchant, on account of
+his coarse garments, is excellent, but will not bear abbreviation. Adams
+is splattered by the huge, overfed swine, and ejaculates, &quot;<i>Nil habeo cum
+porcis</i>; I am a clergyman, sir, and am not come to buy hogs!&quot; The
+condition of a curate and the theology of the publican are set forth in
+the conversation between Parson Adams and the innkeeper.</p>
+
+<p>The works of Fielding may be justly accused of describing immoral scenes
+and using lewd language; but even in this they are delineative of the
+manners and conversation of an age in which such men lived, such scenes
+occurred, such language was used. I liken the great realm of English prose
+fiction to some famous museum of art. The instructor of the young may
+carefully select what pictures to show them; but the student of English
+literature moves through the rooms and galleries, gazing, judging,
+approving, condemning, comparing. Genius may have soiled its canvas with
+what is pru<a id="p292" />rient and vile; lascivious groups may stand side by side with
+pictures of saints and madonnas. To leave the figure, it is wise counsel
+to read on principle, and, armed with principle, to accept and imitate the
+good, and to reject the evil. Conscience gives the rule, and for every
+bane will give the antidote.</p>
+
+<p>Of this school and period, Fielding is the greatest figure. One word as to
+his career. Passing through all social conditions,&mdash;first a country
+gentleman, living on or rather squandering his first wife's little fortune
+in following the hounds and entertaining the county; then a playwright,
+vegetating very seedily on the proceeds of his comedies; justice of the
+peace, and encountering, in his vocation, such characters as <i>Jonathan
+Wild</i>; drunken, licentious, unfaithful to his wife, but always&mdash;strange
+paradox of poor human nature&mdash;generous as the day; mourning with bitter
+tears the loss of his first wife, and then marrying her faithful
+maid-servant, that they may mourn for her together,&mdash;he seems to have been
+a rare mechanism without a <i>governor</i>. &quot;Poor Harry Fielding!&quot; And yet to
+this irregular, sinful character, we owe the inimitable portraitures of
+English life as it was, in <i>Joseph Andrews</i>, <i>Tom Jones</i>, and <i>Amelia</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Fielding's habits, acting upon a naturally weak constitution, wore him
+out. He left England, and wandered to the English factory at Lisbon, where
+he died, in 1754, in the forty-eighth year of his age.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch27-10"><span class="sc">Tobias George Smollett.</span>&mdash;Smollett, the third in order and in rank of the
+novelists of his age, was born at Cardross, Dumbartonshire, in 1721, of a
+good family; but he had small means. After some schooling at Dumbarton and
+a university career at Glasgow, he was, from necessity, apprenticed to a
+surgeon. But as his grandfather, Sir James Smollett, on whom he depended,
+died, he left his master, at the age of eighteen, and, taking in his
+pocket a manuscript play <a id="p293" />he had thus early written,&mdash;<i>The Regicides</i>,&mdash;he
+made his way to London, the El Dorado of all youths with literary
+aspirations. The play was not accepted; but, through the knowledge
+obtained in the surgery, he received an appointment as surgeon's mate, and
+went out with Admiral Vernon's fated expedition to Carthagena in that
+capacity, and thus acquired a knowledge of the sea and of sailors which he
+was to use with great effect in his later writings. For a time he remained
+in the West Indies, where he fell in love with Miss Anne Lascelles, whom
+he afterwards married. In 1746 he returned to London, and, after an
+unsuccessful attempt to practise medicine, he threw himself with great
+vigor into the field of literature. He was a man of strange and
+antagonistic features, just and generous in theory, quarrelsome and
+overbearing in practice. From the year 1746 his pen seems to have been
+always busy. He first tried his hand on some satires, which gained for him
+numerous enemies; and in 1748 he produced his first novel, <i id="ch27-11">Roderick
+Random</i>, which, in spite of its indecency, the world at once acknowledged
+to be a work of genius: the verisimilitude was perfect; every one
+recognized in the hero the type of many a young North countryman going out
+to seek his fortune. The variety is great, the scenes are more varied and
+real than those in Richardson and Fielding, the characters are numerous
+and vividly painted, and the keen sense of ridicule pervading the book
+makes it a broad jest from beginning to end. Historically, his
+delineations are valuable; for he describes a period in the annals of the
+British marine which has happily passed away,&mdash;a hard life in little
+stifling holds or forecastles, with hard fare,&mdash;a base life, for the
+sailor, oppressed on shipboard, was the prey of vile women and land-sharks
+when on shore. What pictures of prostitution and indecency! what obscenity
+of language! what drunken infernal orgies! We may shun the book as we
+would shun the company, and yet the one is the exact portraiture of the
+other.</p>
+
+<p id="ch27-12"><a id="p294" />Roderick Random was followed, in 1751, by <i>Peregrine Pickle</i>, a book in
+similar taste, but the characters in which are even more striking. The
+forms of Commodore Trunnion, Lieutenant Hatchway, Pipes the boatswain, and
+Ap Morgan the choleric Welsh surgeon, are as familiar to us now as at the
+first.</p>
+
+<p>Smollett had now retired to Chelsea, where his facile pen was still hard
+at work. In 1753 appeared his <i>Ferdinand Count Fathom</i>, the portraiture of
+a complete villain, corresponding in character with Fielding's <i>Jonathan
+Wild</i>, but with a better moral.</p>
+
+<p>About this time he translated <i>Don Quixote</i>; and although his version is
+still published, it is by no means true to the idiom of the language, nor
+to the higher purpose of Cervantes.</p>
+
+<p>Passing by his <i>Complete History of Authentic and Entertaining Voyages</i>,
+we come to his <i>History of England from the Descent of Julius C&aelig;sar to the
+Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748</i>. It is not a profound work; but it is
+so currently written, that, in lieu of better, the latter portion was
+taken to supplement Hume; as a work of less merit than either, that of
+Bissett was added in the later editions to supplement Smollett and Hume.
+For this history he is said to have received &pound;2000.</p>
+
+<p>In 1762 he issued <i>The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves</i>, who, with his
+attendant, <i>Captain Crowe</i>, goes forth, in the style of Don Quixote and
+Sancho, to <i>do</i> the world. Smollett's forte was in the broadly humorous,
+and this is all that redeems this work from utter absurdity.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec"><span class="sc">Humphrey Clinker.</span>&mdash;His last work of any importance, and perhaps his best,
+is <i>The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker</i>, described in a series of letters
+descriptive of this amusing imaginative journey. Mrs. Winifred, Tabitha,
+and, best of all, Lismahago, are rare characters, and in all respects,
+except its vulgarity, it was the prototype of Hood's exquisite <i>Up the
+Rhine</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p295" />From the year 1756, Smollett edited, at intervals, various periodicals,
+and wrote what he thought very good poetry, now forgotten,&mdash;an <i>Ode to
+Independence</i>, after the Greek manner of strophe and antistrophe, not
+wanting in a noble spirit; and <i>The Tears of Scotland</i>, written on the
+occasion of the Duke of Cumberland's barbarities, in 1746, after the
+battle of Culloden:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn<br />
+    Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn!<br />
+    Thy sons, for valor long renowned,<br />
+    Lie slaughtered on thy native ground.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Smollett died abroad on the 21st of October, 1771. His health entirely
+broken, he had gone to Italy, and taken a cottage near Leghorn: a slight
+resuscitation was the consequence, and he had something in prospect to
+live for: he was the heir-at-law to the estate of Bonhill, worth &pound;1000 per
+annum; but the remorseless archer would not wait for his fortune.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch28">
+<h2 id="p296">Chapter XXVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Sterne, Goldsmith, and Mackenzie.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch28-1">The Subjective School</a>. <a href="#ch28-2">Sterne</a>&mdash;<a href="#ch28-3">Sermons</a>. <a href="#ch28-4">Tristram Shandy</a>. <a href="#ch28-5">Sentimental
+   Journey</a>. <a href="#ch28-6">Oliver Goldsmith</a>. <a href="#ch28-7">Poems</a>&mdash;<a href="#ch28-8">The Vicar</a>. <a href="#ch28-9">Histories, and Other
+   Works</a>. <a href="#ch28-10">Mackenzie</a>. <a href="#ch28-11">The Man of Feeling</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch28-1">The Subjective School.</h4>
+
+
+<p>In the same age, and inspired by similar influences, there sprang up a
+widely-different school of novelists, which has been variously named as
+the Sentimental and the Subjective School. Richardson and Fielding
+depicted what they saw around them objectively, rather than the
+impressions made upon their individual sensitiveness. Both Sterne and
+Goldsmith were eminently subjective. They stand as a transparent medium
+between their works and the reader. The medium through which we see
+<i>Tristram Shandy</i> is a double lens,&mdash;one part of which is the distorted
+mind of the author, and the other the nondescript philosophy which he
+pilfered from Rabelais and Burton. The glass through which the <i>Vicar of
+Wakefield</i> is shown us is the good-nature and loving heart of Goldsmith,
+which brighten and gladden every creation of his pen. Thus it is that two
+men, otherwise essentially unlike, appear together as representatives of a
+school which was at once sentimental and subjective.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch28-2"><span class="sc">Sterne.</span>&mdash;Lawrence Sterne was the son of an officer in the British army,
+and was born, in 1713, at Clonmel, in Ireland, where his father was
+stationed.</p>
+
+<p>His father died not long afterwards, at Gibraltar, from the effect<a id="p297" /> of a
+wound which he had received in a duel; and it is indicative of the <i>code
+of honor</i> in that day, that the duel was about a goose at the mess-table!
+What little Lawrence learned in his brief military experience was put to
+good use afterwards in his army reminiscences and portraitures in
+<i>Tristram Shandy</i>. No doubt My Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim are sketches
+from his early recollections. Aided by his mother's relations, he studied
+at Cambridge, and afterwards, without an inward call, but in accordance
+with the custom of the day, he entered into holy orders, and was presented
+to a living, of which he stood very much in need.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch28-3"><span class="sc">His Sermons.</span>&mdash;With no spirit for parochial work, it must be said that he
+published very forcible and devout sermons, and set before his people and
+the English world a pious standard of life, by which, however, he did not
+choose to measure his own: he preached, but did not practise. In a letter
+to Mr. Foley, he says: &quot;I have made a good campaign in the field of the
+literati: ... two volumes of sermons which I shall print very soon will
+bring me a considerable sum.... 'Tis but a crown for sixteen sermons&mdash;dog
+cheap; but I am in quest of honor, not money.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>These discourses abound in excellent instruction and in pithy expressions;
+but it is painful to see how often his pointed rebukes are undesignedly
+aimed at his own conduct. In one of them he says: &quot;When such a man tells
+you that a thing goes against his conscience, always believe he means
+exactly the same thing as when he tells you it goes against his stomach&mdash;a
+present want of appetite being generally the true cause of both.&quot; In his
+discourse on <i>The Forgiveness of Injuries</i>, we have the following striking
+sentiment: &quot;The brave only know how to forgive: it is the most refined and
+generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at. Cowards have done
+good and kind actions; cowards have even fought, nay, sometimes even
+conquered; but a coward never<a id="p298" /> forgave.&quot; All readers of <i>Tristram Shandy</i>
+will recall his sermon on the text, &quot;For we trust we have a good
+conscience,&quot; so affecting to Corporal Trim and so overwhelming to Dr.
+Slop.</p>
+
+<p>But if his sermons are so pious and good, we look in vain into his
+entertaining <i>Letters</i> for a corresponding piety in his life. They are
+witty, jolly, occasionally licentious. They touch and adorn every topic
+except religion; and so it may be feared that all his religion was
+written, printed, bound, and sold by subscription, in those famous
+sermons, sixteen for a crown&mdash;&quot;dog cheap!&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch28-4"><span class="sc">Tristram Shandy.</span>&mdash;In 1759 appeared the first part of <i>Tristram Shandy</i>&mdash;a
+strange, desultory work, in which many of the curious bits of philosophy
+are taken from Montaigne, Burton, Rabelais, and others; but which has,
+besides, great originality in the handling and in the portraiture of
+characters. Much of what Sterne borrowed from these writers passed for his
+own in that day, when there were comparatively few readers of the authors
+mentioned. As to the charge of plagiarism, we may say that Sterne's hero
+is like the <i>Gargantua</i> of Rabelais in many particulars; but he is a man
+instead of a monster; while the chapter on <i>Hobby-Horses</i> is a
+reproduction, in a new form of crystallization, of <i>Gargantua's wooden
+horses</i>.</p>
+
+<p>So, too, the entire theological cast of <i>Tristram Shandy</i> is that of the
+sixteenth century;&mdash;questions before the Sorbonne, the use of
+excommunication, and the like. Dr. Slop, the Roman Catholic surgeon of the
+family, is but a weak mouthpiece of his Church in the polemics of the
+story; for Sterne was a violent opponent of the Church of Rome in story as
+well as in sermon; and Obadiah, the stupid man-servant, is the lay figure
+who receives the curses which Dr. Slop reads,&mdash;&quot;cursed in house and
+stable, garden and field and highway, in path or in wood, in the water or
+in the church.&quot; Whether<a id="p299" /> the doctor was in earnest or not, Obadiah paid
+him fully by upsetting him and his pony with the coach-horse.</p>
+
+<p>But in spite of the resemblance to Rabelais and a former age, it must be
+allowed that <i>Tristram Shandy</i> contains many of the richest pictures and
+fairest characters of the age in which it was written. Rural England is
+truthfully presented, and the political cast of the day is shown in his
+references to the war in Flanders. Among the sterling original portraits
+are those of Mr. Shandy, the country gentleman, controversial and
+consequential; Mrs. Shandy, the nonentity,&mdash;the Amelia Osborne and Mrs.
+Nickleby of her day; Yorick, the lukewarm, time-serving priest&mdash;Sterne
+himself: and these are only supplementary characters.</p>
+
+<p>The sieges of towns in the Low Countries, then going on, are pleasantly
+connected with that most exquisite of characters, <i>my Uncle Toby</i>, who has
+a fortification in his garden,&mdash;sentry-box, cannon, and all,&mdash;and who
+follows the great movement on this petty scale from day to day, as the
+bulletins come in from the seat of war.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Widow Wadman</i>, with her artless wiles, and the &quot;something in her
+eye,&quot; makes my Uncle Toby&mdash;who protests he can see nothing in the
+white&mdash;look, not without peril, &quot;with might and main into the pupil.&quot; Ah,
+that sentry-box and the widow's tactics might have conquered many a more
+wary man than my Uncle Toby! and yet my Uncle Toby escaped.</p>
+
+<p>Now, all these are real English characters, sketched from life by the hand
+of genius, and they become our friends and acquaintances forever. It seems
+as though Sterne, after a long and close study of Rabelais and Burton, had
+fancied that, with their aid, he might write a money-making book; but his
+own genius, rising superior to the plagiarism, took the project out of his
+venal hands; and from the antique learning and the incongruities which he
+had heaped together, bright and beautiful forms sprang forth like genii
+from the mine, to subsidize the tears and laughter of all future time.
+What an exquis<a id="p300" />ite creation is my Uncle Toby!--a soldier in the van of
+battle, a man of honor and high tone in every-day life, a kind brother, a
+good master to Corporal Trim, simple as a child, benevolent as an angel.
+&quot;Go, poor devil,&quot; quoth he to the fly which buzzed about his nose all
+dinner-time, &quot;get thee gone; why should I hurt thee? This world is surely
+wide enough to hold both thee and me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And as for Corporal Trim, he is a host in himself. There is in the English
+literary portrait-gallery no other Uncle Toby, there is no other Corporal
+Trim. Hazlitt has not exaggerated in saying that the <i>Story of Le Fevre</i>
+is perhaps the finest in the English language. My Uncle Toby's conduct to
+the dying officer is the perfection of loving-kindness and charity.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch28-5"><span class="sc">The Sentimental Journey.</span>&mdash;Sterne's <i>Sentimental Journey</i>, although
+charmingly written,&mdash;and this is said in spite of the preference of such a
+critic as Horace Walpole,&mdash;will not compare with <i>Tristram Shandy</i>: it is
+left unfinished, and is constantly suggestive of licentiousness.</p>
+
+<p>Sterne's English is excellent and idiomatic, and has commended his works
+to the ordinary reader, who shrinks from the hyperlatinism of the time
+represented so strongly by Dr. Johnson and his followers. His wit, if
+sometimes artificial, is always acute; his sentiment is entirely
+artificial; &quot;he is always protruding his sensibility, trying to play upon
+you as upon an instrument; more concerned that you should acknowledge his
+power than have any depth of feeling.&quot; Thackeray, whose opinion is just
+quoted, calls him &quot;a great jester, not a great humorist.&quot; He had lived a
+careless, self-indulgent life, and was no honor to his profession. His
+death was like a retribution. In a mean lodging, with no friends but his
+bookseller, he died suddenly from hemorrhage. His funeral was hasty, and
+only attended by two persons; his burial was in an obscure graveyard; and
+his body was taken up by corpse-snatchers for the dissecting-room of the
+professor of anatomy at Cambridge,&mdash;alas, poor Yorick!</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch28-6"><a id="p301" /><span class="sc">Oliver Goldsmith.</span>&mdash;We have placed Goldsmith in immediate connection with
+Sterne as, like him, of the Subjective School, in his story of the <i>Vicar
+of Wakefield</i> and his numerous biographical and prose sketches; but he
+belongs to more than one literary school of his period. He was a poet, an
+essayist, a dramatist, and an historian; a writer who, in the words of his
+epitaph,&mdash;written by Dr. Johnson, and with no extravagant
+eulogium,&mdash;touched all subjects, and touched none that he did not
+adorn,&mdash;<i>nullum quod tetigit non ornavit</i>. His life was a strange
+melodrama, so varied with laughter and tears, so checkered with fame and
+misfortune, so resounding with songs pathetic and comic, that, were he an
+unknown hero, his adventures would be read with pleasure by all persons of
+sensibility. There is no better illustration of the <i>subjective</i> in
+literature. It is the man who is presented to us in his works, and who can
+no more be disjoined from them than the light from the vase, the beauties
+of which it discloses. As an essayist, he was of the school of Addison and
+Steele; but he has more ease of style and more humor than his teachers. As
+a dramatist, he had many and superior competitors in his own vein; and yet
+his plays still occupy the stage. As an historian, he was fluent but
+superficial; and yet the charm of his style and the easy flow of his
+narrative, have given his books currency as manuals of instruction. And
+although as a writer of fiction, or of truth gracefully veiled in the
+garments of fiction, he stands unrivalled in his beautiful and touching
+story of the incorruptible <i>Vicar</i>, yet this is his only complete story,
+and presents but one side of his literary character. Considering him first
+as a poet, we shall find that he is one of the Transition School, but that
+he has a beautiful originality: his poems appeal not to the initiated
+alone, but to human nature in all its conditions and guises; they are
+elevated and harmonious enough for the most fastidious taste, and simple
+and artless enough to please the rustic and the child. To say that he is
+the most popular writer in the whole course of <a id="p302" />English Literature thus
+far, is hardly to overstate his claims; and the principal reason is that,
+with a blundering and improvident nature, a want of dignity, a lack of
+coherence, he had a great heart, alive to human suffering; he was generous
+to a fault, true to the right, and ever seeking, if constantly failing, to
+direct and improve his own life, and these good characteristics are
+everywhere manifest in his works. A brief recital of the principal events
+in his career will throw light upon his works, and will do the best
+justice to his peculiar character.</p>
+
+<p>Oliver Goldsmith was born at the little village of Pallas, in Ireland,
+where his father was a poor curate, on the 10th of November, 1728. There
+were nine children, of whom he was the fifth. His father afterwards moved
+to Lissoy, which the poet described, in his <i>Deserted Village</i>, as</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,<br />
+    Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>As his father was entirely unable to educate so numerous a family,
+Goldsmith owed his education partly to his uncle, the Rev. Thomas
+Contarini, and in part to his brother, the Rev. Henry Goldsmith, whom he
+cherished with the sincerest affection. An attack of the small-pox while
+he was a boy marked his face, and he was to most persons an
+unprepossessing child. He was ill-treated at school by larger boys, and
+afterwards at Trinity College, Dublin, which he entered as a sizar, by his
+tutor. He was idle, careless, and improvident: he left college without
+permission, but was taken back by his brother, and was finally graduated
+with a bachelor's degree, in 1749. His later professional studies were
+spasmodic and desultory: he tried law and medicine, and more than once
+gained a scanty support by teaching. Seized with a rambling spirit, he
+went to the Continent, and visited Holland, France, Germany, Switzerland,
+and Italy; sometimes gaining a scanty livelihood by teaching English, and
+sometimes wandering without money, depending upon his flute to win a
+supper and <a id="p303" />bed from the rustics who lived on the highway. He obtained, it
+is said, the degree of Doctor of Medicine at Padua; and on his return to
+England, he went before a board of examiners to obtain the position of
+surgeon's mate in the army or navy. He was at this time so poor that he
+was obliged to borrow a suit of clothes to make a proper appearance before
+the examiners. He failed in his examination, and then, in despair, he
+pawned the borrowed clothes, to the great anger of the publisher who had
+lent them. This failure in his medical examination, unfortunate as it then
+seemed, secured him to literature. From that time his pen was constantly
+busy for the reviews and magazines. His first work was <i>An Inquiry into
+the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe</i>, which, at least, prepared
+the way for his future efforts. This appeared in 1759, and is
+characterized by general knowledge and polish of style.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch28-7"><span class="sc">His Poems.</span>&mdash;In 1764 he published <i>The Traveller</i>, a moralizing poem upon
+the condition of the people under the European governments. It was at once
+and entirely successful; philosophical, elegant, and harmonious, it is
+pitched in a key suited to the capacity of the world at large; and as, in
+the general comparison of nations, he found abundant reason for lauding
+England, it was esteemed patriotic, and was on that account popular. Many
+of its lines have been constantly quoted since.</p>
+
+<p>In 1770 appeared his <i>Deserted Village</i>, which was even more popular than
+<i>The Traveller</i>; nor has this popularity flagged from that time down to
+the present day. It is full of exquisite pictures of rural life and
+manners. It is what it claims to be,&mdash;not an attempt at high art or epic,
+but a gallery of cabinet pictures of rare finish and detail, painted by
+the poet's heart and appealing to the sensibility of every reader. The
+world knows it by heart,&mdash;the portraiture of the village schoolmaster and
+his school; the beautiful picture of the country parson:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    <a id="p304" />A man he was to all the country dear,<br />
+    And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This latter is a worthy companion-piece to Chaucer's &quot;poor persoune,&quot; and
+is, besides, a filial tribute to Goldsmith's father. So real are the
+characters and scenes, that the poem has been a popular subject for the
+artist. If in <i>The Traveller</i> he has been philosophical and didactic, in
+the <i>Deserted Village</i> he is only descriptive and tender. In no work is
+there a finer spirit of true charity, the love of man for God's
+sake,&mdash;like God himself, &quot;no respecter of persons.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While in form and versification he is like Pope and the Artificial School,
+he has the sensibility to nature of Thomson, and the simplicity of feeling
+and thought of Wordsworth; and thus he stands between the two great poetic
+periods, partaking of the better nature of both.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch28-8"><span class="sc">The Vicar of Wakefield.</span>&mdash;Between the appearance of these two poems, in
+1766, came forth that nonpareil of charming stories, <i>The Vicar of
+Wakefield</i>. It is so well known that we need not enter into an analysis of
+it. It is the story of a good vicar, of like passions with ourselves; not
+wanting in vanity and impetuosity, but shining in his Christian virtue
+like a star in the midst of accumulating misfortunes,&mdash;a man of immaculate
+honor and undying faith, preaching to his fellow-prisoners in the jail,
+surveying death without fear, and at last, like Job, restored to
+happiness, and yet maintaining his humility. It does not seem to have been
+constructed according to artificial rules, but rather to have been told
+extemporaneously, without effort and without ambition; and while this very
+fact has been the cause of some artistic faults and some improbabilities,
+it has also given it a peculiar charm, by contrast with such purely
+artificial constructions as the <i>Rasselas</i> of Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>So doubtful was the publisher, who had bought the manuscript for &pound;60, that
+he held it back for two years, until the <a id="p305" />name of the author had become
+known through <i>The Traveller</i>, and was thus a guarantee for its success.
+The <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i> has also an additional value in its delineation
+of manners, persons, and conditions in that day, and in its strictures
+upon the English penal law, in such terms and with such suggestions as
+seem a prophecy of the changes which have since taken place.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch28-9"><span class="sc">Histories, and Other Works.</span>&mdash;Of Goldsmith's various histories it may be
+said that they are of value for the clear, if superficial, presentation of
+facts, and for their charm of style.</p>
+
+<p>The best is, without doubt, <i>The History of England</i>; but the <i>Histories
+of Greece and Rome</i>, re-edited, are still used as text-books in many
+schools. The <i>Vicar</i> has been translated into most of the modern
+languages, and imitated by many writers since.</p>
+
+<p>As an essayist, Goldsmith has been a great enricher of English history.
+His Chinese letters&mdash;for the idea of which he was indebted to the <i>Lettres
+Persanes</i> of Montesquieu&mdash;describe England in his day with the same
+<i>vraisemblance</i> which we have noticed in <i>The Spectator</i>. These were
+afterwards collected and published in a volume entitled <i>The Citizen of
+the World</i>. And besides the pleasure of biography, and the humor of the
+presentment, his <i>Life of Beau Nash</i> introduces us to Bath and its
+frequenters with historical power. The life at the Spring is one and a
+very valuable phase of English society.</p>
+
+<p>As a dramatist, he was more than equalled by Sheridan; but his two plays,
+<i>The Good-Natured Man</i> and <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i>, are still favorites
+upon the stage.</p>
+
+<p>The irregularities of Goldsmith's private life seem to have been rather
+defects in his character than intentional wrong-doings. Generous to a
+fault, squandering without thought what was due to his creditors, losing
+at play, he lived in con<a id="p306" />tinual pecuniary embarrassment, and died unhappy,
+with a debt of &pound;1000, the existence of which led Johnson to ejaculate,
+&quot;Was ever poet so trusted before?&quot; He lived a bachelor; and the conclusion
+seems forced upon us that had he married a woman who could have controlled
+him, he, would have been a happier and more respectable man, but perhaps
+have done less for literature than he did.</p>
+
+<p>While Goldsmith was a type and presenter of his age, and while he took no
+high flights in the intellectual realms, he so handled what the age
+presented that he must be allowed the claim of originality, both in his
+poems and in the <i>Vicar</i>; and he has had, even to the present day, hosts
+of imitators. Poems on college gala-days were for a long time faint
+reflections of his <i>Traveller</i>, and simple, causal stories of quiet life
+are the teeming progeny of the <i>Vicar</i>, in spite of the Whistonian
+controversy, and the epitaph of his living wife.</p>
+
+<p>A few of his ballads and songs display great lyric power, but the most of
+his poetry is not lyric; it is rather a blending of the pastoral and epic
+with rare success. His minor poems are few, but favorites. Among these is
+the beautiful ballad entitled <i>Edwin and Angelina</i>, or <i>The Hermit</i>, which
+first appeared in <i>The Vicar of Wakefield</i>, but which has since been
+printed separately among his poems. Of its kind and class it has no
+superior. <i>Retaliation</i> is a humorous epitaph upon his friends and
+co-literati, hitting off their characteristics with truth and point; and
+<i>The Haunch of Venison</i>&mdash;upon which he did not dine&mdash;is an amusing
+incident which might have happened to any Londoner like himself, but which
+no one could have related so well as he.</p>
+
+<p>He died in 1774, at the age of forty-five; but his fame&mdash;his better
+life&mdash;is more vigorous than ever. Washington Irving, whose writings are
+similar in style to those of Goldsmith, has extended and perpetuated his
+reputation in America by writing his Biography; a charming work, many
+touches of which seem almost autobiographical, as displaying the
+resemblance between the writer and his subject.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch28-10"><a id="p307" /><span class="sc">Mackenzie.</span>&mdash;From Sterne and Goldsmith we pass to Mackenzie, who, if not a
+conscious imitator of the former, is, at least, unconsciously formed upon
+the model of Sterne, without his genius, but also without his coarseness:
+in the management of his narrative, he is a medium between Sterne and
+Walter Scott; indeed, from his long life, he saw the period of both these
+authors, and his writings partake of the characteristics of both.</p>
+
+<p>Henry Mackenzie was born at Edinburgh, in August, 1745, and lived until
+1831, to the ripe age of eighty-six. He was educated at the University of
+Edinburgh, and afterwards studied law. He wrote some strong political
+pamphlets in favor of the Pitt government, for which he was rewarded with
+the office of comptroller of the taxes, which he held to the day of his
+death.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch28-11"><span class="sc">The Man of Feeling.</span>&mdash;In 1771 the world was equally astonished and
+delighted by the appearance of his first novel, <i>The Man of Feeling</i>. In
+this there are manifest tokens of his debt to Sterne's <i>Sentimental
+Journey</i>, in the journey of Harley, in the story of the beggar and his
+dog, and in somewhat of the same forced sensibility in the account of
+Harley's death.</p>
+
+<p>In 1773 appeared his <i>Man of the World</i> which was in some sort a sequel to
+the <i>Man of Feeling</i>, but which wearies by the monotony of the plot.</p>
+
+<p>In 1777 he published <i>Julia de Roubign&eacute;</i>, which, in the opinion of many,
+shares the palm with his first novel: the plot is more varied than that of
+the second, and the language is exceedingly harmonious&mdash;elegiac prose. The
+story is plaintive and painful: virtue is extolled, but made to suffer, in
+a domestic tragedy, which all readers would be glad to see ending
+differently.</p>
+
+<p>At different times Mackenzie edited <i>The Mirror</i> and <i>The Lounger</i>, and he
+has been called the restorer of the Essay. <a id="p308" />His story of the venerable <i>La
+Roche</i>, contributed to <i>The Mirror</i>, is perhaps the best specimen of his
+powers as a sentimentalist: it portrays the influence of Christianity, as
+exhibited in the very face of infidelity, to support the soul in the
+sorest of trials&mdash;the death of an only and peerless daughter.</p>
+
+<p>His contributions to the above-named periodicals were very numerous and
+popular.</p>
+
+<p>The name of his first novel was applied to himself as a man. He was known
+as the <i>man of feeling</i> to the whole community. This was a misnomer: he
+was kind and affable; his evening parties were delightful; but he had
+nothing of the pathetic or sentimental about him. On the contrary, he was
+humorous, practical, and worldly-wise; very fond of field sports and
+athletic exercises. His sentiment&mdash;which has been variously criticized, by
+some as the perfection of moral pathos, and by others as lackadaisical and
+canting&mdash;may be said to have sprung rather from his observations of life
+and manners than to have welled spontaneously from any source within his
+own heart.</p>
+
+<p>Sterne and Goldsmith will be read as long as the English language lasts,
+and their representative characters will be quoted as models and standards
+everywhere: Mackenzie is fast falling into an oblivion from which he will
+only be resuscitated by the historian of English Literature.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch29">
+<h2>Chapter XXIX.</h2>
+
+<h3 id="p309">The Historical Triad in the Sceptical Age.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch29-1">The Sceptical Age</a>. <a href="#ch29-2">David Hume</a>. <a href="#ch29-3">History of England</a>. <a href="#ch29-4">Metaphysics</a>. <a href="#ch29-5">Essay
+   on Miracles</a>. <a href="#ch29-6">Robertson</a>. <a href="#ch29-7">Histories</a>. <a href="#ch29-8">Gibbon</a>. <a href="#ch29-9">The Decline and Fall</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch29-1">The Sceptical Age.</h4>
+
+
+<p>History presents itself to the student in two forms: The first is
+<i>chronicle</i>, or a simple relation of facts and statistics; and the second,
+<i>philosophical history</i>, in which we use these facts and statistics in the
+consideration of cause and effect, and endeavor to extract a moral from
+the actions and events recorded. From pregnant causes the philosophic
+historian traces, at long distances, the important results; or,
+conversely, from the present condition of things&mdash;the good and evil around
+him&mdash;he runs back, sometimes remotely, to the causes from which they have
+sprung. Chronicle is very pleasing to read, and the reader may be, to some
+extent, his own philosopher; but the importance of history as a study is
+found in its philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>As far down as the eighteenth century, almost everything in history
+partakes of the nature of chronicle. In that century, in obedience to the
+law of human progress, there sprang up in England and on the Continent the
+men who first made chronicle material for philosophy, and used philosophy
+to teach by example what to imitate and what to shun.</p>
+
+<p>What were the circumstances which led, in the eighteenth century, to the
+simultaneous appearance of Hume, Gibbon, and Robertson, as the originators
+of a new school of history? <a id="p310" />Some of them have been already mentioned in
+treating of the antiquarian age. We have endeavored to show how the
+English literati&mdash;novelists, essayists, and poets&mdash;have been in part
+unconscious historians. It will also appear that the professed historians
+themselves have been, in a great measure, the creatures of English
+history. The <i>fifteenth</i> century was the period when the revival of
+letters took place, and a great spur was given to mental activity; but the
+world, like a child, was again learning rudiments, and finding out what it
+was, and what it possessed at that present time: it received the new
+classical culture presented to it at the fall of the lower empire, and was
+content to learn the existing, without endeavoring to create the new, or
+even to recompose the scattered fragments of the past. The <i>eighteenth</i>
+century saw a new revival: the world had become a man; great progress was
+reported in arts, in inventions, and in discoveries; science began to
+labor at the arduous but important task of classification; new theories of
+government and laws were propounded; the past was consulted that its
+experience might be applied; the partisan chronicles needed to be united
+and compared that truth might be elicited; the philosophic historian was
+required, and the people were ready to learn, and to criticize, what he
+produced.</p>
+
+<p>I have ventured to call this the Sceptical Age. It had other
+characteristics: this was one. We use the word sceptical in its
+etymological sense: it was an age of inquiry, of doubt to be resolved.
+Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, D'Alembert, and Diderot had founded a new
+school of universal inquiry, and from their bold investigations and
+startling theories sprang the society of the <i>illuminati</i>, and the race of
+thinkers. They went too far: they stabbed the truth as it lay in the grasp
+of error. From thinkers they became free-thinkers: from philosophers they
+became infidels, and some of them atheists. This was the age which
+produced &quot;the triumvirate of British historians who,&quot; in the words of
+Montgomery, &quot;exemplified <a id="p311" />in their very dissimilar styles the triple
+contrast of simplicity, elegance, and splendor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Imbued with this spirit of the time, Hume undertook to write a <i>History of
+England</i>, which, with all its errors and faults, still ranks among the
+best efforts of English historians. Like the French philosophers, Hume was
+an infidel, and his scepticism appears in his writings; but, unlike
+them&mdash;for they were stanch reformers in government as well as infidels in
+faith&mdash;he who was an infidel was also an aristocrat in sentiment, and a
+consistent Tory his life long. In his history, with all the artifices of a
+philosopher, he takes the Jacobite side in the civil war.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch29-2"><span class="sc">Hume.</span>&mdash;David Hume was born in Edinburgh on the 26th of April (O.S.), 1711.
+His life was without many vicissitudes of interest, but his efforts to
+achieve an enduring reputation on the most solid grounds, mark him as a
+notable example of patient industry, study, and economy. He led a
+studious, systematic, and consistent life.</p>
+
+<p>Although of good family,&mdash;being a descendant of the Earl of Home,&mdash;he was
+in poor circumstances, and after some study of the law, and some
+unsuccessful literary ventures, he was obliged to seek employment as a
+means of livelihood. Thus he became tutor or keeper to the young Marquis
+of Annandale, who was insane. Abandoning this position in disgust, he was
+appointed secretary to General St. Clair in various embassies,&mdash;to Paris,
+Vienna, and Turin; everywhere hoarding his pay, until he became
+independent, &quot;though,&quot; he says, &quot;most of my friends were inclined to smile
+when I said so; in short, I was master of a thousand pounds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His earliest work was a <i>Treatise on Human Nature</i>, published in 1738,
+which met with no success. Nothing discouraged thereat, in 1741 he issued
+a volume of <i>Essays Moral and Political</i>, the success of which emboldened
+him to publish, in 1748, his <i>Inquiry Concerning the Human Understanding</i>.
+<a id="p312" />These and other works were preparing his pen for its greater task, the
+material for which he was soon to find.</p>
+
+<p>In 1752 he was appointed librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, not for
+the emolument, but with the real purpose of having entire control of the
+books and material in the library; and then he determined to write the
+<i>History of England</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch29-3"><span class="sc">History of England.</span>&mdash;He began with the accession of the Stuarts, in 1603,
+the period when the popular element, so long kept tranquil by the power
+and sex of Queen Elizabeth, was ready first to break out into open
+assertion. Hume's self-deception must have been rudely discovered to him;
+for he tells us, in an autobiography fortunately preserved, that he
+expected so dispassionately to steer clear of all existent parties, or,
+rather, to be so just to all, that he should gain universal approbation.
+&quot;Miserable,&quot; he adds, &quot;was my disappointment. I was assailed by one cry of
+reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation. English, Scotch, Irish,
+Whig and Tory, churchman and sectary, free-thinker and religionist,
+patriot and courtier, united, in their rage, against the man who had
+presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl
+of Strafford.&quot; How far, too, this was ignorant invective, may be judged
+from the fact that in twelve months only forty-five copies of his work
+were sold.</p>
+
+<p>However, he patiently continued his labor. The first volume, containing
+the reigns of James I. and Charles I, had been issued in 1754; his second,
+published in 1756, and containing the later history of the Commonwealth,
+of Charles II., and James II., and concluding with the revolution of 1688,
+was received with more favor, and &quot;helped to buoy up its unfortunate
+brother.&quot; Then he worked backward: in 1759 he produced the reigns of the
+house of Tudor; and in 1761, the earlier history, completing his work,
+from the earliest times to 1688. The tide had now turned in his favor; the
+sales were large, and his pecuniary rewards greater than any historian had
+yet received.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p313" />The Tory character of his work is very decided: he not only sheds a
+generous tear for the fate of Charles I., but conceals or glosses the
+villanies of Stuarts far worse than Charles. The liberties of England
+consist, in his eyes, of wise concessions made by the sovereign, rather
+than as the inalienable birthright of the English man.</p>
+
+<p>He has also been charged with want of industry and honesty in the use of
+his materials&mdash;taking things at second-hand, without consulting original
+authorities which were within his reach, and thus falling into many
+mistakes, while placing in his marginal notes the names of the original
+authors. This charge is particularly just with reference to the
+Anglo-Saxon period, since so picturesquely described by Sharon Turner.</p>
+
+<p>The first in order of the philosophical historians, he is rather a
+collector of facts than a skilful diviner with them. His style is sonorous
+and fluent, but not idiomatic. Dr. Johnson said, &quot;His style is not
+English; the structure of his sentences is French,&quot;&mdash;an opinion concurred
+in by the eminent critic, Lord Jeffrey.</p>
+
+<p>But whatever the criticism, the <i>History</i> of Hume is a great work. He did
+what was never done before. For a long time his work stood alone; and even
+now it has the charm of a clear, connected narrative, which is still
+largely consulted by many who are forewarned of its errors and faults. And
+however unidiomatic his style, it is very graceful and flowing, and lends
+a peculiar charm to his narrative.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch29-4"><span class="sc">Metaphysics.</span>&mdash;Of Hume as a philosopher, we need not here say much. He was
+acute, intelligent, and subtle; he was, in metaphysical language, &quot;a
+sceptical nihilist.&quot; And here a distinction must be made between his
+religious tenets and his philosophical views,&mdash;a distinction so happily
+stated by Sir William Hamilton, that we present it in his words: &quot;Though
+decidedly opposed to one and all of Hume's theological conclusions, I have
+no hesitation in asserting of his philosophical <a id="p314" />scepticism, that this was
+not only beneficial in its results, but, in the circumstances of the
+period, even a necessary step in the progress of Philosophy towards
+Truth.&quot; And again he says, &quot;To Hume we owe the philosophy of Kant, and
+therefore also, in general, the later philosophy of Germany.&quot; &quot;To Hume, in
+like manner, we owe the philosophy of Reid, and, consequently, what is now
+distinctively known in Europe as the Philosophy of the Scottish School.&quot;
+Great praise this from one of the greatest Christian philosophers of this
+century, and it shows Hume to have been more original as a philosopher
+than as an historian.</p>
+
+<p>He is also greatly commended by Lord Brougham as a political economist.
+&quot;His <i>Political Discourses</i>,&quot; says his lordship, &quot;combine almost every
+excellence which can belong to such a performance.... Their great merit is
+their originality, and the new system of politics and political economy
+which they unfold.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch29-5"><span class="sc">Miracles.</span>&mdash;The work in which is most fairly set forth his religious
+scepticism is his <i>Essay on Miracles</i>. In it he adopts the position of
+Locke, who had declared &quot;that men should not believe any proposition that
+is contrary to reason, on the authority either of inspiration or of
+miracle; for the reality of the inspiration or of the miracle can only be
+established by reason.&quot; Before Hume, assaults on the miracles recorded in
+Scripture were numerous and varied. Spinoza and the Pantheistic School had
+started the question, &quot;Are miracles possible?&quot; and had taken the negative.
+Hume's question is, &quot;Are miracles credible?&quot; And as they are contrary to
+human experience, his answer is essentially that it must be always more
+probable that a miracle is false than that it is true; since it is not
+contrary to experience that witnesses are false or deceived. With him it
+is, therefore, a question of the preponderance of evidence, which he
+declares to be always against the miracle. This is not the place to
+discuss <a id="p315" />these topics. Archbishop Whately has practically illustrated the
+fallacy of Hume's reasoning, in a little book called <i>Historic Doubts,
+relative to Napoleon Bonaparte</i>, in which, with Hume's logic, he has
+proved, that the great emperor never lived; and Whately's successor in the
+archbishopric of Dublin, Dr. Trench, has given us some thoughtful words on
+the subject: &quot;So long as we abide in the region of nature, miraculous and
+improbable, miraculous and incredible may be allowed to remain convertible
+terms; but once lift up the whole discussion into a higher region, once
+acknowledge aught higher than nature&mdash;<i>a kingdom of God</i>, and men the
+intended denizens of it&mdash;and the whole argument loses its strength and the
+force of its conclusions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Hume's death occurred on the 25th of August, 1776. His scepticism, or
+philosophy as he called it, remained with him to the end. He even diverted
+himself with the prospect of the excuses he would make to Charon as he
+reached the fatal river, and is among the few doubters who have calmly
+approached the grave without that concern which the Christian's hope alone
+is generally able to dispel.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch29-6"><span class="sc">William Robertson.</span>&mdash;the second of the great historians of the eighteenth
+century, although very different from the others in his personal life and
+in his creed,&mdash;was, like them, a representative and creature of the age.
+They form, indeed, a trio in literary character as well as in period; and
+we have letters from each to the others on the appearance of their works,
+showing that they form also what in the present day is called a &quot;Mutual
+Admiration Society.&quot; They were above common envy: they recognized each
+other's excellence, and forbore to speak of each other's faults. As a
+philosopher, Hume was the greatest of the three; as an historian, the palm
+must be awarded to Gibbon. But Robertson surprises us most from the fact
+that a quiet Scotch pastor, who never travelled, should have attempted,
+and so gracefully treated, subjects of such general interest as those he
+handled.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p316" />William Robertson was the son of a Scottish minister, and was born at
+Borthwick, in Scotland, on September 19th, in the year 1721. He was a
+precocious child, and, after attending school at Dalkeith, he entered the
+University of Edinburgh at the age of twelve. At the age of twenty he was
+licensed to preach. He published, in 1755, a sermon on <i>The Situation of
+the World at the Time of Christ's Appearance</i>, which attracted attention;
+but he astonished the world by issuing, in 1759, his <i>History of Scotland
+During the Reigns of Queen Mary, and of James VI. until his Accession to
+the Crown of England</i>. This is undoubtedly his best work, but not of such
+general interest as his others. His materials were scanty, and he did not
+consult such as were in his reach with much assiduity. The invaluable
+records of the archives of Simancas were not then opened to the world, but
+he lived among the scenes of his narrative, and had the advantage of
+knowing all the traditions and of hearing all the vehement opinions <i>pro</i>
+and <i>con</i> upon the subjects of which he treated. The character of Queen
+Mary is drawn with a just but sympathetic hand, and his verdict is not so
+utterly denunciatory as that of Mr. Froude. Such was the popularity of
+this work, that in 1764 its author was appointed to the honorable office
+of Historiographer to His Majesty for Scotland. In 1769 he published his
+<i>History of Charles V.</i> Here was a new surprise. Whatever its faults, as
+afterwards discerned by the critics, it opened a new and brilliant page to
+the uninitiated reader, and increased his reputation very greatly. The
+history is preceded by a <i>View of the Progress of Society in Europe from
+the Subversion of the Roman Empire to the Beginning of the Sixteenth
+Century</i>. The best praise that can be given to this <i>View</i> is, that
+students have since used it as the most excellent summary of that kind
+existing. Of the history itself it may be said that, while it is greatly
+wanting in historic material in the interest of the narrative and the
+splendor of the pageantry of the imperial court, it marked a new era in
+historical delineations.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch29-7"><a id="p317" /><span class="sc">History of America.</span>&mdash;In 1777 appeared the first eight books of his
+<i>History of America</i>, to which, in 1778, he appended additions and
+corrections. The concluding books, the ninth and tenth, did not appear
+until 1796, when, three years after his death, they were issued by his
+son. As a connected narrative of so great an event in the world's history
+as the discovery of America, it stood quite alone. If, since that time,
+far better and fuller histories have appeared, we should not withhold our
+meed of praise from this excellent forerunner of them all. One great
+defect of this and the preceding work was his want of knowledge of the
+German and Spanish historians, and of the original papers then locked up
+in the archives of Simancas; later access to which has given such great
+value to the researches of Irving and Prescott and Sterling. Besides,
+Robertson lacked the life-giving power which is the property of true
+genius. His characters are automata gorgeously arrayed, but without
+breath; his style is fluent and sometimes sparkling, but in all respects
+he has been superseded, and his works remain only as curious
+representatives of the age to the literary student. One other work remains
+to be mentioned, and that is his <i>Historical Disquisition Concerning the
+Knowledge which the Ancients had of India, and the Progress of Trade with
+that Country Prior to the Discovery of the Passage to it by the Cape of
+Good Hope</i>. This is chiefly of value as it indicates the interest felt in
+England at the rise of the English Empire in India; but for real facts it
+has no value at all.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch29-8"><span class="sc">Gibbon.</span>&mdash;Last in order of time, though far superior as an historian to
+Hume and Robertson, stands Edward Gibbon, the greatest historian England
+has produced, whether we regard the dignity of his style&mdash;antithetic and
+sonorous; the range of his subject&mdash;the history of a thousand years; the
+astonishing fidelity of his research in every department which con<a id="p318" />tains
+historic materials; or the symmetry and completeness of his colossal work.</p>
+
+<p>Like Hume, he has left us a sketch of his own life and labors, simple and
+dispassionate, from which it appears that he was born in London on the
+27th of April, 1737; and, being of a good family, he had every advantage
+of education. Passing a short time at the University of Oxford, he stands
+in a small minority of those who can find no good in their <i>Alma Mater</i>.
+&quot;To the University of Oxford,&quot; he says, &quot;I acknowledge no obligation, and
+she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son as I am willing to disclaim
+her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College. They proved
+to be fourteen of the most idle and unprofitable months of my whole life.&quot;
+This singular experience may be contrasted with that of hundreds, but may
+be most fittingly illustrated by stating that of Dr. Lowth, a venerable
+contemporary of the historian. He speaks enthusiastically of the place
+where the student is able &quot;to breathe the same atmosphere that had been
+breathed by Hooker and Chillingworth and Locke; to revel in its grand and
+well-ordered libraries; to form part of that academic society where
+emulation without envy, ambition without jealousy, contention without
+animosity, incited industry and awakened genius.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Gibbon, while still in his boyhood, had read with avidity ancient and
+modern history, and had written a juvenile paper on <i>The Age of
+Sesostris</i>, which was, at least, suggested by Voltaire's <i>Si&egrave;cle de Louis
+XIV</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Early interested, too, in the history of Christianity, his studies led him
+to become a Roman Catholic; but his belief was by no means stable. Sent by
+his father to Lausanne, in Switzerland, to be under the religious training
+of a Protestant minister, he changed his opinions, and became again a
+Protestant. His convictions, however, were once more shaken, and, at the
+last, he became a man of no creed, a sceptic of the school of Voltaire, a
+creature of the age of illumination. <a id="p319" />Many passages of his history display
+a sneering unbelief, which moves some persons more powerfully than the
+subtlest argument. This modern Platonist, beginning with sensation,
+evolves his philosophy from within,&mdash;from the finite mind; whereas human
+history can only be explained in the light of revelation, which gives to
+humanity faith, but which educes all science from the infinite&mdash;the mind
+of God.</p>
+
+<p id="ch29-9">The history written by Gibbon, called <i>The Decline and Fall of the Roman
+Empire</i>, begins with that empire in its best days, under Hadrian, and
+extends to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, under Mohammed II.,
+in 1453.</p>
+
+<p>And this marvellous scope he has treated with a wonderful equality of
+research and power;&mdash;the world-absorbing empire, the origin and movements
+of the northern tribes and the Scythian marauders, the fall of the Western
+Empire, the history of the civil law, the establishment of the Gothic
+monarchies, the rise and spread of Mohammedanism, the obscurity of the
+middle age deepening into gloom, the crusades, the dawning of letters, and
+the inauguration of the modern era after the fall of Constantinople,&mdash;the
+detailed history of a thousand years. It is difficult to conceive that any
+one should suggest such a task to himself; it is astonishing to think
+that, with a dignified, self-reliant tenacity of purpose, it should have
+been completely achieved. It was an historic period, in which, in the
+words of Corneille, &quot;<i>Un grand destin commence un grand destin s'ach&egrave;ve</i>.&quot;
+In many respects Gibbon's work stands alone; the general student must
+refer to Gibbon, because there is no other work to which he can refer. It
+was translated by Guizot into French, the first volume by Wenck into
+German (he died before completing it); and it was edited by Dean Milman in
+England.</p>
+
+<p>The style of Gibbon is elegant and powerful; at first it is singularly
+pleasing, but as one reads it becomes too sonorous, and fatigues, as the
+crashing notes of a grand march tire the ear. His periods are antithetic;
+each contains a surprise <a id="p320" />and a witty point. His first two volumes have
+less of this stately magnificence, but in his later ones, in seeking to
+vindicate popular applause, he aims to shine, and perpetually labors for
+effect. Although not such a philosopher as Hume, his work is quite as
+philosophical as Hume's history, and he has been more faithful in the use
+of his materials. Guizot, while pointing out his errors, says he was
+struck, after &quot;a second and attentive perusal,&quot; with &quot;the immensity of his
+researches, the variety of his knowledge, and, above all, with that truly
+philosophical discrimination which judges the past as it would judge the
+present.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The danger to the unwary reader is from the sceptical bias of the author,
+which, while he states every important fact, leads him, by its manner of
+presentation, to warp it, or put it in a false light. Thus, for example,
+he has praise for paganism, and easy absolution for its sins; Mohammed
+walks the stage with a stately stride; Alaric overruns Europe to a grand
+quickstep; but Christianity awakens no enthusiasm, and receives no
+eulogium, although he describes its early struggles, its martyrdoms, its
+triumphs under Constantine, its gentle radiance during the dark ages, and
+its powerful awakening. Because he cannot believe, he cannot even be just.</p>
+
+<p>In his special chapter on the rise and spread of Christianity, he gives a
+valuable summary of its history, and of the claims of the papacy, with
+perhaps a leaning towards the Latin Church. Gibbon finished his work at
+Lausanne on the 27th of June, 1787.</p>
+
+<p>Its conception had come to his mind as he sat one evening amid the ruins
+of the Capitol at Rome, and heard the barefooted friars singing vespers in
+the Temple of Jupiter. He had then thought of writing the decline and fall
+of the city of Rome, but soon expanded his view to the empire. This was in
+1764. Nearly thirteen years afterwards, he wrote the last line of the last
+page in his garden-house at Lausanne, and reflected joyfully upon his
+recovered freedom and his permanent fame. <a id="p321" />His second thought, however,
+will fitly close this notice with a moral from his own lips: &quot;My pride was
+soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea
+that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion,
+and that whatever might be the future fate of my history, the life of the
+historian must be short and precarious.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<h4>Other Contributors to History.</h4>
+
+
+<p><i>James Boswell</i>, 1740-1795: he was the son of a Scottish judge called Lord
+Auchinleck, from his estate. He studied law, and travelled, publishing, on
+his return, <i>Journal of a Tour in Corsica</i>. He appears to us a
+simple-hearted and amiable man, inquisitive, and exact in details. He
+became acquainted with Dr. Johnson in 1763, and conceived an immense
+admiration for him. In numerous visits to London, and in their tour to the
+Hebrides together, he noted Johnson's speech and actions, and, in 1791,
+published his life, which has already been characterized as the greatest
+biography ever written. Its value is manifold; not only is it a faithful
+portrait of the great writer, but, in the detailed record of his life, we
+have the wit, dogmatism, and learning of his hero, as expressing and
+illustrating the history of the age, quite as fully as the published works
+of Johnson. In return for this most valuable contribution to history and
+literature, the critics, one and all, have taxed their ingenuity to find
+strong words of ridicule and contempt for Boswell, and have done him great
+injustice. Because he bowed before the genius of Johnson, he was not a
+toady, nor a fool; at the worst, he was a fanatic, and a not always wise
+champion. Johnson was his king, and his loyalty was unqualified.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Horace Walpole</i>, the Right Honorable, and afterwards Earl of Orford,
+1717-1797: he was a wit, a satirist, and a most accomplished writer, who,
+notwithstanding, affected to despise literary fame. His paternity was
+doubted; but he enjoyed wealth and honors, and, by the possession of three
+sinecures, he lived a life of elegant leisure. He transformed a small
+house on the bank of the Thames, at Twickenham, into a miniature castle,
+called <i>Strawberry Hill</i>, which he filled with curiosities. He held a very
+versatile pen, and wrote much on many subjects. Among his desultory works
+are: <i>Anecdotes of Painting in England</i>, and <i>&AElig;des Walpoliana</i>, a
+description of the pictures at Houghton Hall, the seat of Sir Robert
+Walpole. He also ranks among the novelists, as the author of <i>The Castle
+of Otranto</i>, in which he deviates from the path of <a id="p322" />preceding writers of
+fiction&mdash;a sort of individual reaction from their portraitures of existing
+society to the marvellous and sensational. This work has been variously
+criticized; by some it has been considered a great flight of the
+imagination, but by most it is regarded as unnatural and full of
+&quot;pasteboard machinery.&quot; He had immediate followers in this vein, among
+whom are Mrs. Aphra Behn, in her <i>Old English Baron</i>; and Ann Radcliffe,
+in <i>The Romance of the Forest</i>, and <i>The Mysteries of Udolpho</i>. Walpole
+also wrote a work entitled <i>Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of
+Richard III</i>. But his great value as a writer is to be found in his
+<i>Memoirs</i> and varied <i>Correspondence</i>, in which he presents photographs of
+the society in which he lives. Scott calls him &quot;the best letter-writer in
+the language.&quot; Among the series of his letters, those of the greatest
+historical importance are those addressed to Sir Horace Mann, between 1760
+and 1785. Of this series, Macaulay, who is his severest critic, says: &quot;It
+forms a connected whole&mdash;a regular journal of what appeared to Walpole the
+most important transactions of the last twenty years of George II.'s
+reign. It contains much new information concerning the history of that
+time, the portion of English history of which common readers know the
+least.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p><i>John Lord Hervey</i>, 1696-1743: he is known for his attempts in poetry, and
+for a large correspondence, since published; but his chief title to rank
+among the contributors to history is found in his <i>Memoirs of the Court of
+George II. and Queen Caroline</i>, which were not published until 1848. They
+give an unrivalled view of the court and of the royal household; and the
+variety of the topics, combined with the excellence of description, render
+them admirable as aids to understanding the history.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Sir William Blackstone</i>, 1723-1780: a distinguished lawyer, he was an
+unwearied student of the history of the English statute law, and was on
+that account made Professor of Law in the University of Oxford. Some time
+a member of Parliament, he was afterwards appointed a judge. He edited
+<i>Magna Charta</i> and <i>The Forest Charter</i> of King John and Henry III. But
+his great work, one that has made his name famous, is <i>The Commentaries on
+the Laws of England</i>. Notwithstanding much envious criticism, it has
+maintained its place as a standard work. It has been again and again
+edited, and perhaps never better than by the Hon. George Sharswood, one of
+the Judges of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Adam Smith</i>, 1723-1790: this distinguished writer on political economy,
+the intelligent precursor of a system based upon the modern usage of
+nations, was educated at Glasgow and Oxford, and became in turn Pro<a id="p323" />fessor
+of Logic and of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow. His lecture
+courses in Moral Science contain the germs of his two principal works: 1.
+<i>The Theory of Moral Sentiments</i>, and 2. <i>An Enquiry into the Nature and
+Causes of the Wealth of Nations</i>. The theory of the first has been
+superseded by the sounder views of later writers; but the second has
+conferred upon him enduring honor. In it he establishes as a principle
+that <i>labor</i> is the source of national wealth, and displays the value of
+division of labor. This work&mdash;written in clear, simple language, with
+copious illustrations&mdash;has had a wonderful influence upon the legislation
+and the commercial system of all civilized states since its issue, and has
+greatly conduced to the happiness of the human race. He wrote it in
+retirement, during a period of ten years. He astonished and instructed his
+period by presenting it with a new and necessary science.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch30">
+<h2 id="p324">Chapter XXX.</h2>
+
+<h3>Samuel Johnson and His Times.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch30-1">Early Life and Career</a>. <a href="#ch30-2">London</a>. <a href="#ch30-3">Rambler and Idler</a>. <a href="#ch30-4">The Dictionary</a>. <a href="#ch30-5">Other
+   Works</a>. <a href="#ch30-6">Lives of the Poets</a>. <a href="#ch30-7">Person and Character</a>. <a href="#ch30-8">Style</a>. <a href="#ch30-9">Junius</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch30-1">Early Life and Career.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Doctor Samuel Johnson was poet, dramatist, essayist, lexicographer,
+dogmatist, and critic, and, in this array of professional characters,
+played so distinguished a part in his day that he was long regarded as a
+prodigy in English literature. His influence has waned since his
+personality has grown dim, and his learning been superseded or
+overshadowed; but he still remains, and must always remain, the most
+prominent literary figure of his age; and this is in no small measure due
+to his good fortune in having such a champion and biographer as James
+Boswell. Johnson's Life by Boswell is without a rival among biographies:
+in the words of Macaulay: &quot;Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic
+poets; Shakspeare is not more decidedly the first of dramatists;
+Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of orators, than Boswell is
+the first of biographers;&quot; and Burke has said that Johnson appears far
+greater in Boswell's book than in his own. We thus know everything about
+Johnson, as we do not know about any other literary man, and this
+knowledge, due to his biographer, is at least one of the elements of
+Johnson's immense reputation.</p>
+
+<p>He was born at Lichfield on the 18th of September, 1709. His father was a
+bookseller; and after having had a certain<a id="p325" /> amount of knowledge &quot;well
+beaten into him&quot; by Mr. Hunter, young Johnson was for two years an
+assistant in his father's shop. But such was his aptitude for learning,
+that he was sent in 1728 to Pembroke College, Oxford. His youth was not a
+happy one: he was afflicted with scrofula, &quot;which disfigured a countenance
+naturally well formed, and hurt his visual nerves so much that he did not
+see at all with one of his eyes.&quot; He had a morbid melancholy,&mdash;fits of
+dejection which made his life miserable. He was poor; and when, in 1731,
+his father died insolvent, he was obliged to leave the university without
+a degree. After fruitless attempts to establish a school, he married, in
+1736, Mrs. Porter, a widow, who had &pound;800. Rude and unprepossessing to
+others, she was sincerely loved by her husband, and deeply lamented when
+she died. In 1737 Johnson went to London in company with young Garrick,
+who had been one of his few pupils, and who was soon to fill the English
+world with his theatrical fame.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch30-2"><span class="sc">London.</span>&mdash;Johnson soon began to write for Cave's <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>,
+and in 1738 he astonished Pope and the artificial poets by producing, in
+their best vein, his imitation of the third Satire of Juvenal, which he
+called <i>London</i>. This was his usher into the realm of literature. But he
+did not become prominent until he had reached his fiftieth year; he
+continued to struggle with gloom and poverty, too proud to seek patronage
+in an age when popular remuneration had not taken its place. In 1740 he
+was a reporter of the debates in parliament for Cave; and it is said that
+many of the indifferent speakers were astonished to read the next day the
+fine things which the reporter had placed in their mouths, which they had
+never uttered.</p>
+
+<p>In 1749 he published his <i>Vanity of Human Wishes</i>, an imitation of the
+tenth Satire of Juvenal, which was as heartily welcomed as <i>London</i> had
+been. It is Juvenal applied to Eng<a id="p326" />lish and European history. It contains
+many lines familiar to us all; among them are the following:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Let observation with extended view<br />
+    Survey mankind from China to Peru.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In speaking of Charles XII., he says:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    His fall was destined to a barren strand,<br />
+    A petty fortress and a dubious hand;<br />
+    He left a name at which the world grew pale,<br />
+    To point a moral or adorn a tale.</p>
+
+<p>    From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow,<br />
+    And Swift expires a driveller and a show.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In the same year he published his tragedy of <i>Irene</i>, which,
+notwithstanding the friendly efforts of Garrick, who was now manager of
+Drury Lane Theatre, was not successful. As a poet, Johnson was the
+perfection of the artificial school; and this very technical perfection
+was one of the causes of the reaction which was already beginning to sweep
+it away.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch30-3"><span class="sc">Rambler and Idler.</span>&mdash;In 1750 he commenced <i>The Rambler</i>, a periodical like
+<i>The Spectator</i>, of which he wrote nearly all the articles, and which
+lived for two years. Solemn, didactic, and sonorous, it lacked the variety
+and genial humor which had characterized Addison and Steele. In 1758 he
+started <i>The Idler</i>, in the same vein, which also ran its respectable
+course for two years. In 1759 his mother died, and, in order to defray the
+expenses of her funeral, he wrote his story of <i>Rasselas</i> in the evenings
+of one week, for two editions of which he received &pound;125. Full of moral
+aphorisms and instruction, this &quot;Abyssinian tale&quot; is entirely English in
+philosophy and fancy, and has not even the slight illusion of other
+Eastern tales in French and English, which were written about the same
+time, and which are very similar in form and matter.<a id="p327" /> Of <i>Rasselas</i>,
+Hazlitt says: &quot;It is the most melancholy and debilitating moral
+speculation that was ever put forth.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch30-4"><span class="sc">The Dictionary.</span>&mdash;As early as 1747 he had begun to write his English
+Dictionary, which, after eight years of incessant and unassisted labor,
+appeared in 1755. It was a noble thought, and produced a noble work&mdash;a
+work which filled an original vacancy. In France, a National Academy had
+undertaken a similar work; but this English giant had accomplished his
+labors alone. The amount of reading necessary to fix and illustrate his
+definitions was enormous, and the book is especially valuable from the apt
+and varied quotations from English authors. He established the language,
+as he found it, on a firm basis in signification and orthography. He laid
+the foundation upon which future lexicographers were to build; but he was
+ignorant of the Teutonic languages, from which so much of the structure
+and words of the English are taken, and thus is signally wanting in the
+scientific treatment of his subject. This is not to his discredit, for the
+science of language has had its origin in a later and modern time.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps nothing displays more fully the proud, sturdy, and self-reliant
+character of the man, than the eight years of incessant and unassisted
+labor upon this work.</p>
+
+<p>His letter to Lord Chesterfield, declining his tardy patronage, after
+experiencing his earlier neglect, is a model of severe and yet respectful
+rebuke, and is to be regarded as one of the most significant events in his
+history. In it he says: &quot;The notice you have been pleased to take of my
+labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I
+am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart
+it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical
+asperity not to confess obligation when no benefit has been received, or
+to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a
+patron which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.&quot; Living as he did
+<a id="p328" />in an age when the patronage of the great was wearing out, and public
+appreciation beginning to reward an author's toils, this manly letter gave
+another stab to the former, and hastened the progress of the latter.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch30-5"><span class="sc">Other Works.</span>&mdash;The fame of Johnson was now fully established, and his
+labors were rewarded, in 1762, by the receipt of a pension of &pound;300 from
+the government, which made him quite independent. It was then, in the very
+heyday of his reputation, that, in 1763, he became acquainted with James
+Boswell, to whom he at once became a Grand Lama; who took down the words
+as they dropped from his lips, and embalmed his fame.</p>
+
+<p>In 1764 he issued his edition of Shakspeare, in eight octavo volumes, of
+which the best that can be said is, that it is not valuable as a
+commentary. A commentator must have something in common with his author;
+there was nothing congenial between Shakspeare and Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>It was in 1773, that, urged by Boswell, he made his famous <i>Journey to the
+Hebrides</i>, or Western Islands of Scotland, of which he gave delightful
+descriptions in a series of letters to his friend Mrs. Thrale, which he
+afterwards wrote out in more pompous style for publication. The letters
+are current, witty, and simple; the published work is stilted and
+grandiloquent.</p>
+
+<p>It is well known that he had no sympathy with the American colonies in
+their struggle against British oppression. When, in 1775, the Congress
+published their <i>Resolutions</i> and <i>Address</i>, he answered them in a
+prejudiced and illogical paper entitled <i>Taxation no Tyranny</i>.
+Notwithstanding its want of argument, it had the weight of his name and of
+a large party; but history has construed it by the <i>animus</i> of the writer,
+who had not long before declared of the colonists that they were &quot;a race
+of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of
+hanging.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As early as 1744 he had published a Life of the gifted but<a id="p329" /> unhappy
+Savage, whom in his days of penury he had known, and with whom he had
+sympathized; but in 1781 appeared his <i>Lives of the English Poets, with
+Critical Observations on their Works</i>, and <i>Lives of Sundry Eminent
+Persons</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch30-6"><span class="sc">Lives of the Poets.</span>&mdash;These comprise fifty-two poets, most of them little
+known at the present day, and thirteen <i>eminent persons</i>. Of historical
+value, as showing us the estimate of an age in which Johnson was an usher
+to the temple of Fame, they are now of little other value; those of his
+own school and coterie he could understand and eulogize. To Milton he
+accorded carefully measured praise, but could not do him full justice,
+from entire want of sympathy; the majesty of blank verse pentameters he
+could not appreciate, and from Milton's puritanism he recoiled with
+disgust.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson died on the 13th of December, 1784, and was buried in Westminster
+Abbey; a flat stone with an inscription was placed over his grave: it was
+also designed to erect his monument there, but St. Paul's Cathedral was
+afterwards chosen as the place. There, a colossal figure represents the
+distinguished author, and a Latin epitaph, written by Dr. Parr, records
+his virtues and his achievements in literature.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch30-7"><span class="sc">Person and Character.</span>&mdash;A few words must suffice to give a summary of his
+character, and will exhibit some singular contrarieties. He had varied but
+not very profound learning; was earnest, self-satisfied, overbearing in
+argument, or, as Sir Walter Scott styles it, <i>despotic</i>. As distinguished
+for his powers of conversation as for his writings, he always talked <i>ex
+cathedra</i>, and was exceedingly impatient of opposition. Brutal in his word
+attacks, he concealed by tone and manner a generous heart. Grandiloquent
+in ordinary matters, he &quot;made little fishes talk like whales.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Always swayed by religious influences, he was intolerant of the sects
+around him; habitually pious, he was not without <a id="p330" />superstition; he was not
+an unbeliever in ghostly apparitions, and had a great fear of death; he
+also had the touching mania&mdash;touching every post as he walked along the
+street, thereby to avoid some unknown evil.</p>
+
+<p>Although of rural origin, he became a thorough London cockney, and his
+hatred of Scotchmen and dissenters is at once pitiful and ludicrous. His
+manners and gestures were uncouth and disagreeable. He devoured rather
+than eat his food, and was a remarkable tea-drinker; on one occasion,
+perhaps for bravado, taking twenty-five cups at a sitting.</p>
+
+<p>Massive in figure, seamed with scrofulous scars and marks, seeing with but
+one eye, he had convulsive motions and twitches, and his slovenly dress
+added to the uncouthness and oddity of his appearance. In all respects he
+was an original, and even his defects and peculiarities seemed to conduce
+to make him famous.</p>
+
+<p>Considered the first among the critics of his own day, later judgments
+have reversed his decisions; many of those whom he praised have sunk into
+obscurity, and those whom he failed to appreciate have been elevated to
+the highest pedestals in the literary House of Fame.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch30-8"><span class="sc">Style.</span>&mdash;His style is full-sounding and antithetic, his periods are
+carefully balanced, his manner eminently respectable and good; but his
+words, very many of them of Latin derivation, constitute what the later
+critics have named <i>Johnsonese</i>, which is certainly capable of translation
+into plainer Saxon English, with good results. Thus, in speaking of
+Addison's style, he says: &quot;It is pure without scrupulosity, and exact
+without apparent elaboration; ... he seeks no ambitious ornaments, and
+tries no hazardous innovations; his page is always luminous, but never
+blazes in unexpected splendor.&quot; Very numerous examples might be given of
+sentences most of the words in which might be replaced by simpler
+expressions with great advantage to the sound and to the sense.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p331" />As a critic, his word was law: his opinion was clearly and often severely
+expressed on literary men and literary subjects, and no great writer of
+his own or a past age escaped either his praise or his censure. Authors
+wrote with the fear of his criticism before their eyes; and his pompous
+diction was long imitated by men who, without this influence, would have
+written far better English. But, on the other hand, his honesty, his
+scholarship, his piety, and his championship of what was good and true, as
+depicted in his writings, made him a blessing to his time, and an honored
+and notable character in the noble line of English authors.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch30-9"><span class="sc">Junius.</span>&mdash;Among the most significant and instructive writings to the
+student of English history, in the earlier part of the reign of George
+III., is a series of letters written by a person, or by several persons in
+combination, whose <i>nom de plume</i> was Junius. These letters specified the
+errors and abuses of the government, were exceedingly bold in denunciation
+and bitter in invective. The letters of Junius were forty-four in number,
+and were addressed to Mr. Woodfall, the proprietor of <i>The Public
+Advertiser</i>, a London newspaper, in which they were published. Fifteen
+others in the same vein were signed Philo-Junius; and there are besides
+sixty-two notes addressed by Junius to his publisher.</p>
+
+<p>The principal letters signed Junius were addressed to ministers directly,
+and the first, on the <i>State of the Nation</i>, was a manifesto of the
+grounds of his writing and his purpose. It was evident that a bold censor
+had sprung forth; one acquainted with the secret movements of the
+government, and with the foibles and faults of the principal statesmen:
+they writhed under his lash. Some of the more gifted attempted to answer
+him, and, as in the case of Sir William Draper, met with signal
+discomfiture. Vigorous efforts were made to discover the offender, but
+without success; and as to his first patriotic intentions he soon added
+personal spite, the writer <a id="p332" />found that his life would not be safe if his
+secret were discovered. The rage of parties has long since died away, and
+the writer or writers have long been in their graves, but the curious
+secret still remains, and has puzzled the brains of students to the
+present day. Allibone gives a list of forty-two persons to whom the
+letters were in whole or in part ascribed, among whom are Colonel Barr&eacute;,
+Burke, Lord Chatham, General Charles Lee, Horne Tooke, Wilkes, Horace
+Walpole, Lord Lyttleton, Lord George Sackville, and Sir Philip Francis.
+Pamphlets and books have been written by hundreds upon this question of
+authorship, and it is not yet by any means definitely settled. The
+concurrence of the most intelligent investigators is in favor of Sir
+Philip Francis, because of the handwriting being like his, but slightly
+disguised; because he and Junius were alike intimate with the government
+workings in the state department and in the war department, and took notes
+of speeches in the House of Lords; because the letters came to an end just
+before Francis was sent to India; and because, indecisive as these claims
+are, they are stronger than those of any other suspected author. Macaulay
+adds to these: &quot;One of the strongest reasons for believing that Francis
+was Junius is the <i>moral</i> resemblance between the two men.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It is interesting to notice that the ministry engaged Dr. Johnson to
+answer the <i>forty-second</i> letter, in which the king is especially
+arraigned. Johnson's answer, published in 1771, is entitled <i>Thoughts on
+the Late Transactions respecting Falkland's Islands</i>. Of Junius he says:
+&quot;He cries havoc without reserve, and endeavors to let slip the dogs of
+foreign and civil war, ignorant whither they are going, and careless what
+maybe their prey.&quot; &quot;It is not hard to be sarcastic in a mask; while he
+walks like Jack the giant-killer, in a coat of darkness, he may do much
+mischief with little strength.&quot; &quot;Junius is an unusual phenomenon, on which
+some have gazed with wonder and some with terror; but wonder and terror
+are transitory passions. He will soon be more closely viewed, <a id="p333" />or more
+attentively examined, and what folly has taken for a comet, that from its
+flaming hair shook pestilence and war, inquiry will find to be only a
+meteor formed by the vapors of putrefying democracy, and kindled into
+flame by the effervescence of interest struggling with conviction, which,
+after having plunged its followers into a bog, will leave us inquiring why
+we regarded it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the moral effect of the writings of Junius, as exhibited by
+silent influence in the lapse of years, the schemes he proposed and the
+party he championed alike failed of success. His farewell letter to
+Woodfall bears date the 19th of January, 1773. In that letter he declared
+that &quot;he must be an idiot to write again; that he had meant well by the
+cause and the public; that both were given up; that there were not ten men
+who would act steadily together on any question.&quot;<sup><a href="#fn-35" id="fna-35">35</a></sup> But one thing is
+sure: he has enriched the literature with public letters of rare sagacity,
+extreme elegance of rhetoric and great logical force, and has presented a
+problem always curious and interesting for future students,&mdash;not yet
+solved, in spite of Mr. Chabot's recent book,<sup><a href="#fn-36" id="fna-36">36</a></sup> and every day becoming
+more difficult of solution,&mdash;<i>Who was Junius</i>?</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch31">
+<h2><a id="p334" />Chapter XXXI.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Literary Forgers in the Antiquarian Age.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch31-1">The Eighteenth Century</a>. <a href="#ch31-2">James Macpherson</a>. <a href="#ch31-3">Ossian</a>. <a href="#ch31-4">Thomas Chatterton</a>.
+   <a href="#ch31-5">His Poems</a>. <a href="#ch31-6">The Verdict</a>. <a href="#ch31-7">Suicide</a>. <a href="#ch31-8">The Cause</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch31-1">The Eighteenth Century.</h4>
+
+
+<p>The middle of the eighteenth century is marked as a period in which, while
+other forms of literature flourished, there arose a taste for historic
+research. Not content with the <i>actual</i> in poetry and essay and pamphlet,
+there was a looking back to gather up a record of what England had done
+and had been in the past, and to connect, in logical relation, her former
+with her latter glory. It was, as we have seen, the era of her great
+historians, Hume, Gibbon, and Robertson, who, upon the chronicles, and the
+abundant but scattered material, endeavored to construct philosophic
+history; it was the day of her greatest moralists, Adam Smith, Tucker, and
+Paley, and of research in metaphysics and political economy. In this
+period Bishop Percy collected the ancient English ballads, and also
+historic poems from the Chinese and the Runic; in it Warton wrote his
+history of poetry. Dr. Johnson, self-reliant and laborious, was producing
+his dictionary, and giving limits and coherence to the language. Mind was
+on the alert, not only subsidizing the present, but looking curiously into
+the past. I have ventured to call it the antiquarian age. In 1751, the
+Antiquarian Society of London was firmly established; men began to collect
+armor and relics: in this period grew up such an antiquary as Mr. Oldbuck,
+who <a id="p335" />curiously sought out every relic of the Roman times,&mdash;armor, fosses,
+and <i>pr&aelig;toria</i>,&mdash;and found, with much that was real, many a fraud or
+delusion. It was an age which, in the words of old Walter Charleton,
+&quot;despised the present as an innovation, and slighted the future, like the
+madman who fell in love with Cleopatra.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There was manifestly a great temptation to adventurous men&mdash;with
+sufficient learning, and with no high notion of honor&mdash;to creep into the
+distant past; to enact, in mask and domino, its literary parts, and
+endeavor to deceive an age already enthusiastic for antiquity.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, in the third century, if we may believe the Scotch and Irish
+traditions, there existed in Scotland a great chieftain named Fion na
+Gael&mdash;modernized into Fingal&mdash;who fought with Cuthullin and the Irish
+warriors, and whose exploits were, as late as the time of which we have
+been speaking, the theme of rude ballads among the highlands and islands
+of Scotland. To find and translate these ballads was charming and
+legitimate work for the antiquarian; to counterfeit them, and call them by
+the name of a bard of that period, was the great temptation to the
+literary forger. Of such a bard, too, there was a tradition. As brave as
+were the deeds of Fingal, their fame was not so great as that of his son
+Ossian, who struck a lofty harp as he recounted his father's glory. Could
+the real poems be found, they would verify the lines:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    From the barred visor of antiquity<br />
+    Reflected shines the eternal light of Truth<br />
+    As from a mirror.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>And if they could not be found, they might be counterfeited. This was
+undertaken by Doctor James Macpherson. Catering to the spirit of the age,
+he reproduced the songs of Ossian and the lofty deeds of Fingal.</p>
+
+<p>Again, we have referred, in an early part of this work, to the <a id="p336" />almost
+barren expanse in the highway of English literature from the death of
+Chaucer to the middle of the sixteenth century; this barrenness was due,
+as we saw, to the turbulence of those years&mdash;civil war, misgovernment, a
+time of bloody action rather than peaceful authorship. Here, too, was a
+great temptation for some gifted but oblique mind to supply a partial
+literature for that bare period; a literature which, entirely fabricated,
+should yet bear all the characteristics of the history, language, customs,
+manners, and religion of that time.</p>
+
+<p>This attempt was made by Thomas Chatterton, an obscure, ill-educated lad,
+without means or friends, but who had a master-mind, and would have
+accomplished some great feat in letters, had he not died, while still very
+young, by his own hand.</p>
+
+<p>Let us examine these frauds in succession: we shall find them of double
+historic value, as literary efforts in one age designed to represent the
+literature of a former age.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch31-2"><span class="sc">James Macpherson.</span>&mdash;James Macpherson was born at Ruthven, a village in
+Inverness-shire, in 1738. Being intended for the ministry, he received a
+good preliminary education, and became early interested in the ancient
+Gaelic ballads and poetic fragments still floating about the Highlands of
+Scotland. By the aid of Mr. John Home, the author of <i>Douglas</i>, and his
+friends Blair and Ferguson, he published, in 1760, a small volume of sixty
+pages entitled, <i>Fragments of Ancient Poetry translated from the Gaelic or
+Erse Language</i>. They were heroic and harmonious, and were very well
+received: he had catered to the very spirit of the age. At first, there
+seemed to be no doubt as to their genuineness. It was known to tradition
+that this northern Fingal had fought with Severus and Caracalla, on the
+banks of the Carun, and that blind Ossian had poured forth a flood of song
+after the fight, and made the deeds immortal. And now these songs and
+deeds <a id="p337" />were echoing in English ears,&mdash;the thrumming of the harp which told
+of &quot;the stream of those olden years, where they have so long hid, in their
+mist, their many-colored sides.&quot; (<i>Cathloda</i>, Duan III.)</p>
+
+<p>So enthusiastically were these poems received, that a subscription was
+raised to enable Macpherson to travel in the Highlands, and collect more
+of this lingering and beautiful poetry.</p>
+
+<p>Gray the poet, writing to William Mason, in 1760, says: &quot;These poems are
+in everybody's mouth in the Highlands; have been handed down from father
+to son. We have therefore set on foot a subscription of a guinea or two
+apiece, in order to enable Mr. Macpherson to recover this poem (Fingal),
+and other fragments of antiquity.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch31-3"><span class="sc">Fingal.</span>&mdash;On his return, in 1762, he published <i>Fingal</i>, and, in the same
+volume, some smaller poems. This Fingal, which he calls &quot;an ancient epic
+poem&quot; in six duans or books, recounts the deliverance of Erin from the
+King of Lochlin. The next year, 1763, he published <i>Temora</i>. Among the
+earlier poems, in all which Fingal is the hero, are passages of great
+beauty and touching pathos. Such, too, are found in <i>Carricthura and
+Carthon, the War of Inis-thona</i>, and the <i>Songs of Selma</i>. After reading
+these, we are pleasantly haunted with dim but beautiful pictures of that
+Northern coast where &quot;the blue waters rolled in light,&quot; &quot;when morning rose
+In the east;&quot; and again with ghostly moonlit scenes, when &quot;night came down
+on the sea, and Rotha's Bay received the ship.&quot; &quot;The wan, cold moon rose
+in the east; sleep descended upon the youths; their blue helmets glitter
+to the beam; the fading fire decays; but sleep did not rest on the king;
+he rode in the midst of his arms, and slowly ascended the hill to behold
+the flame of Sarno's tower. The flame was dim and distant; the moon hid
+her red face in the east. A blast came from the mountain; on its wings was
+the spirit of <a id="p338" />Loda.&quot; In <i>Carthon</i> occurs that beautiful address to the
+Sun, which we are fortunate in knowing, from other sources than
+Macpherson, is a tolerably correct translation of a real original. If we
+had that alone, it would be a revelation of the power of Ossian, and of
+the aptitudes of a people who could enjoy it. It is not within our scope
+to quote from the veritable Ossian, or to expose the bombast and fustian,
+tumid diction and swelling sound of Macpherson, of which the poems contain
+so much.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as a stir was made touching the authenticity of the poems, a
+number of champions sprang up on both sides: among those who favored
+Macpherson, was Dr. Hugh Blair, who wrote the critical dissertation
+usually prefixed to the editions of Ossian, and who compares him favorably
+to Homer. First among the incredulous, as might be expected, was Dr.
+Samuel Johnson, who, in his <i>Journey to the Hebrides</i>, lashes Macpherson
+for his imposture, and his insolence in refusing to show the original.
+Johnson was threatened by Macpherson with a beating, and he answered: &quot;I
+hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat by the
+menaces of a ruffian ... I thought your book an imposture; I think it an
+imposture still ... Your rage I defy ... You may print this if you will.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Proofs of the imposture were little by little discovered by the critics.
+There were some real fragments in his first volume; but even these he had
+altered, and made symmetrical, so as to disguise their original character.
+Ossian would not have known them. As for Fingal, in its six duans, with
+captional arguments, it was made up from a few fragments, and no such poem
+ever existed. It was Macpherson's from beginning to end.</p>
+
+<p>The final establishment of the forgery was not simply by recourse to
+scholars versed in the Celtic tongues, but the Highland Society appointed
+a committee in 1767, whose duty it was to send to the Highland pastors a
+circular, inquir<a id="p339" />ing whether they had heard in the original the poems of
+Ossian, said to be translated by Macpherson; if so, where and by whom they
+had been written out or repeated: whether similar fragments still existed,
+and whether there were persons living who could repeat them; whether, to
+their knowledge, Macpherson had obtained such poems in the Highlands; and
+for any information concerning the personality of Fingal and Ossian.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec"><span class="sc">Criticism.</span>&mdash;The result was as follows: Certain Ossianic poems did exist,
+and some manuscripts of ancient ballads and bardic songs. A few of these
+had formed the foundation of Macpherson's so-called translations of the
+earlier pieces; but he had altered and added to them, and joined them with
+his own fancies in an arbitrary manner.</p>
+
+<p><i>Fingal</i> and <i>Temora</i> were also made out of a few fragments; but in their
+epic and connected form not only did not exist, but lack the bardic
+character and construction entirely.</p>
+
+<p>Now that the critics had the direction of the chase made known, they
+discovered that Macpherson had taken his imagery from the Bible, of which
+Ossian was ignorant; from classic authors, of whom he had never heard; and
+from modern sources down to his own day.</p>
+
+<p>Then Macpherson's Ossian&mdash;which had been read with avidity and translated
+into many languages, while it was considered an antique gem only reset in
+English&mdash;fell into disrepute, and was unduly despised when known to be a
+forgery.</p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to conceive why he did not produce the work as his own,
+with a true story of its foundation: it is not so difficult to understand
+why, when he was detected, he persisted in the falsehood. For what it
+really is, it must be partially praised; and it will remain not only as a
+literary curiosity, but as a work of unequal but real merit. It was
+greatly admired by Napoleon and Madame de Sta&euml;l, and, in endeavor<a id="p340" />ing to
+consign it to oblivion, the critics are greatly in the wrong.</p>
+
+<p>Macpherson resented any allusion to the forgery, and any leading question
+concerning it. He refused, at first, to produce the originals; and when he
+did say where they might be found, the world had decided so strongly
+against him, that there was no curiosity to examine them. He at last
+maintained a sullen silence; and, dying suddenly, in 1796, left no papers
+which throw light upon the controversy. The subject is, however, still
+agitated. Later writers have endeavored to reverse the decision of his
+age, without, however, any decided success. For much information
+concerning the Highland poetry, the reader is referred to <i>A Summer in
+Skye</i>, by Alexander Smith.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec"><span class="sc">Other Works.</span>&mdash;His other principal work was a <i>Translation of the Iliad of
+Homer</i> in the Ossianic style, which was received with execration and
+contempt. He also wrote <i>A History of Great Britain from the Restoration
+to the Accession of the House of Hanover</i>, which Fox&mdash;who was, however,
+prejudiced&mdash;declared to be full of impudent falsehoods.</p>
+
+<p>Of his career little more need be said: he was too shrewd a man to need
+sympathy; he took care of himself. He was successful in his pecuniary
+schemes; as agent of the Nabob of Arcot, he had a seat in parliament for
+ten years, and was quite unconcerned what the world thought of his
+literary performances. He had achieved notoriety, and enjoyed it.</p>
+
+<p>But, unfortunately, his forgery did fatal injury by its example; it
+inspired Chatterton, the precocious boy, to make another attempt on public
+credulity. It opened a seductive path for one who, inspired by the
+adventure and warned by the causes of exposure, might make a better
+forgery, escape detection, and gain great praise in the antiquarian world.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch31-4"><span class="sc">Thomas Chatterton.</span>&mdash;With this name, we accost the <a id="p341" />most wonderful story of
+its kind in any literature; so strange, indeed, that we never take it up
+without trying to discover some new meaning in it. We hope, against hope,
+that the forgery is not proved.</p>
+
+<p>Chatterton was born in Bristol, on the Avon, in 1752, of poor parents, but
+early gave signs of remarkable genius, combined with a prurient ambition.
+A friend who wished to present him with an earthen-ware cup, asked him
+what device he would have upon it. &quot;Paint me,&quot; he answered, &quot;an angel with
+wings and a trumpet, to trumpet my name over the world.&quot; He learned his
+alphabet from an old music-book; at eight years of age he was sent to a
+charity-school, and he spent his little pocket-money at a circulating
+library, the books of which he literally devoured.</p>
+
+<p id="ch31-5">At the early age of eleven he wrote a piece of poetry, and published it in
+the <i>Bristol Journal</i> of January 8, 1763; it was entitled <i>On the last
+Epiphany, or Christ coming to Judgment</i>, and the next year, probably, a
+<i>Hymn to Christmas-day</i>, of which the following lines will give an idea:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    How shall we celebrate his name,<br />
+    Who groaned beneath a life of shame,<br />
+    In all afflictions tried?<br />
+    The soul is raptured to conceive<br />
+    A truth which being must believe;<br />
+    The God eternal died.</p>
+
+<p>    My soul, exert thy powers, adore;<br />
+    Upon Devotion's plumage soar<br />
+    To celebrate the day.<br />
+    The God from whom creation sprung<br />
+    Shall animate my grateful tongue,<br />
+    From Him I'll catch the lay.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Some member of the Chatterton family had, for one hundred and fifty years,
+held the post of sexton in the church of St. Mary Redcliffe at Bristol;
+and at the time of which we <a id="p342" />write his uncle was sexton. In the
+muniment-room of the church were several coffers, containing old papers
+and parchments in black letter, some of which were supposed to be of
+value. The chests were examined by order of the vestry; the valuable
+papers were removed, and of the rest, as perquisites of the sexton, some
+fell into the hands of Chatterton's father. The boy, who had been, upon
+leaving school, articled to an attorney, and had thus become familiar with
+the old English text, caught sight of these, and seemed then to have first
+formed the plan of turning them to account, as <i>The Rowlie papers</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec"><span class="sc">Old Manuscripts.</span>&mdash;If he could be believed, he found a variety of material
+in this old collection. To a credulous and weak acquaintance, Mr. Burgum,
+he went, beaming with joy, to present the pedigree and illuminated arms of
+the de Bergham family&mdash;tracing the honest mechanic's descent to a noble
+house which crossed the Channel with William the Conqueror. The delighted
+Burgum gave him a crown, and Chatterton, pocketing the money, lampooned
+his credulity thus:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Gods! what would Burgum give to get a name,<br />
+    And snatch his blundering dialect from shame?<br />
+    What would he give to hand his memory down<br />
+    To time's remotest boundary? a crown!<br />
+    Would you ask more, his swelling face looks blue&mdash;<br />
+    Futurity he rates at two pound two!
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In September, 1768, the inauguration or opening of the new bridge across
+the Avon took place; and, taking advantage of the temporary interest it
+excited, Chatterton, then sixteen, produced in the <i>Bristol Journal</i> a
+full description of the opening of the old bridge two hundred years
+before, which he said he found among the old papers: &quot;A description of the
+Fryers first passing over the old bridge, taken from an ancient
+manuscript,&quot; with details of the procession, and the Latin sermon preached
+on the occasion by Ralph de Blundeville; <a id="p343" />ending with the dinner, the
+sports, and the illumination on Kynwulph Hill.</p>
+
+<p>This paper, which attracted general interest, was traced to Chatterton,
+and when he was asked to show the original, it was soon manifest that
+there was none, but that the whole was a creation of his fancy. The
+question arises,&mdash;How did the statements made by Chatterton compare with
+the known facts of local history?</p>
+
+<p>There was in the olden time in Bristol a great merchant named William
+Canynge, who was remembered for his philanthropy; he had altered and
+improved the church of St. Mary, and had built the muniment-room: the
+reputed poems, some of which were said to have been written by himself,
+and others by the monk Rowlie, Chatterton declared he had found in the
+coffers. Thomas Rowlie, &quot;the gode preeste,&quot; appears as a holy and learned
+man, poet, artist, and architect. Canynge and Rowlie were strong friends,
+and the latter was supposed to have addressed many of the poems to the
+former, who was his good patron.</p>
+
+<p>The principal of the Rowlie poems is the <i>Bristowe</i> (Bristol) <i>Tragedy</i>,
+or <i>Death of Sir Charles Bawdin</i>. This Bawdin, or Baldwin, a real
+character, had been attainted by Edward IV. of high treason, and brought
+to the block. The poem is in the finest style of the old English ballad,
+and is wonderfully dramatic. King Edward sends to inform Bawdin of his
+fate:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Then with a jug of nappy ale<br />
+    His knights did on him waite;<br />
+    &quot;Go tell the traitor that to daie<br />
+    He leaves this mortal state.&quot;
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Sir Charles receives the tidings with bold defiance. Good Master Canynge
+goes to the king to ask the prisoner's life as a boon.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    &quot;My noble liege,&quot; good Canynge saide,<br />
+    &quot;Leave justice to our God;<br />
+    And lay the iron rule aside,<br />
+    Be thine the olyve rodde.&quot;
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><a id="p344" />The king is inexorable, and Sir Charles dies amid tears and loud weeping
+around the scaffold.</p>
+
+<p>Among the other Rowlie poems are the <i>Tragical Interlude of Ella</i>, &quot;plaied
+before Master Canynge, and also before Johan Howard, Duke of Norfolk;&quot;
+<i>Godwin</i>, a short drama; a long poem on <i>The Battle of Hastings</i>, and <i>The
+Romaunt of the Knight</i>, modernized from the original of John de Bergham.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch31-6"><span class="sc">The Verdict.</span>&mdash;These poems at once became famous, and the critics began to
+investigate the question of their authenticity. From this investigation
+Chatterton did not shrink. He sent some of them with letters to Horace
+Walpole, and, as Walpole did not immediately answer, he wrote to him quite
+impertinently. Then they were submitted to Mason and Gray. The opinion of
+those who examined them was almost unanimous that they were forgeries: he
+could produce no originals; the language is in many cases not that of the
+period, and the spelling and idioms are evidently factitious. A few there
+were who seemed to have committed themselves, at first, to their
+authenticity; but Walpole, the Wartons, Dr. Johnson, Gibbon the historian,
+Sheridan, and most other literary men, were clear as to their forgery. The
+forged manuscripts which he had the hardihood afterwards to present, were
+totally unlike those of Edward the Fourth's time; he was entirely at fault
+in his heraldry; words were used out of their meaning; and, in his poem on
+<i>The Battle of Hastings</i>, he had introduced the modern discoveries
+concerning Stone Henge. He uses the possessive case <i>yttes</i>, which did not
+come into use until long after the Rowlie period. Add to these that
+Chatterton's reputation for veracity was bad.</p>
+
+<p>The truth was, that he had found some curious scraps, which had set his
+fancy to work, and the example of Macpherson had led to the cheat he was
+practising upon the public. To some friends he confessed the deception,
+denying it again,<a id="p345" /> violently, soon after; and he had been seen smoking
+parchment to make it look old. The lad was crazy.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch31-7"><span class="sc">His Suicide.</span>&mdash;Keeping up appearances, he went to London, and tried to get
+work. At one time he was in high spirits, sending presents to his mother
+and sisters, and promising them better days; at another, he was in want,
+in the lowest depression, no hope in the world. He only asks for work; he
+is entirely unconcerned for whom he writes or what party he eulogizes; he
+wants money and a name, and when these seem unattainable, he takes refuge
+from &quot;the whips and scorns of time,&quot; the burning fever of pride, the
+gnawings of hunger, in suicide. He goes to his little garret
+room,&mdash;refusing, as he goes, a dinner from his landlady, although he is
+gaunt with famine,&mdash;mixes a large dose of arsenic in water, and&mdash;&quot;jumps
+the life to come.&quot; He was just seventeen years and nine months old! When
+his room was forced open, it was found that he had torn up most of his
+papers, and had left nothing to throw light upon his deception.</p>
+
+<p id="ch31-8">The verdict of literary criticism is that of the medical art&mdash;he was
+insane; and to what extent this mania acted as a monomania, that is, how
+far he was himself deceived, the world can never know. One thing, at
+least; it redeems all his faults. Precocious beyond any other known
+instance of precocity; intensely haughty; bold in falsehood; working best
+when the moon was at the full, he stands in English literature as the most
+singular of its curiosities. His will is an awful jest; his declaration of
+his religious opinions a tissue of contradictions and absurdities: he
+bequeathes to a clergyman his humility; to Mr. Burgum his prosody and
+grammar, with half his modesty&mdash;the other half to any young lady that
+needs it; his abstinence&mdash;a fearful legacy&mdash;to the aldermen of Bristol at
+their annual feast! to a friend, a mourning ring&mdash;&quot;provided he pays for it
+himself&quot;&mdash;with the motto, &quot;Alas, poor Chatterton!&quot; Fittest ending to his
+biography&mdash;&quot;Alas, poor Chatterton!&quot;</p>
+
+<p><a id="p346" />And yet it is evident that the crazy Bristol boy and the astute Scotchman
+were alike the creatures of the age and the peculiar circumstances in
+which they lived. No other age of English history could have produced
+them. In an earlier period, they would have found no curiosity in the
+people to warrant their attempts; and in a later time, the increase in
+antiquarian studies would have made these efforts too easy of detection.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch32">
+<h2 id="p347">Chapter XXXII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Poetry of the Transition School.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch32-1">The Transition Period</a>. <a href="#ch32-2">James Thomson</a>. <a href="#ch32-2">The Seasons</a>. <a href="#ch32-3">The Castle of
+   Indolence</a>. <a href="#ch32-4">Mark Akenside</a>. <a href="#ch32-5">Pleasures of the Imagination</a>. <a href="#ch32-6">Thomas Gray</a>.
+   <a href="#ch32-7">The Elegy</a>. <a href="#ch32-8">The Bard</a>. <a href="#ch32-9">William Cowper</a>. <a href="#ch32-10">The Task</a>. <a href="#ch32-11">Translation of Homer</a>.
+   <a href="#ch32-12">Other Writers</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch32-1">The Transition Period.</h4>
+
+
+<p>The poetical standards of Dryden and Pope, as poetic examples and
+arbiters, exercised tyrannical sway to the middle of the eighteenth
+century, and continued to be felt, with relaxing influence, however, to a
+much later period. Poetry became impatient of too close a captivity to
+technical rules in rhythm and in subjects, and began once again to seek
+its inspiration from the worlds of nature and of feeling. While seeking
+this change, it passed through what has been properly called the period of
+transition,&mdash;a period the writers of which are distinctly marked as
+belonging neither to the artificial classicism of Pope, nor to the simple
+naturalism of Wordsworth and the Lake school; partaking, indeed, in some
+degree of the former, and preparing the way for the latter.</p>
+
+<p>The excited condition of public feeling during the earlier period,
+incident to the accession of the house of Hanover and the last struggles
+of the Jacobites, had given a political character to every author, and a
+political significance to almost every literary work. At the close of this
+abnormal condition of things, the poets of the transition school began
+their labors; untrammelled by the court and the town, they invoked the
+muse in green fields and by babbling brooks; <a id="p348" />from materialistic
+philosophy in verse they appealed through the senses to the hearts of men;
+and appreciation and popularity rewarded and encouraged them.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch32-2"><span class="sc">James Thomson.</span>&mdash;The first distinguished writer of this school was Thomson,
+the son of a Scottish minister. He was born on the 11th of September,
+1700, at Ednam in Roxburghshire. While a boy at school in Jedburgh, he
+displayed poetical talent: at the University of Edinburgh he completed his
+scholastic course, and studied divinity; which, however, he did not pursue
+as a profession. Being left, by his father's death, without means, he
+resolved to go to the great metropolis to try his fortunes. He arrived in
+London in sorry plight, without money, and with ragged shoes; but through
+the assistance of some persons of station, he procured occupation as tutor
+to a lord's son, and thus earned a livelihood until the publication of his
+first poem in 1726. That poem was <i>Winter</i>, the first of the series called
+<i>The Seasons</i>: it was received with unusual favor. The first edition was
+speedily exhausted, and with the publication of the second, his position
+as a poet was assured. In 1727 he produced the second poem of the series,
+<i>Summer</i>, and, with it, a proposal for issuing the <i>Four Seasons</i>, with a
+<i>Hymn</i> on their succession. In 1728 his <i>Spring</i> appeared, and in the next
+year an unsuccessful tragedy called <i>Sophonisba</i>, which owed its immediate
+failure to the laughter occasioned by the line,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    O Sophonisba, Sophonisba O!
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This was parodied by some wag in these words:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    O Jemmie Thomson, Jemmie Thomson O!
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>and the ridicule was so potent that the play was ruined.</p>
+
+<p>The last of the seasons, <i>Autumn</i>, and the <i>Hymn</i>, were first printed in a
+complete edition of <i>The Seasons</i>, in 1730. It was at once conceded that
+he had gratified the cravings of the <a id="p349" />day, In producing a real and
+beautiful English pastoral. The reputation which he thus gained caused him
+to be selected as the mentor and companion of the son of Sir Charles
+Talbot in a tour through France and Italy in 1730 and 1731.</p>
+
+<p>In 1734 he published the first part of a poem called <i>Liberty</i>, the
+conclusion of which appeared in 1736. It is designed to trace the progress
+of Liberty through Italy, Greece, and Rome, down to her excellent
+establishment in Great Britain, and was dedicated to Frederick, Prince of
+Wales.</p>
+
+<p>His tragedies <i>Agamemnon</i> and <i>Edward and Eleanora</i> are in the then
+prevailing taste. They were issued in 1738-39. The latter is of political
+significance, in that Edward was like Frederick the Prince of Wales&mdash;heir
+apparent to the crown; and some of the passages are designed to strengthen
+the prince in the favor of the people.</p>
+
+<p>The personal life of Thomson is not of much interest. From his first
+residence in London, he supported, with his slender means, a brother, who
+died young of consumption, and aided two maiden sisters, who kept a small
+milliner-shop in Edinburgh. This is greatly to his praise, as he was at
+one time so poor that he was arrested for debt and committed to prison. As
+his reputation increased, his fortunes were ameliorated. In 1745 his play
+<i>Tancred and Sigismunda</i> was performed. It was founded upon a story
+universally popular,&mdash;the same which appears in the episode of <i>The Fatal
+Marriage</i> in Gil Bias, and in one of the stories of Boccaccio. He enjoyed
+for a short time a pension from the Prince of Wales, of which, however, he
+was deprived without apparent cause; but he received the office of
+Surveyor-General of the Leeward Islands, the duties of which he could
+perform by deputy; after that he lived a lazy life at his cottage near
+Richmond, which, if otherwise reprehensible, at least gave him the power
+to write his most beautiful poem, <i>The Castle of Indolence</i>. It appeared
+in 1748, and was universally admired; it has a rhetorical harmony similar
+and quite equal <a id="p350" />to that of the <i>Lotos Eaters</i> of Tennyson. The poet, who
+had become quite plethoric, was heated by a walk from London, and, from a
+check of perspiration, was thrown into a high fever, a relapse of which
+caused his death on the 27th of August, 1748. His friend Lord Lyttleton
+wrote the prologue to his play of <i>Coriolanus</i>, which was acted after the
+poet's death, in which he says:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    &quot;&mdash;His chaste Muse employed her heaven-taught lyre<br />
+    None but the noblest missions to inspire,<br />
+    Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,<br />
+    <i>One line which, dying, he could wish to blot</i>.&quot;
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The praise accorded him in this much-quoted line is justly his due: it is
+greater praise that he was opening a new pathway in English Literature,
+and supplying better food than the preceding age had given. His <i>Seasons</i>
+supplied a want of the age: it was a series of beautiful pastorals. The
+descriptions of nature will always be read and quoted with pleasure; the
+little episodes, if they affect the unity, relieve the monotony of the
+subject, and, like figures introduced by the painter into his landscape,
+take away the sense of loneliness, and give us a standard at once of
+judgment, of measurement, and of sympathetic enjoyment; they display, too,
+at once the workings of his own mind in his production, and the manners
+and sentiments of the age in which he wrote. It was fitting that he who
+had portrayed for us such beautiful gardens of English nature, should
+people them instead of leaving them solitary.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch32-3"><span class="sc">The Castle of Indolence.</span>&mdash;This is an allegory, written after the manner of
+Spenser, and in the Spenserian stanza. He also employs archaic words, as
+Spenser did, to give it greater resemblance to Spenser's poem. The
+allegorical characters are well described, and the sumptuous adornings and
+lazy luxuries of the castle are set forth <i>con amore</i>. The spell that
+enchants the castle is broken by the stalwart knight <i>Industry</i>; but the
+glamour of the poem remains, and makes the reader in love with
+<i>Indolence</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch32-4"><a id="p351" /><span class="sc">Mark Akenside.</span>&mdash;Thomson had restored or reproduced the pastoral from
+Nature's self; Akenside followed in his steps. Thomson had invested blank
+verse with a new power and beauty; Akenside produced it quite as
+excellent. But Thomson was the original, and Akenside the copy. The one is
+natural, the other artificial.</p>
+
+<p>Akenside was the son of a butcher, and was born at New Castle, in 1721.
+Educated at the University of Edinburgh, he studied medicine, and
+received, at different periods, lucrative and honorable professional
+appointments. His great work, and the only one to which we need refer, is
+his <i id="ch32-5">Pleasures of the Imagination</i>. Whether his view of the imagination is
+always correct or not, his sentiments are always elevated; his language
+high sounding but frequently redundant, and his versification correct and
+pleasing. His descriptions of nature are cold but correct; his standard of
+humanity is high but mortal. Grand and sonorous, he constructs his periods
+with the manner of a declaimer; his ascriptions and apostrophes are like
+those of a high-priest. The title of his poem, if nothing more, suggested
+<i>The Pleasures-of Hope</i> to Campbell, and <i>The Pleasures of Memory</i> to
+Rogers. As a man, Akenside was overbearing and dictatorial; as a hospital
+surgeon, harsh in his treatment of poor patients. His hymn to the Naiads
+has been considered the most thoroughly and correctly classical of
+anything in English. He died on the 23rd of June, 1770.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch32-6"><span class="sc">Thomas Gray.</span>&mdash;Among those who form a link between the school of Pope and
+that of the modern poets, Gray occupies a distinguished place, both from
+the excellence of his writings, and from the fact that, while he
+unconsciously conduced to the modern, he instinctively resisted its
+progress. He was in taste and intention an extreme classicist. Thomas Gray
+was born in London on the 26th December, 1716. His father was a money
+scrivener, and, to his family at least, <a id="p352" />a bad man; his mother, forced to
+support herself, kept a linen-draper shop; and to her the poet owed his
+entire education. He was entered at Eton College, and afterwards at
+Cambridge, and found in early life such friendships as were of great
+importance to him later in his career. Among his college friends were
+Horace Walpole, West, the son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and
+William Mason, who afterwards wrote the poet's life. After completing his
+college course, he travelled on the continent with Walpole; but, on
+account of incompatibility of temper, they quarrelled and parted, and Gray
+returned home. Although Walpole took the blame upon himself, it would
+appear that Gray was a somewhat captious person, whose serious tastes
+interfered with the gayer pleasures of his friend. On his return, Gray
+went to Cambridge, where he led the life of a retired student, devoting
+himself to the ancient authors, to poetry, botany, architecture, and
+heraldry. He was fastidious as to his own productions, which were very
+few, and which he kept by him, pruning, altering, and polishing, for a
+long time before he would let them see the light. His lines entitled <i>A
+Distant Prospect of Eton College</i> appeared in 1742, and were received with
+great applause.</p>
+
+<p id="ch32-7">It was at this time that he also began his <i>Elegy in a Country
+Churchyard</i>; which, however, did not appear until seven or eight years
+later, and which has made him immortal. The grandeur of its language, the
+elevation of its sentiments, and the sympathy of its pathos, commend it to
+all classes and all hearts; and of its kind of composition it stands alone
+in English literature.</p>
+
+<p id="ch32-8">The ode on the progress of poetry appeared in 1755. Like the <i>Elegy</i>, his
+poem of <i>The Bard</i> was for several years on the literary easel, and he was
+accidentally led to finish it by hearing a blind harper performing on a
+Welsh harp.</p>
+
+<p>On the death of Cibber, Gray was offered the laureate's crown, which he
+declined, to avoid its conspicuousness and<a id="p353" /> the envy of his brother poets.
+In 1762, he applied for the professorship of modern history at Cambridge,
+but failed to obtain the position. He was more fortunate in 1768, when it
+again became vacant; but he held it as a sinecure, doing none of its
+duties. He died in 1770, on the 3d of July, of gout in the stomach. His
+habits were those of a recluse; and whether we agree or not, with Adam
+Smith, in saying that nothing is wanting to render him perhaps the first
+poet in the English language, but to have written a little more, it is
+astonishing that so great and permanent a reputation should have been
+founded on so very little as he wrote. Gray has been properly called the
+finest lyric poet in the language; and his lyric power strikes us as
+intuitive and original; yet he himself, adhering strongly to the
+artificial school, declared, if there was any excellence in his own
+numbers, he had learned it wholly from Dryden. His arch&aelig;ological tastes
+are further shown by his enthusiastic study of heraldry, and by his
+surrounding himself with old armor and other curious relics of the past.
+Mr. Mitford, in a curious dissection of the <i>Elegy</i>, has found numerous
+errors of rhetoric, and even of grammar.</p>
+
+<p>His <i>Bard</i> is founded on a tradition that Edward I., when he conquered
+Wales, ordered all the bards to be put to death, that they might not, by
+their songs, excite the Welsh people to revolt. The last one who figures
+in his story, sings a lament for his brethren, prophesies the downfall of
+the usurper, and then throws himself over the cliff:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    &quot;Be thine despair and sceptered care,<br />
+    To triumph and to die are mine!&quot;<br />
+    He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height,<br />
+    Deep in the roaring tide, he plunged to endless night.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch32-9"><span class="sc">William Cowper.</span>&mdash;Next in the catalogue of the transition school occurs the
+name of one who, like Gray, was a recluse, but with a better reason and a
+sadder one. He was a gentle hypochondriac, and, at intervals, a maniac,
+who liter<a id="p354" />ally turned to poetry, like Saul to the harper, for relief from
+his sufferings. William Cowper, the eldest son of the Rector of
+Berkhampsted in Hertfordshire, was born on the 15th of November, 1731. He
+was a delicate and sensitive child, and was seriously affected by the loss
+of his mother when he was six years old. At school, he was cruelly treated
+by an older boy, which led to his decided views against public schools,
+expressed in his poem called <i>Tirocinium</i>. His morbid sensitiveness
+increased upon him as he grew older, and interfered with his legal studies
+and advancement. His depression of spirits took a religious turn; and we
+are glad to think that religion itself brought the balm which gave him
+twelve years of unclouded mind, devoted to friendship and to poetry. He
+was offered, by powerful friends, eligible positions connected with the
+House of Lords, in 1762; but as the one of these which he accepted was
+threatened with a public examination, he abandoned it in horror; not,
+however, before the fearful suspense had unsettled his brain, so that he
+was obliged to be placed, for a short time, in an asylum for the insane.
+When he left this asylum, he went to Huntingdon, where he became
+acquainted with the Rev. William Unwin, who, with his wife and son, seem
+to have been congenial companions to his desolate heart. On the death of
+Mr. Unwin, in 1767, he removed with the widow to Olney, and there formed
+an intimate acquaintance with another clergyman, the Rev. William Newton.
+Here, and in this society, the remainder of the poet's life was passed in
+writing letters, which have been considered the best ever written in
+England; in making hymns, in conjunction with Mr. Newton, which have ever
+since been universal favorites; and in varied poetic attempts, which give
+him high rank in the literature of the day. The first of his larger pieces
+was a poem entitled, <i>The Progress of Error</i>, which appeared in 1783, when
+the author had reached the advanced age of 52. Then followed <i>Truth</i> and
+<i>Expostulation</i>, which, according to the poet himself, did much towards
+<a id="p355" />diverting his melancholy thoughts. These poems would not have fixed his
+fame; but Lady Austen, an accomplished woman with whom he became
+acquainted in 1781, deserves our gratitude for having proposed to him the
+subjects of those poems which have really made him famous, namely, <i>The
+Task, John Gilpin</i>, and the translation of <i>Homer</i>. Before, however,
+undertaking these, he wrote poems on <i>Hope</i>, <i>Charity</i>, <i>Conversation</i> and
+<i>Retirement</i>. The story of <i>John Gilpin</i>&mdash;a real one as told him by Lady
+Austen&mdash;made such an impression upon him, that he dashed off the ballad at
+a sitting.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch32-10"><span class="sc">The Task.</span>&mdash;The origin of <i>The Task</i> is well known. In 1783, Lady Austen
+suggested to him to write a poem in blank verse: he said he would, if she
+would suggest the subject. Her answer was, &quot;Write on <i>this sofa</i>.&quot; The
+poem thus begun was speedily expanded into those beautiful delineations of
+varied nature, domestic life, and religious sentiment which rivalled the
+best efforts of Thomson. The title that connects them is <i>The Task.
+Tirocinium</i> or <i>the Review of Schools</i>, appeared soon after, and excited
+considerable attention in a country where public education has been the
+rule of the higher social life. Cowper began the translation of Homer in
+1785, from a feeling of the necessity of employment for his mind. His
+translations of both Iliad and Odyssey, which occupied him for five years,
+and which did not entirely keep off his old enemy, were published in 1791.
+They are correct in scholarship and idiom, but lack the nature and the
+fire of the old Grecian bard.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of his life was busy, but sad&mdash;a constant effort to drive away
+madness by incessant labor. The loss of his friend, Mrs. Unwin, in 1796,
+affected him deeply, and the clouds settled thicker and thicker upon his
+soul. In the year before his death, he published that painfully touching
+poem, <i>The Castaway</i>, which gives an epitome of his own sufferings in the
+similitude of a wretch clinging to a spar in a stormy night upon the
+Atlantic.</p>
+
+<p id="ch32-11"><a id="p356" />His minor and fugitive poems are very numerous; and as they were
+generally inspired by persons and scenes around him, they are truly
+literary types of the age in which he lived. In his <i>Task</i>, he resembles
+Thomson and Akenside; in his didactic poems, he reminds us of the essays
+of Pope; in his hymns he catered successfully to the returning piety of
+the age; in his translations of Homer and of Ovid, he presented the
+ancients to moderns in a new and acceptable dress; and in his Letters he
+sets up an epistolary model, which may be profitably studied by all who
+desire to express themselves with energy, simplicity, and delicate taste.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch32-12">Other Writers of the Transition School.</h4>
+
+
+<p><i>James Beattie</i>, 1735-1803: he was the son of a farmer, and was educated
+at Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he was afterwards professor of
+natural philosophy. For four years he taught a village school. His first
+poem, <i>Retirement</i>, was not much esteemed; but in 1771 appeared the first
+part of <i>The Minstrel</i>, a poem at once descriptive, didactic, and
+romantic. This was enthusiastically received, and gained for him the favor
+of the king, a pension of &pound;200 per annum, and a degree from Oxford. The
+second part was published in 1774. <i>The Minstrel</i> is written in the
+Spenserian stanza, and abounds in beautiful descriptions of nature,
+marking a very decided progress from the artificial to the natural school.
+The character of Edwin, the young minstrel, ardent in search for the
+beautiful and the true, is admirably portrayed; as is also that of the
+hermit who instructs the youth. The opening lines are very familiar:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb<br />
+    The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar;
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>and the description of the morning landscape has no superior in the
+language:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    But who the melodies of morn can tell?<br />
+    The wild brook babbling down the mountain side;<br />
+    The lowing herd; the sheepfold's simple bell;<br />
+    The pipe of early shepherd dim descried<br />
+    In the lone valley.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Beattie wrote numerous prose dissertations and essays, one of which was in
+answer to the infidel views of Hume&mdash;<i>Essay on the Nature <a id="p357" />and
+Immutability of Truth, in Opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism</i>. Beattie
+was of an excitable and sensitive nature, and his polemical papers are
+valued rather for the beauty of their language, than for acuteness of
+logic.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>William Falconer</i>, 1730-1769: first a sailor in the merchant service, he
+afterwards entered the navy. He is chiefly known by his poem <i>The
+Shipwreck</i>, and for its astonishing connection with his own fortunes and
+fate. He was wrecked off Cape Colonna, on the coast of Greece, before he
+was eighteen; and this misfortune is the subject of his poem. Again, in
+1760, he was cast away in the Channel. In 1769, the Aurora frigate, of
+which he was the purser, foundered in Mozambique Channels, and he, with
+all others on board, went down with her. The excellence of his nautical
+directions and the vigor of his descriptions establish the claims of his
+poem; but it has the additional interest attaching to his curious
+experience&mdash;it is his autobiography and his enduring monument. The picture
+of the storm is very fine; but in the handling of his verse there is more
+of the artificial than of the romantic school.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>William Shenstone</i>, 1714-1763: his principal work is <i>The
+Schoolmistress</i>, a poem in the stanza of Spenser, which is pleasing from
+its simple and sympathizing description of the village school, kept by a
+dame; with the tricks and punishment of the children, and many little
+traits of rural life and character. It is pitched in so low a key that it
+commends itself to the world at large. Shenstone is equally known for his
+mania in landscape gardening, upon which he spent all his means. His
+place, <i>The Leasowes</i> in Shropshire, has gained the greater notoriety
+through the descriptions of Dodsley and Goldsmith. The natural simplicity
+of <i>The Schoolmistress</i> allies it strongly to the romantic school, which
+was now about to appear.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>William Collins</i>, 1720-1756: this unfortunate poet, who died at the early
+age of thirty-six, deserves particular mention for the delicacy of his
+fancy and the beauty of his diction. His <i>Ode on the Passions</i> is
+universally esteemed for its sudden and effective changes from the
+bewilderment of Fear, the violence of Anger, and the wildness of Despair
+to the rapt visions of Hope, the gentle dejection of Pity, and the
+sprightliness of Mirth and Cheerfulness. His <i>Ode on the Death of Thomson</i>
+is an exquisite bit of pathos, as is also the <i>Dirge on Cymbeline</i>.
+Everybody knows and admires the short ode beginning</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    How sleep the brave who sink to rest<br />
+    By all their country's wishes blest!
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><a id="p358" />His <i>Oriental Eclogues</i> please by the simplicity of the colloquies, the
+choice figures of speech, and the fine descriptions of nature. But of all
+his poems, the most finished and charming is the <i>Ode to Evening</i>. It
+contains thirteen four-lined stanzas of varied metre, and in blank verse
+so full of harmony that rhyme would spoil it. It presents a series of
+soft, dissolving views, and stands alone in English poetry, with claims
+sufficient to immortalize the poet, had he written nothing else. The
+latter part of his life was clouded by mental disorders, not unsuggested
+to the reader by the pathos of many of his poems. Like Gray, he wrote
+little, but every line is of great merit.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Henry Kirke White</i>, 1785-1806: the son of a butcher, this gifted youth
+displayed, in his brief life, such devotion to study, and such powers of
+mind, that his friends could not but predict a brilliant future for him,
+had he lived. Nothing that he produced is of the highest order of poetic
+merit, but everything was full of promise. Of a weak constitution, he
+could not bear the rigorous study which he prescribed to himself, and
+which hastened his death. With the kind assistance of Mr. Capel Lofft and
+the poet Southey, he was enabled to leave the trade to which he had been
+apprenticed and go to Cambridge. His poems have most of them a strongly
+devotional cast. Among them are <i>Gondoline</i>, <i>Clifton Grove</i>, and the
+<i>Christiad</i>, in the last of which, like the swan, he chants his own
+death-song. His memory has been kept green by Southey's edition of his
+<i>Remains</i>, and by the beautiful allusion of Byron to his genius and his
+fate in <i>The English Bards and Scotch Reviewers</i>. His sacred piece called
+<i>The Star of Bethlehem</i> has been a special favorite:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    When marshalled on the nightly plain<br />
+    The glittering host bestud the sky,<br />
+    One star alone of all the train<br />
+    Can fix the sinner's wandering eye.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p><i>Bishop Percy</i>, 1728-1811: Dr. Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore, deserves
+particular notice in a sketch of English Literature not so much for his
+own works,&mdash;although he was a poet,&mdash;as for his collection of ballads,
+made with great research and care, and published in 1765. By bringing
+before the world these remains of English songs and idyls, which lay
+scattered through the ages from the birth of the language, he showed
+England the true wealth of her romantic history, and influenced the
+writers of the day to abandon the artificial and reproduce the natural,
+the simple, and the romantic. He gave the impulse which produced the
+minstrelsy of Scott and the simple stories of <a id="p359" />Wordsworth. Many of these
+ballads are descriptive of the border wars between England and Scotland;
+among the greatest favorites are <i>Chevy Chase, The Battle of Otterburne,
+The Death of Douglas</i>, and the story of <i>Sir Patrick Spens</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Anne Letitia Barbauld</i>, 1743-1825: the hymns and poems of Mrs. Barbauld
+are marked by an adherence to the artificial school in form and manner;
+but something of feminine tenderness redeems them from the charge of being
+purely mechanical. Her <i>Hymns in Prose for Children</i> have been of value in
+an educational point of view; and the tales comprised in <i>Evenings at
+Home</i> are entertaining and instructive. Her <i>Ode to Spring</i>, which is an
+imitation of Collins's <i>Ode to Evening</i>, in the same measure and
+comprising the same number of stanzas, is her best poetic effort, and
+compares with Collins's piece as an excellent copy compares with the
+picture of a great master.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch33">
+<h2 id="p360">Chapter XXXIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Later Drama.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch33-1">The Progress of the Drama</a>. <a href="#ch33-2">Garrick</a>. <a href="#ch33-3">Foote</a>. <a href="#ch33-4">Cumberland</a>. <a href="#ch33-5">Sheridan</a>. <a href="#ch33-6">George
+   Colman</a>. <a href="#ch33-7">George Colman, the Younger</a>. <a href="#ch33-8">Other Dramatists and Humorists</a>.
+   <a href="#ch33-9">Other Writers on Various Subjects</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch33-1">The Progress of the Drama.</h4>
+
+
+<p>The latter half of the eighteenth century, so marked, as we have seen, for
+manifold literary activity, is, in one phase of its history, distinctly
+represented by the drama. It was a very peculiar epoch in English annals.
+The accession of George III., in 1760, gave promise, from the character of
+the king and of his consort, of an exemplary reign. George III. was the
+first monarch of the house of Hanover who may be justly called an English
+king in interest and taste. He and his queen were virtuous and honest; and
+their influence was at once felt by a people in whom virtue and honesty
+are inherent, and whose consciences and tastes had been violated by the
+evil examples of the former reigns.</p>
+
+<p>In 1762 George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales, was born; and as soon
+as he approached manhood, he displayed the worst features of his ancestral
+house: he was extravagant and debauched; he threw himself into a violent
+opposition to his father: with this view he was at first a Whig, but
+afterwards became a Tory. He had also peculiar opportunities for exerting
+authority during the temporary fits of insanity which attacked the king in
+1764, in 1788, and in 1804. At last, in 1810, the king was so disabled
+from attending to his <a id="p361" />duties that the prince became regent, and assumed
+the reins of government, not to resign them again during his life.</p>
+
+<p>In speaking of the drama of this period, we should hardly, therefore, be
+wrong in calling it the Drama of the Regency. It held, however, by
+historic links, following the order of historic events, to the earlier
+drama. Shakspeare and his contemporaries had established the dramatic art
+on a firm basis. The frown of puritanism, in the polemic period, had
+checked its progress: with the restoration of Charles II, it had returned
+to rival the French stage in wicked plots and prurient scenes. With the
+better morals of the Revolution, and the popular progress which was made
+at the accession of the house of Hanover, the drama was modified: the
+older plays were revived in their original freshness; a new and better
+taste was to be catered to; and what of immorality remained was chiefly
+due to the influence of the Prince of Wales. Actors, so long despised,
+rose to importance as great artists. Garrick and Foote, and, later,
+Kemble, Kean, and Mrs. Siddons, were social personages in England. Peers
+married actresses, and enduring reputation was won by those who could
+display the passions and the affections to the life, giving flesh and
+blood and mind and heart to the inimitable creations of Shakspeare.</p>
+
+<p>It must be allowed that this power of presentment marks the age more
+powerfully than any claims of dramatic authorship. The new play-writers
+did not approach Shakspeare; but they represented their age, and
+repudiated the vices, in part at least, of their immediate predecessors.
+In them, too, is to be observed the change from the artificial to the
+romantic and natural, The scenes and persons in their plays are taken from
+the life around them, and appealed to the very models from which they were
+drawn.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch33-2"><span class="sc">David Garrick.</span>&mdash;First among these purifiers of the drama is David Garrick,
+who was born in Lichfield, in 1716. <a id="p362" />He was a pupil of Dr. Johnson, and
+came up with that distinguished man to London, in 1735. The son of a
+captain in the Royal army, but thrown upon his own exertions, he first
+tried to gain a livelihood as a wine merchant; but his fondness for the
+stage led him to become an actor, and in taking this step he found his
+true position. A man of respectable parts and scholarship, he wrote many
+agreeable pieces for the stage; which, however, owed their success more to
+his accurate knowledge of the <i>mise en scene</i>, and to his own
+representation of the principal characters, than to their intrinsic
+merits. His mimetic powers were great: he acted splendidly in all casts,
+excelling, perhaps, in tragedy; and he, more than any actor before or
+since, has made the world thoroughly acquainted with Shakspeare. Dramatic
+authors courted him; for his appearance in any new piece was almost an
+assurance of its success.</p>
+
+<p>Besides many graceful prologues, epigrams, and songs, he wrote, or
+altered, forty plays. Among these the following have the greatest merit:
+<i>The Lying Valet</i>, a farce founded on an old English comedy; <i>The
+Clandestine Marriage</i>, in which he was aided by the elder Colman; (the
+character of <i>Lord Ogleby</i> he wrote for himself to personate;) <i>Miss in
+her Teens</i>, a very clever and amusing farce. He was charmingly natural in
+his acting; but he was accused of being theatrical when off the stage. In
+the words of Goldsmith:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;<br />
+    'Twas only that when he was off, he was acting.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Garrick married a dancer, who made him an excellent wife. By his own
+exertions he won a highly respectable social position, and an easy fortune
+of &pound;140,000, upon which he retired from the stage. He died in London in
+1779.</p>
+
+<p>In 1831-2 his <i>Private Correspondence with the Most Celebrated Persons of
+his Time</i> was published, and opened a rich field to the social historian.
+Among his correspondents were<a id="p363" /> Dr. Johnson, Boswell, Goldsmith, Gibber,
+Sheridan, Burke, Wilkes, Junius, and Dr. Franklin. Thus Garrick catered
+largely to the history of his period, as an actor and dramatic author,
+illustrating the stage; as a reviver of Shakspeare, and as a correspondent
+of history.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch33-3"><span class="sc">Samuel Foote.</span>&mdash;Among the many English actors who have been distinguished
+for great powers of versatility in voice, feature, and manner, there is
+none superior to Foote. Bold and self-reliant, he was a comedian in
+every-day life; and his ready wit and humor subdued Dr. Johnson, who had
+determined to dislike him. He was born in 1722, at Truro, and educated at
+Oxford: he studied law, but his peculiar aptitudes soon led him to the
+stage, where he became famous as a comic actor. Among his original pieces
+are <i>The Patron</i>, <i>The Devil on Two Stilts</i>, <i>The Diversions of the
+Morning</i>, <i>Lindamira</i>, and <i>The Slanderer</i>. But his best play, which is a
+popular burlesque on parliamentary elections, is <i>The Mayor of Garrat</i>. He
+died in 1777, at Dover, while on his way to France for the benefit of his
+health. His plays present the comic phase of English history in his day.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch33-4"><span class="sc">Richard Cumberland.</span>&mdash;This accomplished man, who, in the words of Walter
+Scott, has given us &quot;many powerful sketches of the age which has passed
+away,&quot; was born in 1732, and lived to the ripe age of seventy-nine, dying
+in 1811. After receiving his education at Cambridge, he became secretary
+to Lord Halifax. His versatile pen produced, besides dramatic pieces,
+novels and theological treatises, illustrating the principal topics of the
+time. In his plays there is less of immorality than in those of his
+contemporaries. <i>The West Indian</i>, which was first put upon the stage in
+1771, and which is still occasionally presented, is chiefly noticeable in
+that an Irishman and a West Indian are the principal characters, and that
+he has not brought them into ridicule, as was <a id="p364" />common at the time, but has
+exalted them by their merits. The best of his other plays are <i>The Jew,
+The Wheel of Fortune</i>, and <i>The Fashionable Lover</i>. Goldsmith, in his poem
+<i>Retaliation</i>, says of Cumberland, referring to his greater morality and
+his human sympathy,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts,<br />
+    The Terence of England, the mender of hearts;<br />
+    A flattering painter, who made it his care<br />
+    To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch33-5"><span class="sc">Richard Brinsley Sheridan.</span>&mdash;No man represents the Regency so completely as
+Sheridan. He was a statesman, a legislator, an orator, and a dramatist;
+and in social life a wit, a gamester, a spendthrift, and a debauchee. His
+manifold nature seemed to be always in violent ebullition. He was born in
+September, 1751, and was the son of Thomas Sheridan, the actor and
+lexicographer, His mother, Frances Sheridan, was also a writer of plays
+and novels. Educated at Harrow, he was there considered a dunce; and when
+he grew to manhood, he plunged into dissipation, and soon made a stir in
+the London world by making a runaway match with Miss Linley, a singer, who
+was noted as one of the handsomest women of the day. A duel with one of
+her former admirers was the result.</p>
+
+<p>As a dramatist, he began by presenting <i>A Trip to Scarborough</i>, which was
+altered from Vanbrugh's <i>Relapse</i>; but his fame was at once assured by his
+production, in 1775, of <i>The Duenna</i> and <i>The Rivals</i>. The former is
+called an opera, but is really a comedy containing many songs: the plot is
+varied and entertaining; but it is far inferior to <i>The Rivals</i>, which is
+based upon his own adventures, and is brimming with wit and humor. Mrs.
+Malaprop, Bob Acres, Sir Lucius O'Trigger, and the Absolutes, father and
+son, have been prime favorites upon the stage ever since.</p>
+
+<p>In 1777 he produced <i>The School for Scandal</i>, a caustic<a id="p365" /> satire on London
+society, which has no superior in genteel comedy. It has been said that
+the characters of Charles and Joseph Surface were suggested by the Tom
+Jones and Blifil of Fielding; but, if this be true, the handling is so
+original and natural, that they are in no sense a plagiarism. Without the
+rippling brilliancy of <i>The Rivals, The School for Scandal</i> is better
+sustained in scene and colloquy; and in spite of some indelicacy, which is
+due to the age, the moral lesson is far more valuable. The satire is
+strong and instructive, and marks the great advance in social decorum over
+the former age.</p>
+
+<p>In 1779 appeared <i>The Critic</i>, a literary satire, in which the chief
+character is that of Sir Fretful Plagiary.</p>
+
+<p>Sheridan sat in parliament as member for Stafford. His first effort in
+oratory was a failure; but by study he became one of the most effective
+popular orators of his day. His speeches lose by reading: he abounded in
+gaudy figures, and is not without bombast; but his wonderful flow of words
+and his impassioned action dazzled his audience and kept it spellbound.
+His oratory, whatever its faults, gained also the unstinted praise of his
+colleagues and rivals in the art. Of his great speech in the trial of
+Warren Hastings, in 1788, Fox declared that &quot;all he had ever heard, all he
+had ever read, when compared with it, dwindled into nothing, and vanished
+like vapor before the sun.&quot; Burke called it &quot;the most astonishing effort
+of eloquence, argument, and wit united, of which there was any record or
+tradition;&quot; and Pitt said &quot;that it surpassed all the eloquence of ancient
+or modern times.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sheridan was for some time the friend and comrade of the Prince Regent, in
+wild courses which were to the taste of both; but this friendship was
+dissolved, and the famous dramatist and orator sank gradually in the
+social scale, until he had sounded the depths of human misery. He was
+deeply in debt; he obtained money under mean and false pretences; <a id="p366" />he was
+drunken and debauched; and even death did not bring rest. He died in July,
+1816. His corpse was arrested for debt, and could not be buried until the
+debt was paid. In his varied brilliancy and in his fatal debauchery, his
+character stands forth as the completest type of the period of the
+Regency. Many memoirs have been written, among which those of his friend
+Moore, and his granddaughter the Hon. Mrs. Norton, although they unduly
+palliate his faults, are the best.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch33-6"><span class="sc">George Colman.</span>&mdash;Among the respectable dramatists of this period who
+exerted an influence in leading the public taste away from the witty and
+artificial schools of the Restoration, the two Colmans deserve mention.
+George Colman, the elder, was born in Florence in 1733, but began his
+education at Westminster School, from which he was removed to Oxford.
+After receiving his degree he studied law; but soon abandoned graver study
+to court the comic muse. His first piece, <i>Polly Honeycomb</i>, was produced
+in 1760; but his reputation was established by <i>The Jealous Wife</i>,
+suggested by a scene in Fielding's <i>Tom Jones</i>. Besides many humorous
+miscellanies, most of which appeared in <i>The St. James' Chronicle</i>,&mdash;a
+magazine of which he was the proprietor,&mdash;he translated Terence, and
+produced more than thirty dramatic pieces, some of which are still
+presented upon the stage. The best of these is <i>The Clandestine Marriage</i>,
+which was the joint production of Garrick and himself. Of this play,
+Davies says &quot;that no dramatic piece, since the days of Beaumont and
+Fletcher, had been written by two authors, in which wit, fancy, and humor
+were so happily blended.&quot; In 1768 he became one of the proprietors of the
+Covent Garden Theatre: in 1789 his mind became affected, and he remained a
+mental invalid until his death in 1794.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch33-7"><span class="sc">George Colman. The Younger.</span>&mdash;This writer was the <a id="p367" />son of George Colman, and
+was born in 1762. Like his father, he was educated at Westminster and
+Oxford; but he was removed from the university before receiving his
+degree, and was graduated at King's College, Aberdeen. He inherited an
+enthusiasm for the drama and considerable skill as a dramatic author. In
+1787 he produced <i>Inkle and Yarico</i>, founded upon the pathetic story of
+Addison, in <i>The Spectator</i>. In 1796 appeared <i>The Iron Chest</i>; this was
+followed, in 1797,. by <i>The Heir at Law</i> and <i>John Bull</i>. To him the world
+is indebted for a large number of stock pieces which still appear at our
+theatres. In 1802 he published a volume entitled <i>Broad Grins</i>, which was
+an expansion of a previous volume of comic scraps. This is full of frolic
+and humor: among the verses in the style of Peter Pindar are the
+well-known sketches <i>The Newcastle Apothecary</i>, (who gave the direction
+with his medicine, &quot;When taken, to be well shaken,&quot;) and <i>Lodgings for
+Single Gentlemen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The author's fault is his tendency to farce, which robs his comedies of
+dignity. He assumed the cognomen <i>the younger</i> because, he said, he did
+not wish his father's memory to suffer for his faults. He died in 1836.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch33-8">Other Humorists and Dramatists of the Period.</h4>
+
+
+<p><i>John Wolcot</i>, 1738-1819: his pseudonym was <i>Peter Pindar</i>. He was a
+satirist as well as a humorist, and was bold in lampooning the prominent
+men of his time, not even sparing the king. The world of literature knows
+him best by his humorous poetical sketches, <i>The Apple-Dumplings and the
+King, The Razor-Seller, The Pilgrims and the Peas</i>, and many others.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Hannah More</i>, 1745-1833: this lady had a flowing, agreeable style, but
+produced no great work. She wrote for her age and pleased it; but
+posterity disregards what she has written. Her principal plays are:
+<i>Percy</i>, presented in 1777, and a tragedy entitled <i>The Fatal Falsehood</i>.
+She was a poet and a novelist also; but in neither part did she rise above
+mediocrity. In 1782 appeared her volume of <i>Sacred Dramas</i>. Her best novel
+is entitled <i>C&aelig;lebs in Search of a Wife, comprehending<a id="p368" /> Observations on
+Domestic Habits and Manners, Religion and Morals</i>. Her greatest merit is
+that she always inculcated pure morals and religion, and thus aided in
+improving the society of her age. Something of her fame is also due to the
+rare appearance, up to this time, of women in the fields of literature; so
+that her merits are indulgently exaggerated.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Joanna Baillie</i>, 1762-1851: this lady, the daughter of a Presbyterian
+divine, wrote graceful verses, but is principally known by her numerous
+plays. Among these, which include thirteen <i>Plays on the Passions</i>, and
+thirteen <i>Miscellaneous Plays</i>, those best known are <i>De Montfort</i> and
+<i>Basil</i>&mdash;both tragedies, which have received high praise from Sir Walter
+Scott. Her <i>Ballads</i> and <i>Metrical Legends</i> are all spirited and
+excellent; and her <i>Hymns</i> breathe the very spirit of devotion. Very
+popular during her life, and still highly estimated by literary critics,
+her works have given place to newer and more favorite authors, and have
+already lost interest with the great world of readers.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch33-9">Other Writers on Various Subjects.</h4>
+
+
+<p><i>Thomas Warton</i>, 1728-1790: he was Professor of Poetry and of Ancient
+History at Oxford, and, for the last five years of his life,
+poet-laureate. The student of English Literature is greatly indebted to
+him for his <i>History of English Poetry</i>, which he brings down to the early
+part of the seventeenth century. No one before him had attempted such a
+task; and, although his work is rather a rare mass of valuable materials
+than a well articulated history, it is of great value for its collected
+facts, and for its suggestions as to where the scholar may pursue his
+studies farther.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Joseph Warton</i>, 1722-1800: a brother of Thomas Warton; he published
+translations and essays and poems. Among the translations was that of the
+<i>Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil</i>, which is valued for its exactness and
+perspicuity.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Frances Burney</i>, (Madame D'Arblay,) 1752-1840: the daughter of Dr.
+Burney, a musical composer. While yet a young girl, she astonished herself
+and the world by her novel of <i>Evelina</i>, which at once took rank among the
+standard fictions of the day. It is in the style of Richardson, but more
+truthful in the delineation of existing manners, and in the expression of
+sentiment. She afterwards published <i>Cecilia</i> and several other tales,
+which, although excellent, were not as good as the first. She led an
+almost menial life, as one of the ladies in waiting upon Queen Charlotte;
+but the genuine fame achieved by her writings in some degree relieved the
+sense of thraldom, from which she happily<a id="p369" /> escaped with a pension. The
+novels of Madame D'Arblay are the intermediate step between the novels of
+Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett, and the Waverly novels of Walter
+Scott. They are entirely free from any taint of immorality; and they were
+among the first feminine efforts that were received with enthusiasm: thus
+it is that, without being of the first order of merit, they mark a
+distinct era in English letters.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Edmund Burke</i>, 1730-1797: he was born in Dublin, and educated at Trinity
+College. He studied law, but soon found his proper sphere in public life.
+He had brilliant literary gifts; but his fame is more that of a statesman
+and an orator, than an author. Prominent in parliament, he took noble
+ground in favor of American liberty in our contest with the mother
+country, and uttered speeches which have remained as models of forensic
+eloquence. His greatest oratorical efforts were his famous speeches as one
+of the committee of impeachment in the case of Warren Hastings,
+Governor-General of India. Whatever may be thought of Hastings and his
+administration, the famous trial has given to English oratory some of its
+noblest specimens; and the people of England learned more of their empire
+in India from the learned, brilliant, and exhaustive speeches of Burke,
+than they could have learned in any other way. The greatest of his written
+works is: <i>Reflections on the Revolution in France</i>, written to warn
+England to avoid the causes of such colossal evil. In 1756 he had
+published his <i>Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and
+Beautiful</i>. This has been variously criticized; and, although written with
+vigor of thought and brilliancy of style, has now taken its place among
+the speculations of theory, and not as establishing permanent canons of
+&aelig;sthetical science. His work entitled <i>The Vindication of Natural Society,
+by a late noble writer</i>, is a successful attempt to overthrow the infidel
+system of Lord Bolingbroke, by applying it to civil society, and thus
+showing that it proved too much&mdash;&quot;that if the abuses of or evils sometimes
+connected with religion invalidate its authority, then every institution,
+however beneficial, must be abandoned.&quot; Burke's style is peculiar, and, in
+another writer, would be considered pompous and pedantic; but it so
+expresses the grandeur and dignity of the man, that it escapes this
+criticism. His learning, his private worth, his high aims and
+incorruptible faith in public station, the dignity of his statesmanship,
+and the power of his oratory, constitute Mr. Burke as one of the noblest
+characters of any English period; and, although his literary reputation is
+not equal to his political fame, his accomplishments in the field of
+letters are worthy of admiration and honorable mention.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Hugh Blair</i>, 1718-1800: a Presbyterian divine in Edinburgh, Dr. Blair<a id="p370" />
+deserves special mention for his lectures on <i>Rhetoric and
+Belles-Lettres</i>, which for a long time constituted the principal text-book
+on those subjects in our schools and colleges. A better understanding of
+the true scope of rhetoric as a science has caused this work to be
+superseded by later text-books. Blair's lectures treat principally of
+style and literary criticism, and are excellent for their analysis of some
+of the best authors, and for happy illustrations from their works. Blair
+wrote many eloquent sermons, which were published, and was one of the
+strong champions of Macpherson, in the controversy concerning the poems of
+Ossian. He occupied a high place as a literary critic during his life.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>William Paley</i>, 1743-1805: a clergyman of the Established Church, he rose
+to the dignity of Archdeacon and Chancellor of Carlisle. At first
+thoughtless and idle, he was roused from his unprofitable life by the
+earnest warnings of a companion, and became a severe student and a
+vigorous writer on moral and religious subjects. Among his numerous
+writings, those principally valuable are: <i>Hor&aelig; Paulin&aelig;</i>, and <i>A View of
+the Evidences of Christianity</i>&mdash;the former setting forth the life and
+character of St. Paul, and the latter being a clear exposition of the
+truth of Christianity, which has long served as a manual of academic
+instruction. His treatise on <i>Natural Theology</i> is, in the words of Sir
+James Mackintosh, &quot;the wonderful work of a man who, after sixty, had
+studied anatomy in order to write it.&quot; Later investigations of science
+have discarded some of his <i>facts</i>; but the handling of the subject and
+the array of arguments are the work of a skilful and powerful hand. He
+wrote, besides, a work on <i>Moral and Political Philosophy</i>, and numerous
+sermons. His theory of morals is, that whatever is expedient is right; and
+thus he bases our sense of duty upon the ground of the production of the
+greatest amount of happiness. This low view has been successfully refuted
+by later writers on moral science.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch34">
+<h2 id="p371">Chapter XXXIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>The New Romantic Poetry: Scott.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch34-1">Walter Scott</a>. <a href="#ch34-2">Translations and Minstrelsy</a>. <a href="#ch34-3">The Lay of the Last
+   Minstrel</a>. <a href="#ch34-4">Other Poems</a>. <a href="#ch34-5">The Waverly Novels</a>. <a href="#ch34-6">Particular Mention</a>.
+   <a href="#ch34-7">Pecuniary Troubles</a>. <a href="#ch34-8">His Manly Purpose</a>. <a href="#ch34-9">Powers Overtasked</a>. <a href="#ch34-10">Fruitless
+   Journey</a>. <a href="#ch34-11">Return and Death</a>. <a href="#ch34-12">His Fame</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<p>The transition school, as we have seen, in returning to nature, had
+redeemed the pastoral, and had cultivated sentiment at the expense of the
+epic. As a slight reaction, and yet a progress, and as influenced by the
+tales of modern fiction, and also as subsidizing the antiquarian lore and
+taste of the age, there arose a school of poetry which is best represented
+by its <i>Tales in verse</i>;&mdash;some treating subjects of the olden time, some
+laying their scenes in distant countries, and some describing home
+incidents of the simplest kind. They were all minor epics: such were the
+poetic stories of Scott, the <i>Lalla Rookh</i> of Moore, <i>The Bride</i> and <i>The
+Giaour</i> of Byron, and <i>The Village</i> and <i>The Borough</i> of Crabbe; all of
+which mark the taste and the demand of the period.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch34-1"><span class="sc">Walter Scott.</span>&mdash;First in order of the new romantic poets was Scott, alike
+renowned for his <i>Lays</i> and for his wonderful prose fictions; at once the
+most equable and the most prolific of English authors.</p>
+
+<p>Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, on the 15th of August, 1771. His
+father was a writer to the signet; his mother was Anne Rutherford, the
+daughter of a medical professor in the University of Edinburgh. His
+father's family belonged to the clan Buccleugh. Lame from his early
+childhood, and <a id="p372" />thus debarred the more active pleasures of children, his
+imagination was unusually vigorous; and he took special pleasure in the
+many stories, current at the time, of predatory warfare, border forays,
+bogles, warlocks, and second sight. He spent some of his early days in the
+country, and thus became robust and healthy; although his lameness
+remained throughout life. He was educated in Edinburgh, at the High School
+and the university; and, although not noted for excellence as a scholar,
+he exhibited precocity in verse, and delighted his companions by his
+readiness in reproducing old stories or improving new ones. After leaving
+the university he studied law, and ranged himself in politics as a
+Conservative or Tory.</p>
+
+<p>Although never an accurate classical scholar, he had a superficial
+knowledge of several languages, and was an industrious collector of old
+ballads and relics of the antiquities of his country. He was, however,
+better than a scholar;&mdash;he had genius, enthusiasm, and industry: he could
+create character, adapt incident, and, in picturesque description, he was
+without a rival.</p>
+
+<p>During the rumors of the invasion of Scotland by the French, which he has
+treated with such comical humor in <i>The Antiquary</i>, his lameness did not
+prevent his taking part with the volunteers, as quartermaster&mdash;a post
+given him to spare him the fatigue and rough service of the ranks. The
+French did not come; and Scott returned to his studies with a budget of
+incident for future use.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch34-2"><span class="sc">Translations and Minstrelsy.</span>&mdash;The study of the German language was then
+almost a new thing, even among educated people in England; and Scott made
+his first public essay in the form of translations from the German. Among
+these were versions of the <i>Erl K&ouml;nig</i> of Goethe, and the <i>Lenore</i> and
+<i>The Wild Huntsman</i> of B&uuml;rger, which appeared in 1796. In 1797 he rendered
+into English <i>Otho of Wittels<a id="p373" />bach</i> by Steinburg, and in 1799 Goethe's
+tragedy, <i>G&ouml;tz von Berlichingen</i>. These were the trial efforts of his
+&quot;'prentice hand,&quot; which predicted a coming master.</p>
+
+<p>On the 24th of December, 1797, he married Miss Carpenter, or Charpentier,
+a lady of French parentage, and retired to a cottage at Lasswade, where he
+began his studies, and cherished his literary aspirations in earnest and
+for life.</p>
+
+<p>In 1799 he was so fortunate as to receive the appointment of Sheriff of
+Selkirkshire, with a salary of &pound;300 per annum. His duties were not
+onerous: he had ample time to scour the country, ostensibly in search of
+game, and really in seeking for the songs and traditions of Scotland,
+border ballads, and tales, and in storing his fancy with those picturesque
+views which he was afterwards to describe so well in verse and prose. In
+1802 he was thus enabled to present to the world his first considerable
+work, <i>The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border</i>, containing many new ballads
+which he had collected, with very valuable local and historical notes.
+This was followed, in 1804, by the metrical romance <i>of Sir Tristrem</i>, the
+original of which was by Thomas of Ercildoune, of the thirteenth century,
+known as <i>Thomas the Rhymer</i>: it was he who dreamed on Huntley bank that
+he met the Queen of Elfland,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    And, till seven years were gone and past,<br />
+    True Thomas on earth was never seen.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The reputation acquired by these productions led the world to expect
+something distinctly original and brilliant from his pen; a hope which was
+at once realized.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch34-3"><span class="sc">The Lay of the Last Minstrel.</span>&mdash;In 1805 appeared his first great poem, <i>The
+Lay of the Last Minstrel</i>, which immediately established his fame: it was
+a charming presentation of the olden time to the new. It originated in a
+request of the Countess of Dalkeith that he would write a ballad on the
+legend of Gilpin Horner. The picture of the last minstrel, <a id="p374" />&quot;infirm and
+old,&quot; fired by remembrance as he begins to tell an old-time story of
+Scottish valor, is vividly drawn. The bard is supposed to be the last of
+his fraternity, and to have lived down to 1690. The tale, mixed of truth
+and fable, is exceedingly interesting. The octo-syllabic measure, with an
+occasional line of three feet, to break the monotony, is purely
+minstrelic, and reproduces the effect of the <i>troubadours and trouv&egrave;res</i>.
+The wizard agency of Gilpin Horner's brood, and the miracle at the tomb of
+Michael Scott, are by no means out of keeping with the minstrel and the
+age of which he sings. The dramatic effects are good, and the descriptions
+very vivid. The poem was received with great enthusiasm, and rapidly
+passed through several editions. One element of its success is modestly
+and justly stated by the author in his introduction to a later edition:
+&quot;The attempt to return to a more simple and natural style of poetry was
+likely to be welcomed at a time when the public had become tired of heroic
+hexameters, with all the buckram and binding that belong to them in modern
+days.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With an annual income of &pound;1000, and an honorable ambition, Scott worked
+his new literary mine with great vigor. He saw not only fame but wealth
+within his reach. He entered into a silent partnership with the publisher,
+James Ballantyne, which was for a long time lucrative, by reason of the
+unprecedented sums he received for his works. In 1806 he was appointed to
+the reversion&mdash;on the death of the incumbent&mdash;of the clerkship of the
+Court of Sessions, a place worth &pound;1300 per annum.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch34-4"><span class="sc">Other Poems.</span>&mdash;In 1808, before <i>The Lay</i> had lost its freshness, <i>Marmion</i>
+appeared: it was kindred in subject and form, and was received with equal
+favor. <i>The Lady of the Lake</i>, the most popular of these poems, was
+published in 1810; and with it his poetical talent culminated. The later
+poems were not equal to any of those mentioned, although<a id="p375" /> they were not
+without many beauties and individual excellences.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Vision of Don Roderick</i>, which appeared in 1811, is founded upon the
+legend of a visit made by one of the Gothic kings of Spain to an enchanted
+cavern near Toledo. <i>Rokeby</i> was published in 1812; <i>The Bridal of
+Triermain</i> in 1813; <i>The Lord of the Isles</i>, founded upon incidents in the
+life of Bruce, in 1815; and <i>Harold the Dauntless</i> in 1817. With the
+decline of his poetic power, manifest to himself, he retired from the
+field of poetry, but only to appear upon another and a grander field with
+astonishing brilliancy: it was the domain of the historical romance. Such,
+however, was the popular estimate of his poetry, that in 1813 the Prince
+Regent offered him the position of poet-laureate, which was gratefully and
+wisely declined.</p>
+
+<p>Just at this time the new poets came forth, in his own style, and actuated
+by his example and success. He recognized in Byron, Moore, Crabbe, and
+others, genius and talent; and, with his generous spirit, exaggerated
+their merits by depreciating his own, which he compared to cairngorms
+beside the real jewels of his competitors. The mystics, following the lead
+of the Lake poets, were ready to increase the depreciation. It soon became
+fashionable to speak of <i>The Lay</i>, and <i>Marmion</i>, and <i>The Lady of the
+Lake</i> as spirited little stories, not equal to Byron's, and not to be
+mentioned beside the occult philosophy of <i>Thalaba</i> and gentle egotism of
+<i>The Prelude</i>. That day is passed: even the critical world returns to its
+first fancies. In the words of Carlyle, a great balance-striker of
+literary fame, speaking in 1838: &quot;It were late in the day to write
+criticisms on those metrical romances; at the same time, the great
+popularity they had seems natural enough. In the first place, there was
+the indisputable impress of worth, of genuine human force in them ...
+Pictures were actually painted and presented; human emotions conceived and
+sympathized with. Considering that wretched Dellacrus<a id="p376" />can and other
+vamping up of wornout tattlers was the staple article then, it may be
+granted that Scott's excellence was superior and supreme.&quot; Without
+preferring any claim to epic grandeur, or to a rank among the few great
+poets of the first class, Scott is entitled to the highest eminence in
+minstrelic power. He is the great modern troubadour. His descriptions of
+nature are simple and exquisite. There is nothing in this respect more
+beautiful than the opening of <i>The Lady of the Lake</i>. His battle-pieces
+live and resound again: what can be finer than Flodden field in <i>Marmion</i>,
+and The Battle of Beal and Duine in <i>The Lady of the Lake</i>?</p>
+
+<p>His love scenes are at once chaste, impassioned, and tender; and his harp
+songs and battle lyrics are unrivalled in harmony. And, besides these
+merits, he gives us everywhere glimpses of history, which, before his day,
+were covered by the clouds of ignorance, and which his breath was to sweep
+away.</p>
+
+<p>Such are his claims as the first of the new romantic poets. We might here
+leave him, to consider his prose works in another connection; but it seems
+juster to his fame to continue and complete a sketch of his life, because
+all its parts are of connected interest. The poems were a grand proem to
+the novels.</p>
+
+<p>While he was achieving fame by his poetry, and reaping golden rewards as
+well as golden opinions, he was also ambitious to establish a family name
+and estate. To this end, he bought a hundred acres of land on the banks of
+the Tweed, near Melrose Abbey, and added to these from time to time by the
+purchase of adjoining properties. Here he built a great mansion, which
+became famous as Abbotsford: he called it one of his air-castles reduced
+to solid stone and mortar. Here he played the part of a feudal proprietor,
+and did the honors for Scotland to distinguished men from all quarters:
+his hospitality was generous and unbounded.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch34-5"><a id="p377" /><span class="sc">The Waverley Novels.</span>&mdash;As early as 1805, while producing his beautiful
+poems, he had tried his hand upon a story in prose, based upon the
+stirring events in 1745, resulting in the fatal battle of Culloden, which
+gave a death-blow to the cause of the Stuarts, and to their attempts to
+regain the crown. Dissatisfied with the effort, and considering it at that
+time less promising than poetry, he had thrown the manuscript aside in a
+desk with some old fishing-tackle. There it remained undisturbed for eight
+years. With the decline of his poetic powers, he returned to the former
+notion of writing historical fiction; and so, exhuming his manuscript, he
+modified and finished it, and presented it anonymously to the world in
+1814. He had at first proposed the title of <i>Waverley, or 'Tis Fifty Years
+Since</i>, which was afterwards altered to '<i>Tis Sixty Years Since</i>. This,
+the first of his splendid series of fictions, which has given a name to
+the whole series, is by no means the best; but it was good and novel
+enough to strike a chord in the popular heart at once. Its delineations of
+personal characters already known to history were masterly; its historical
+pictures were in a new and striking style of art. There were men yet
+living to whom he could appeal&mdash;men who had <i>been out</i> in the '45, who had
+seen Charles Edward and many of the originals of the author's heroes and
+heroines. In his researches and wanderings, he had imbibed the very spirit
+of Scottish life and history; and the Waverley novels are among the most
+striking literary types and expounders of history.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch34-6"><span class="sc">Particular Mention.</span>&mdash;In 1815, before half the reading world had delighted
+themselves with <i>Waverley</i>, his rapid pen had produced <i>Guy Mannering</i>, a
+story of English and Scottish life, superior to Waverley in its original
+descriptions and more general interest. He is said to have written it in
+six weeks at Christmas time. The scope of this volume will not permit a
+critical examination of the Waverley novels. The world <a id="p378" />knows them almost
+by heart. In <i>The Antiquary</i>, which appeared in 1816, we have a rare
+delineation of local manners, the creation of distinct characters, and a
+humorous description of the sudden arming of volunteers in fear of
+invasion by the French. <i>The Antiquary</i> was a free portrait or sketch of
+Mr. George Constable, filled in perhaps unconsciously from the author's
+own life; for he, no less than his friend, delighted in collecting relics,
+and in studying out the lines, pr&aelig;toria, and general castrametation of the
+Roman armies. Andrew Gemmels was the original of that Edie Ochiltree who
+was bold enough to dispute the antiquary's more learned assertions.</p>
+
+<p>In the same year, 1816, was published the first series of <i>The Tales of my
+Landlord</i>, containing <i>The Black Dwarf</i> and <i>Old Mortality</i>, both valuable
+as contributions to Scottish history. The former is not of much literary
+merit; and the author was so little pleased with it, that he brought it to
+a hasty conclusion; the latter is an extremely animated sketch of the
+sufferings of the Covenanters at the hands of Grahame of Claverhouse, with
+a fairer picture of that redoubted commander than the Covenanters have
+drawn. <i>Rob Roy</i>, the best existing presentation of Highland life and
+manners, appeared in 1817. Thus Scott's prolific pen, like nature,
+produced annuals. In 1818 appeared <i>The Heart of Mid-Lothian</i>, that
+touching story of Jeanie and Effie Deans, which awakens the warmest
+sympathy of every reader, and teaches to successive generations a moral
+lesson of great significance and power.</p>
+
+<p>In 1819 he wrote <i>The Bride of Lammermoor</i>, the story of a domestic
+tragedy, which warns the world that outraged nature will sometimes assert
+herself in fury; a story so popular that it has been since arranged as an
+Italian opera. With that came <i>The Legend of Montrose</i>, another historic
+sketch of great power, and especially famous for the character of Major
+Dugald Dalgetty, soldier of fortune and pedant of Marischal <a id="p379" />College,
+Aberdeen. The year 1819 also beheld the appearance of <i>Ivanhoe</i>, which
+many consider the best of the series. It describes rural England during
+the regency of John, the romantic return of Richard Lion-heart, the
+glowing embers of Norman and Saxon strife, and the story of the Templars.
+His portraiture of the Jewess Rebecca is one of the finest in the Waverley
+Gallery.</p>
+
+<p>The next year, 1820, brought forth <i>The Monastery</i>, the least popular of
+the novels thus far produced; and, as Scott tells us, on the principle of
+sending a second arrow to find one that was lost, he wrote <i>The Abbot</i>, a
+sequel, to which we are indebted for a masterly portrait of Mary Stuart in
+her prison of Lochleven. The <i>Abbot</i>, to some extent, redeemed and
+sustained its weaker brother. In this same year Scott was created a
+baronet, in recognition of his great services to English Literature and
+history. The next five years added worthy companion-novels to the
+marvellous series. <i>Kenilworth</i> is founded upon the visit of Queen
+Elizabeth to her favorite Leicester, in that picturesque palace in
+Warwickshire, and contains that beautiful and touching picture of Amy
+Robsart. <i>The Pirate</i> is a story the scene of which is laid in Shetland,
+and the material for which he gathered in a pleasure tour among those
+islands. In <i>The Fortunes of Nigel</i>, London life during the reign of James
+I. is described; and it contains life-like portraits of that monarch, of
+his unfortunate son, Prince Charles, and of Buckingham. <i>Peveril of the
+Peak</i> is a story of the time of Charles II., which is not of equal merit
+with the other novels. <i>Quentin Durward</i>, one of the very best, describes
+the strife between Louis XI. of France and Charles the Bold of Burgundy,
+and gives full-length historic portraits of these princes. The scene of
+<i>St. Ronan's Well</i> is among the English lakes in Cumberland, and the story
+describes the manners of the day at a retired watering-place. <i>Red
+Gauntlet</i> is a curious narrative connected with one of the latest attempts
+of Charles Edward&mdash;abortive at <a id="p380" />the outset&mdash;to effect a rising in
+Scotland. In 1825 appeared his <i>Tales of the Crusaders</i>, comprising <i>The
+Betrothed</i> and <i>The Talisman</i>, of which the latter is the more popular, as
+it describes with romantic power the deeds of Richard and his comrades in
+the second crusade.</p>
+
+<p>A glance at this almost tabular statement will show the scope and
+versatility of his mind, the historic range of his studies, the fertility
+of his fancy, and the rapidity of his pen. He had attained the height of
+fame and happiness; his success had partaken of the miraculous; but
+misfortune came to mar it all, for a time.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch34-7"><span class="sc">Pecuniary Troubles.</span>&mdash;In the financial crash of 1825-6, he was largely
+involved. As a silent partner in the publishing house of the Ballantynes,
+and as connected with them in the affairs of Constable &amp; Co., he found
+himself, by the failure of these houses, legally liable to the amount of
+&pound;117,000. To relieve himself, he might have taken the benefit of the
+<i>bankrupt law</i>; or, such was his popularity, that his friends desired to
+raise a subscription to cover the amount of his indebtedness; but he was
+now to show by his conduct that, if the author was great, the man was
+greater. He refused all assistance, and even rejected general sympathy. He
+determined to relieve himself, to pay his debts, or die in the effort. He
+left Abbotsford, and took frugal lodgings in Edinburgh; curtailed all his
+expenses, and went to work&mdash;which was over-work&mdash;not for fame, but for
+guineas; and he gained both.</p>
+
+<p>His first novel after this, and the one which was to test the
+practicability of his plan, was <i>Woodstock</i>, a tale of the troublous times
+of the Civil War, in the last chapter of which he draws the picture of the
+restored Charles coming in peaceful procession to his throne. This he
+wrote in three months; and for it he received upwards of &pound;8000. With this
+and the proceeds of his succeeding works, he was enabled to pay <a id="p381" />over to
+his creditors the large sum of &pound;70,000; a feat unparalleled in the history
+of literature. But the anxiety and the labor were too much even for his
+powerful constitution: he died in his heroic attempt.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch34-8"><span class="sc">His Manly Purpose.</span>&mdash;More for money than for reputation, he compiled
+hastily, and from partial and incomplete material, a <i>Life of Napoleon
+Bonaparte</i>, which appeared in 1827. The style is charming and the work
+eminently readable; but it contains many faults, is by no means
+unprejudiced, and, as far as pure truth is concerned, is, in parts, almost
+as much of a romance as any of the Waverley novels; but, for the first two
+editions, he received the enormous sum of &pound;18,000. The work was
+accomplished in the space of one year. Among the other <i>task-work</i> books
+were the two series of <i>The Chronicles of the Canongate</i> (1827 and 1828),
+the latter of which contains the beautiful story of <i>St. Valentine's Day</i>,
+or <i>The Fair Maid of Perth</i>. It is written in his finest vein, especially
+in those chapters which describe the famous Battle of the Clans. In 1829
+appeared <i>Anne of Geierstein</i>, another story presenting the figure of
+Charles of Burgundy, and his defeat and death in the battle with the Swiss
+at Nancy.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch34-9"><span class="sc">Powers Overtasked.</span>&mdash;And now new misfortunes were to come upon him. In 1826
+he had lost his wife: his sorrows weighed upon him, and his superhuman
+exertions were too much for his strength. In 1829 he was seized with a
+nervous attack, accompanied by hemorrhages of a peculiar kind. In
+February, 1830, a slight paralysis occurred, from which he speedily
+recovered; this was soon succeeded by another; and it was manifest that
+his mind was giving way. His last novel, <i>Count Robert of Paris</i>, was
+begun in 1830, as one of a fourth series of <i>The Tales of My Landlord</i>: it
+bears manifest marks of his failing powers, but is of value for the<a id="p382" />
+historic stores which it draws from the Byzantine historians, and
+especially from the unique work of Anna Comnena: &quot;I almost wish,&quot; he said,
+&quot;I had named it Anna Comnena.&quot; A slight attack of apoplexy in November,
+1830, was followed by a severer one in the spring of 1831. Even then he
+tried to write, and was able to produce <i>Castle Dangerous</i>. With that the
+powerful pen ended its marvellous work. The manly spirit still chafed that
+his debts were not paid, and could not be, by the labor of his hands.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch34-10"><span class="sc">Fruitless Journey.</span>&mdash;In order to divert his mind, and, as a last chance for
+health, a trip to the Mediterranean was projected. The Barham frigate was
+placed by the government at his disposal; and he wandered with a party of
+friends to Malta, Naples, Pompeii, Paestum, and Rome. But feeling the end
+approaching, he exclaimed, &quot;Let us to Abbotsford:&quot; for the final hour he
+craved the <i>grata quies patri&aelig;</i>; to which an admiring world has added the
+remainder of the verse&mdash;<i>sed et omnis terra sepulchrum</i>. It was not a
+moment too soon: he travelled northward to the Rhine, down that river by
+boat, and reached London &quot;totally exhausted;&quot; thence, as soon as he could
+be moved, he was taken to Abbotsford.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch34-11"><span class="sc">Return and Death.</span>&mdash;There he lingered from July to September, and died
+peacefully on the 21st of the latter month, surrounded by his family and
+lulled to repose by the rippling of the Tweed. Among the noted dead of
+1832, including Goethe, Cuvier, Crabbe, and Mackintosh, he was the most
+distinguished; and all Scotland and all the civilized world mourned his
+loss.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch34-12"><span class="sc">His Fame.</span>&mdash;At Edinburgh a colossal monument has been erected to his
+memory, within which sits his marble figure. Numerous other memorial
+columns are found in other cities,<a id="p383" /> but all Scotland is his true monument,
+every province and town of which he has touched with his magic pen.
+Indeed, Scotland may be said to owe to him a new existence. In the words
+of Lord Meadowbank,&mdash;who presided at the Theatrical Fund dinner in 1827,
+and who there made the first public announcement of the authorship of the
+Waverley novels,&mdash;Scott was &quot;the mighty magician who rolled back the
+current of time, and conjured up before our living senses the men and
+manners of days which have long since passed away ... It is he who has
+conferred a new reputation on our national character, and bestowed on
+Scotland an imperishable name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Besides his poetry and novels, he wrote very much of a miscellaneous
+character for the reviews, and edited the works of the poets with valuable
+introductions and congenial biographies. Most of his fictions are
+historical in plot and personages; and those which deal with Scottish
+subjects are enriched by those types of character, those descriptions of
+manners&mdash;national and local&mdash;and those peculiarities of language, which
+give them additional and more useful historical value. It has been justly
+said that, by his masterly handling of historical subjects, he has taught
+the later historians how to write, how to give vivid and pictorial effects
+to what was before a detail of chronology or a dry schedule of philosophy.
+His critical powers may be doubted: he was too kind and genial for a
+critic; and in reading contemporary authors seems to have endued their
+inferior works with something of his own fancy.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Life of Scott</i>, by his son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart, is one of the most
+complete and interesting biographies in the language. In it the student
+will find a list of all his works, with the dates of their production; and
+will wonder that an author who was so rapid and so prolific could write so
+much that was of the highest excellence. If not the greatest genius of his
+age, he was its greatest literary benefactor; and it is for this reason
+that we have given so much space to the record of his life and works.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch35">
+<h2 id="p384"	>Chapter XXXV.</h2>
+
+<h3>The New Romantic Poetry: Byron and Moore.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch35-1">Early Life of Byron</a>. <a href="#ch35-2">Childe Harold and Eastern Tales</a>. <a href="#ch35-3">Unhappy Marriage</a>.
+   <a href="#ch35-4">Philhellenism and Death</a>. <a href="#ch35-5">Estimate of his Poetry</a>. <a href="#ch35-6">Thomas Moore</a>.
+   <a href="#ch35-7">Anacreon</a>. <a href="#ch35-8">Later Fortunes</a>. <a href="#ch35-9">Lalla Rookh</a>. <a href="#ch35-10">His Diary</a>. <a href="#ch35-11">His Rank as Poet</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<p>In immediate succession after Scott comes the name of Byron. They were
+both great lights of their age; but the former may be compared to a planet
+revolving in regulated and beneficent beauty through an unclouded sky;
+while the latter is more like a comet whose lurid light came flashing upon
+the sight in wild and threatening career.</p>
+
+<p>Like Scott, Byron was a prolific poet; and he owes to Scott the general
+suggestion and much of the success of his tales in verse. His powers of
+description were original and great: he adopted the new romantic tone,
+while in his more studied works he was an imitator and a champion of a
+former age, and a contemner of his own.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch35-1"><span class="sc">Early Life of Byron.</span>&mdash;The Honorable George Gordon Byron, afterwards Lord
+Byron, was born in London on the 22d of January, 1788. While he was yet an
+infant, his father&mdash;Captain Byron&mdash;a dissipated man, deserted his mother;
+and she went with her child to live upon a slender pittance at Aberdeen.
+She was a woman of peculiar disposition, and was unfortunate in the
+training of her son. She alternately petted and quarrelled with him, and
+taught him to emulate her irregularities of temper. On account of an
+accident at his birth, he had a malformation in one of his<a id="p385" /> feet, which,
+producing a slight limp in his gait through life, rendered his sensitive
+nature quite unhappy, the signs of which are to be discerned in his drama,
+<i>The Deformed Transformed</i>. From the age of five years he went to school
+at Aberdeen, and very early began to exhibit traits of generosity,
+manliness, and an imperious nature: he also displayed great quickness in
+those studies which pleased his fancy.</p>
+
+<p>In 1798, when he was eleven years old, his grand-uncle, William, the fifth
+Lord Byron, died, and was succeeded in the title and estates by the young
+Gordon Byron, who was at once removed with his mother to Newstead Abbey.
+In 1801 he was sent to Harrow, where he was well esteemed by his comrades,
+but was not considered forward in his studies.</p>
+
+<p>He seems to have been of a susceptible nature, for, while still a boy, he
+fell in love several times. His third experience in this way was
+undoubtedly the strongest of his whole life. The lady was Miss Mary
+Chaworth, who did not return his affection. His last interview with her he
+has powerfully described in his poem called <i>The Dream</i>. From Harrow he
+went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he lived an idle and
+self-indulgent life, reading discursively, but not studying the prescribed
+course. As early as November, 1806, before he was nineteen, he published
+his first volume, <i>Poems on Various Occasions</i>, for private distribution,
+which was soon after enlarged and altered, and presented to the public as
+<i>Hours of Idleness, a Series of Poems Original and Translated, by George
+Gordon, Lord Byron, A Minor</i>. These productions, although by no means
+equal to his later poems, are not without merit, and did not deserve the
+exceedingly severe criticism they met with from the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>.
+The critics soon found that they had bearded a young lion: in his rage, he
+sprang out upon the whole literary craft in a satire, imitated from
+Juvenal, called <i>The English Bards and Scotch Reviewers</i>, in which he
+ridicules and denounces the very best poets of the day furiously but most
+uncritically. That his<a id="p386" /> conduct was absurd and unjust, he himself allowed
+afterwards; and he attempted to call in and destroy all the copies of this
+work.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch35-2"><span class="sc">Childe Harold and Eastern Tales.</span>&mdash;In March, 1809, he took his seat in the
+House of Lords, where he did not accomplish much. He took up his residence
+at Newstead Abbey, his ancestral seat, most of which was in a ruinous
+condition; and after a somewhat disorderly life there, he set out on his
+continental tour, spending some time at Lisbon, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Malta,
+and in Greece. On his return, after two years' absence, he brought a
+summary of his travels in poetical form,&mdash;the first part of <i>Childe
+Harold</i>; and also a more elaborated poem entitled <i>Hints from Horace</i>.
+Upon the former he set little value; but he thought the latter a noble
+work. The world at once reversed his decision. The satire in the Latin
+vein is scarcely read; while to the first cantos of <i>Childe Harold</i> it was
+due that, in his own words, &quot;he woke up one morning and found himself
+famous.&quot; As fruits of the eastern portion of his travels, we have the
+romantic tale, <i>The Giaour</i>, published in 1811, and <i>The Bride of Abydos</i>,
+which appeared in 1813. The popularity of these oriental stories was
+mainly due to their having been conceived on the spots they describe. In
+1814 he issued <i>The Corsair</i>, perhaps the best of these sensational
+stories; and with singular versatility, in the same year, inspired by the
+beauty of the Jewish history, he produced <i>The Hebrew Melodies</i>, some of
+which are fervent, touching, and melodious. Late in the same year <i>Lara</i>
+was published, in the same volume with Mr. Rogers's <i>Jacqueline</i>, which it
+threw completely into the shade. Thus closed one distinct period of his
+life and of his authorship. A change came over the spirit of his dream.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch35-3"><span class="sc">Unhappy Marriage.</span>&mdash;In 1815, urged by his friends, and thinking it due to
+his position, he married Miss Milbanke; but <a id="p387" />the union was without
+affection on either side, and both were unhappy. One child, a daughter,
+was born to them; and a year had hardly passed when they were separated,
+by mutual consent and for reasons never truly divulged; and which, in
+spite of modern investigations, must remain mysterious. He was licentious,
+extravagant, of a violent temper: his wife was of severe morals, cold, and
+unsympathetic. We need not advance farther into the horrors recently
+suggested to the world. The blame has rested on Byron; and, at the time,
+the popular feeling was so strong, that it may be said to have driven him
+from England. It awoke in him a dark misanthropy which returned English
+scorn with an unnatural hatred. He sojourned at various places on the
+continent. At Geneva he wrote a third canto of <i>Childe Harold</i>, and the
+touching story of Bonnivard, entitled <i>The Prisoner of Chillon</i>, and other
+short poems.</p>
+
+<p>In 1817 he was at Venice, where he formed a connection with the Countess
+Guiccioli, to the disgrace of both. In Venice he wrote a fourth canto of
+<i>Childe Harold</i>, the story of <i>Mazeppa</i>, the first two cantos of <i>Don
+Juan</i>, and two dramas, <i>Marino Faliero</i> and <i>The Two Foscari</i>.</p>
+
+<p>For two years he lived at Ravenna, where he wrote some of his other
+dramas, and several cantos of <i>Don Juan</i>. In 1821 he removed to Pisa;
+thence, after a short stay, to Genoa, still writing dramas and working at
+<i>Don Juan</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch35-4"><span class="sc">Philhellenism: His Death.</span>&mdash;The end of his misanthropy and his debaucheries
+was near; but his story was to have a ray of sunset glory&mdash;his death was
+to be connected with a noble effort and an exhibition of philanthropic
+spirit which seem in some degree to palliate his faults. Unlike some
+writers who find in his conduct only a selfish whim, we think that it
+casts a beautiful radiance upon the early evening of a stormy life. The
+Greeks were struggling for independence from Turkish tyranny: Byron threw
+himself<a id="p388" /> heart and soul into the movement, received a commission from the
+Greek government, recruited a band of Suliotes, and set forth gallantly to
+do or die in the cause of Grecian freedom: he died, but not in battle. He
+caught a fever of a virulent type, from his exposure, and after very few
+days expired, on the 19th of April, 1824, amid the mourning of the nation.
+Of this event, Macaulay&mdash;no mean or uncertain critic&mdash;could say, in his
+epigrammatical style: &quot;Two men have died within our recollection, who, at
+a time of life at which few people have completed their education, had
+raised themselves, each in his own department, to the height of glory. One
+of them died at Longwood; the other at Missolonghi.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch35-5"><span class="sc">Estimate of His Poetry.</span>&mdash;In giving a brief estimate of his character and
+of his works, we may begin by saying that he represents, in clear
+lineaments, the nobleman, the traveller, the poet, and the debauchee, of
+the beginning of the nineteenth century. In all his works he unconsciously
+depicts himself. He is in turn Childe Harold, Lara, the Corsair, and Don
+Juan. He affected to despise the world's opinion so completely that he has
+made himself appear worse than he really was&mdash;more profane, more
+intemperate, more licentious. It is equally true that this tendency, added
+to the fact that he was a handsome peer, had much to do with the immediate
+popularity of his poems. There was also a paradoxical vanity, which does
+not seem easily reconcilable with his misanthropy, that thus led him to
+reproduce himself in a new dress in his dramas and tales. He paraded
+himself as if, after all, he did value the world's opinion.</p>
+
+<p>That he was one of the new romantic poets, with, however, a considerable
+tincture of the transition school, may be readily discerned in his works:
+his earlier poems are full of the conceits of the artificial age. His
+<i>English Bards and Scotch Reviewers</i> reminds one of the <i>MacFlecknoe</i> of
+Dryden and <i>The Dunciad</i> of Pope, without being as good as either. When<a id="p389" />
+he began that original and splendid portrait of himself, and transcript
+of his travels, <i>Childe Harold</i>, he imitated Spenser in form and in
+archaism. But he was possessed by the muse: the man wrote as the spirit
+within dictated, as the Pythian priestess is fabled to have uttered her
+oracles. <i>Childe Harold</i> is a stream of intuitive, irrepressible poetry;
+not art, but overflowing nature: the sentiments good and bad came welling
+forth from his heart. His descriptive powers are great but peculiar.
+Travellers find in <i>Childe Harold</i> lightning glimpses of European scenery,
+art, and nature, needing no illustrations, almost defying them. National
+conditions, manners, customs, and costumes, are photographed in his
+verses:&mdash;the rapid rush to Waterloo; a bull-fight in Spain; the women of
+Cadiz or Saragossa; the Lion of St. Mark; the eloquent statue of the Dying
+Gladiator; &quot;Fair Greece, sad relic of departed worth;&quot; the address to the
+ocean; touches of love and hate; pictures of sorrow, of torture, of death.
+Everywhere thought and glance are powerfully concentrated, and we find the
+poem to be journal, history, epic, and autobiography. His felicity of
+expression is so great, that, as we come upon the happy conceptions
+exquisitely rendered, we are inclined to say of each, as he has said of
+the Egeria of Muna:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;                   ... whatsoe'er thy birth,<br />
+    Thou wert a beautiful thought and softly bodied forth.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Of his dramas which are founded upon history, we cannot say so much; they
+are dramatic only in form: some of them are spectacular, like
+<i>Sardanapalus</i>, which is still presented upon the stage on account of its
+scenic effects. In <i>Manfred</i> we have a rare insight into his nature, and
+<i>Cain</i> is the vehicle for his peculiar, dark sentiments on the subject of
+religion.</p>
+
+<p><i>Don Juan</i> is illustrative not only of the poet, but of the age; there was
+a generation of such men and women. But quite apart from its moral, or
+rather immoral, character, the <a id="p390" />poem is one of the finest in our
+literature: it is full of wonderful descriptions, and exhibits a splendid
+mastery of language, rhythm, and rhyme: a glorious epic with an inglorious
+hero, and that hero Byron himself.</p>
+
+<p>As a man he was an enigma to the world, and doubtless to himself: he was
+bad, but he was bold. If he was vindictive, he was generous; if he was
+misanthropic and sceptical, it was partly because he despised shams: in
+all his actions, we see that implicit working out of his own nature, which
+not only conceals nothing, but even exaggerates his own faults. His
+antecedents were bad;&mdash;his father was a villain; his grand-uncle a
+murderer; his mother a woman of violent temper; and himself, with all this
+legacy, a man of powerful passions. If evil is in any degree to be
+palliated because it is hereditary, those who most condemn it in the
+abstract, may still look with compassionate leniency upon the career of
+Lord Byron.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch35-6"><span class="sc">Thomas Moore.</span>&mdash;Emphatically the creature of his age, Moore wrote
+sentimental songs in melodious language to the old airs of Ireland, and
+used them as an instrument to excite the Irish people in the struggle they
+were engaged in against English misgovernment. But his songs were true
+neither to tradition nor to nature; they placed before the ardent Celtic
+fancy an Irish glory and grandeur entirely different from the reality. Nor
+had he in any degree caught the bardic spirit. His lyre was attuned to
+reach the ear rather than the heart; his scenes are in enchanted lands;
+his <i>dramatis person&aelig;</i> tread theatrical boards; his thunder is a
+melo-dramatic roll; his lightning is pyrotechny; his tears are either
+hypocritical or maudlin; and his laughter is the perfection of genteel
+comedy.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Moore was born in Dublin, on the 28th of May, 1779: he was a
+diminutive but precocious child, and was paraded by his father and mother,
+who were people in humble life, as a reciter of verse; and as an early
+rhymer also. <a id="p391" />His first poem was printed in a Dublin magazine, when he was
+fourteen years old. In 1794 he entered Trinity College, Dublin; and,
+although never considered a good scholar, he was graduated in 1798, when
+he was nineteen years old.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch35-7"><span class="sc">Anacreon.</span>&mdash;The first work which brought him into notice, and which
+manifests at once the precocity of his powers and the peculiarity of his
+taste, was his translation of the <i>Odes of Anacreon</i>. He had begun this
+work while at college, but it was finished and published in London,
+whither he had gone after leaving college, to enter the Middle Temple, in
+order to study law. With equal acuteness and adaptation to character, he
+dedicated the poems to the Prince of Wales, an anacreontic hero. As might
+be expected, with such a patron, the volume was a success. In 1801 he
+published another series of erotic poems, under the title <i>The Poetical
+Works of the late Thomas Little</i>. This gained for him, in Byron's line,
+the name of &quot;the young Catullus of his day&quot;; and, at the instance of Lord
+Moira, he was appointed poet-laureate, a post he filled only long enough
+to write one birthday ode. What seemed a better fortune came in the shape
+of an appointment as Registrar of the Admiralty Court of Bermuda. He went
+to the island; remained but a short time; and turned over the uncongenial
+duties of the post to a deputy, who subsequently became a defaulter, and
+involved Moore to a large amount. Returning from Bermuda, he travelled in
+the United States and Canada; not without some poetical record of his
+movements. In 1806 he published his <i>Epistles, Odes, and Other Poems</i>,
+which called down the righteous wrath of the Edinburgh Review: Jeffrey
+denounced the book as &quot;a public nuisance,&quot; and &quot;a corrupter of public
+morals.&quot; For this harsh judgment, Moore challenged him; but the duel was
+stopped by the police. This hostile meeting was turned to ridicule by
+Byron in the lines:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    When Little's leadless pistols met his eye,<br />
+    And Bow-street myrmidons stood laughing by.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch35-8"><a id="p392" /><span class="sc">Later Fortunes.</span>&mdash;Moore was now the favorite&mdash;the poet and the dependent of
+the nobility; and his versatile pen was principally employed to amuse and
+to please. He soon began that series of <i>Irish Melodies</i> which he
+continued to augment with new pieces for nearly thirty years.</p>
+
+<p>Always of a theatrical turn, he acted well in private drama, in which the
+gentlemen were amateurs, and the female parts were personated by
+professional actresses. Thus playing in a cast with Miss Dyke, the
+daughter of an Irish actor, Moore fell in love with her, and married her
+on the 25th of March, 1811.</p>
+
+<p>With a foolish lack of judgment, he lost his hopes of preferment, by
+writing satires against the regent; but as a means of livelihood, he
+engaged to write songs for Powers, at a salary of &pound;500 per annum, for
+seven years.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch35-9"><span class="sc">Lalla Rookh.</span>&mdash;The most acceptable offering to fame, and the most
+successful pecuniary venture, was his <i>Lalla Rookh</i>. The East was becoming
+known to the English; and the fancy of the poet could convert the glimpses
+of oriental things into charming pictures. Long possessed with the purpose
+to write an Eastern story in verse, Moore set to work with laudable
+industry to read books of travels and history, in order to form a strong
+and sensible basis for his poetical superstructure. The work is a
+collection of beautiful poems, in a delicate setting of beautiful prose.
+The princess Lalla Rookh journeys, with great pomp, to become the bride of
+the youthful king of Bokkara, and finds among her attendants a handsome
+young poet, who beguiles the journey by singing to her these tales in
+verse. The dangers of the process became manifest&mdash;the king of Bokkara is
+forgotten, and the heart of the unfortunate princess is won by the beauty
+and the minstrelsy of the youthful poet. What is her relief and her joy to
+find on her arrival the unknown poet seated upon the throne as the king,
+who had won her heart as an humble bard!</p>
+
+<p><a id="p393" />This beautiful and popular work was published in 1817; and for it Moore
+received from his publishers, the Longmans, &pound;3000.</p>
+
+<p>In the same year Moore took a small cottage at Sloperton on the estate of
+the Marquis of Lansdowne, which, with some interruptions of travel, and a
+short residence in Paris, continued to be his residence during his life.
+Improvident in money matters, he was greatly troubled by his affairs in
+Bermuda;&mdash;the amount for which he became responsible by the defalcation of
+his deputy was &pound;6000; which, however, by legal cleverness, was compromised
+for a thousand guineas.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch35-10"><span class="sc">His Diary.</span>&mdash;It is very fortunate, for a proper understanding of Moore's
+life, that we have from this time a diary which is invaluable to the
+biographer. In 1820 he went to Paris, where he wasted his time and money
+in fashionable dissipation, and produced nothing of enduring value. Here
+he sketched an Egyptian story, versified in <i>Alciphron</i>, but enlarged in
+the prose romance called <i>The Epicurean</i>.</p>
+
+<p>On a short tour he visited Venice, where he received, as a gift from Lord
+Byron, his autobiographical memoirs, which contained so much that was
+compromising to others, that they were never published&mdash;at least in that
+form. They were withdrawn from the Murrays, in whose hands he had placed
+them, upon the death of Byron in 1824, and destroyed. A short visit to
+Ireland led to his writing the <i>Memoirs of Captain Rock</i>, a work which
+attained an unprecedented popularity in Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>In 1825 he published his <i>Life of Sheridan</i>, which is rather a friendly
+panegyric than a truthful biography.</p>
+
+<p>During three years&mdash;from 1827 to 1830&mdash;he was engaged upon the <i>Life of
+Byron</i>, which concealed more truth than it divulged. But in all these
+years, his chief dependence for daily bread was upon his songs and glees,
+squibs for newspapers and magazines, and review articles.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p394" />In 1831 he made another successful hit in his <i>Life of Lord Edward
+Fitzgerald</i>, a rebel of '98, which was followed in 1833 by <i>The Travels of
+an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In 1835, through the agency of Lord John Russel, the improvident poet
+received a pension of &pound;300. It came in a time of need; for he was getting
+old, and his mind moved more sluggishly. His infirmities made him more
+domestic; but his greater trials were still before him. His sons were
+frivolous spendthrifts; one for whom he had secured a commission in the
+army behaved ill, and drew upon his impoverished father again and again
+for money: both died young. This cumulation of troubles broke him down; he
+had a cerebral attack in December, 1849, and lived helpless and broken
+until the 26th of February, 1852, when he expired without suffering.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch35-11"><span class="sc">His Poetry.</span>&mdash;In most cases, the concurrence of what an author has written
+will present to us the mental and moral features of the man. It is
+particularly true in the case of Moore. He appears to us in Protean
+shapes, indeed, but not without an affinity between them. Small in
+stature, of jovial appearance; devoted to the gayest society; not very
+earnest in politics; a Roman Catholic in name, with but little practical
+religion, he pandered at first to a frivolous public taste, and was even
+more corrupt than the public morals.</p>
+
+<p>Not so apparently as Pope an artificial poet, he had few touches of
+nature. Of lyric sentiment he has but little; but we must differ from
+those who deny to him rare lyrical expression, and happy musical
+adaptations. His songs one can hardly <i>read</i>; we feel that they must be
+sung. He has been accused, too violently, by Maginn of plagiarism: this,
+of course, means of phrases and ideas. In our estimate of Moore, it counts
+but little; his rare rhythm and exquisite cadences are not plagiarized;
+they are his own, and his chief merit.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p395" />He abounds in imagery of oriental gorgeousness; and if, in personality,
+he may be compared to his own Peri, or one of &quot;the beautiful blue damsel
+flies&quot; of that poem, he has given to his unfriendly critics a judgment of
+his own style, in a criticism made by Fadladeen of the young poet's story
+to Lalla Rookh;&mdash;&quot;it resembles one of those Maldivian boats&mdash;a slight,
+gilded thing, sent adrift without rudder or ballast, and with nothing but
+vapid sweets and faded flowers on board.&quot; &quot;The effect of the whole,&quot; says
+one of his biographers, speaking of Lalla Rookh, &quot;is much the same as that
+of a magnificent ballet, on which all the resources of the theatre have
+been lavished, and no expense spared in golden clouds, ethereal light,
+gauze-clad sylphs, and splendid tableaux.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Moore has been felicitously called &quot;the poet of all circles,&quot; a phrase
+which shows that he reflected the general features of his age. At no time
+could the license of <i>Anacreon</i>, or the poems of Little, have been so well
+received as when &quot;the first gentleman in Europe&quot; set the example of
+systematic impurity. At no time could <i>Irish Melodies</i> have had such a
+<i>furore</i> of adoption and applause, as when <i>Repeal</i> was the cry, and the
+Irish were firing their minds by remembering &quot;the glories of Brian the
+Brave;&quot; that Brian Boroimhe who died in the eleventh century, after
+defeating the Danes in twenty-five battles.</p>
+
+<p>Moore's <i>Biographies</i>, with all their faults, are important social
+histories. <i>Lalla Rookh</i> has a double historical significance: it is a
+reflection&mdash;like <i>Anastasius</i> and <i>Vathek</i>, like <i>Thalaba</i> and <i>The Curse
+of Kehama</i>, like <i>The Giaour</i> and <i>The Bride of Abydos</i>&mdash;of English
+conquest, travel, and adventure in the East. It is so true to nature in
+oriental descriptions and allusions, that one traveller declared that to
+read it was like riding on a camel; but it is far more important to
+observe that the relative conditions of England and the Irish Roman
+Catholics are symbolized in the Moslem <a id="p396" />rule over the Ghebers, as
+delineated in <i>The Fire Worshippers</i>. In his preface to that poem, Moore
+himself says: &quot;The cause of tolerance was again my inspiring theme; and
+the spirit that had spoken in the melodies of Ireland soon found itself at
+home in the East.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In an historic view of English Literature, the works of Moore, touching
+almost every subject, must always be of great value to the student of his
+period: there he will always have his prominent place. But he is already
+losing his niche in public favor as a poet proper; better taste, purer
+morals, truer heart-songs, and more practical views will steadily supplant
+him, until, with no power to influence the present, he shall stand only as
+a charming relic of the past.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch36">
+<h2 id="p397">Chapter XXXVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>The New Romantic Poetry (Continued).</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch36-1">Robert Burns</a>. <a href="#ch36-2">His Poems</a>. <a href="#ch36-3">His Career</a>. <a href="#ch36-4">George Crabbe</a>. <a href="#ch36-5">Thomas Campbell</a>.
+   <a href="#ch36-6">Samuel Rogers</a>. <a href="#ch36-7">P. B. Shelley</a>. <a href="#ch36-8">John Keats</a>. <a href="#ch36-9">Other Writers</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch36-1">Robert Burns.</h4>
+
+
+<p>If Moore was, in the opinion of his age, an Irish prodigy, Burns is, for
+all time, a Scottish marvel. The one was polished and musical, but
+artificial and insidiously immoral; the other homely and simple, but
+powerful and effective to men of all classes in society. The one was the
+poet of the aristocracy; the other the genius whose sympathies were with
+the poor. One was most at home in the palaces of the great; and the other,
+in the rude Ayrshire cottage, or in the little sitting-room of the
+landlord in company with Souter John and Tam O'Shanter. As to most of his
+poems, Burns was really of no distinct school, but seems to stand alone,
+the creature of circumstance rather than of the age, in an unnatural and
+false position, compared by himself to the daisy he uprooted with his
+ploughshare:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Even thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate,<br />
+    That fate is thine&mdash;no distant date;<br />
+    Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate,
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;                 Full on thy bloom,<br />
+    Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;                 Shall be thy doom!
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>His life was uneventful. He was the son of a very poor <a id="p398" />man who was
+gardener to a gentleman at Ayr. He was born in Alloway on the 25th of
+January, 1759. His early education was scanty; but he read with avidity
+the few books on which he could lay his hands, among which he particularly
+mentions, in his short autobiography, <i>The Spectator</i>, the poems of Pope,
+and the writings of Sterne and Thomson. But the work which he was to do
+needed not even that training: he drew his simple subjects from
+surrounding nature, and his ideas came from his heart rather than his
+head. Like Moore, he found the old tunes or airs of the country, and set
+them to new words&mdash;words full of sentiment and sense.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch36-2"><span class="sc">His Poems.</span>&mdash;Most of his poems are quite short, and of the kind called
+fugitive, except that they will not fly away. <i>The Cotter's Saturday
+Night</i> is for men of all creeds, a pastoral full of divine philosophy. His
+<i>Address to the Deil</i> is a tender thought even for the Prince of Darkness,
+whom, says Carlyle, his kind nature could not hate with right orthodoxy.
+His poems on <i>The Louse, The Field-Mouse's Nest</i>, and <i>The Mountain
+Daisy</i>, are homely meditations and moral lessons, and contain counsels for
+all hearts. In <i>The Twa Dogs</i> he contrasts, in fable, the relative
+happiness of rich and poor. In the beautiful song</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Ye banks and braes of bonnie Doun,
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>he expresses that hearty sympathy with nature which is one of the most
+attractive features of his character. His <i>Bruce's Address</i> stirs the
+blood, and makes one start up into an attitude of martial advance. But his
+most famous poem&mdash;drama, comedy, epic, and pastoral&mdash;is <i>Tam o' Shanter</i>:
+it is a universal favorite; and few travellers leave Scotland without
+standing at the window of &quot;Alloway's auld haunted kirk,&quot; walking over the
+road upon which Meg galloped, pausing over &quot;the keystane of the brigg&quot;
+where she lost her tail; and then returning, full of the spirit of the
+poem, to sit <a id="p399" />in Tam's chair, and drink ale out of the same silver-bound
+wooden bicker, in the very room of the inn where Tam and the poet used to
+get &quot;unco fou,&quot; while praising &quot;inspiring bold John Barley-corn.&quot; Indeed,
+in the words of the poor Scotch carpenter, met by Washington Irving at
+Kirk Alloway, &quot;it seems as if the country had grown more beautiful since
+Burns had written his bonnie little songs about it.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch36-3"><span class="sc">His Career.</span>&mdash;The poet's career was sad. Gifted but poor, and doomed to
+hard work, he was given a place in the excise. He went to Edinburgh, and
+for a while was a great social lion; but he acquired a horrid thirst for
+drink, which shortened his life. He died in Dumfries, at the early age of
+thirty-seven. His allusions to his excesses are frequent, and many of them
+touching. In his praise of <i>Scotch Drink</i> he sings <i>con amore</i>. In a
+letter to Mr. Ainslie, he epitomizes his failing: &quot;Can you, amid the
+horrors of penitence, regret, headache, nausea, and all the rest of the
+hounds of hell that beset a poor wretch who has been guilty of the sin of
+drunkenness,&mdash;can you speak peace to a troubled soul.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Burns was a great letter-writer, and thought he excelled in that art; but,
+valuable as his letters are, in presenting certain phases of his literary
+and personal character, they display none of the power of his poetry, and
+would not alone have raised him to eminence. They are in vigorous and
+somewhat pedantic English; while most of his poems are in that Lowland
+Scottish language or dialect which attracts by its homeliness and pleases
+by its <i>couleur locale</i>. It should be stated, in conclusion, that Burns is
+original in thought and presentation; and to this gift must be added a
+large share of humor, and an intense patriotism. Poverty was his grim
+horror. He declared that it killed his father, and was pursuing him to the
+grave. He rose above the drudgery of a farmer's toil, and he found no
+other work which would sustain him; and yet this needy poet stands to-day
+among the<a id="p400" /> most distinguished Scotchmen who have contributed to English
+Literature.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch36-4"><span class="sc">George Crabbe.</span>&mdash;Also of the transition school; in form and diction
+adhering to the classicism of Pope, but, with Thomson, restoring the
+pastoral to nature, the poet of the humble poor;&mdash;in the words of Byron,
+&quot;Pope in worsted stockings,&quot; Crabbe was the delight of his time; and Sir
+Walter Scott, returning to die at Abbotsford, paid him the following
+tribute: he asked that they would read him something amusing, &quot;Read me a
+bit of Crabbe.&quot; As it was read, he exclaimed, &quot;Capital&mdash;excellent&mdash;very
+good; Crabbe has lost nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>George Crabbe was born on December 24th, 1754, at Aldborough, Suffolk. His
+father was a poor man; and Crabbe, with little early education, was
+apprenticed to a surgeon, and afterwards practised; but his aspirations
+were such that he went to London, with three pounds in his pocket, for a
+literary venture. He would have been in great straits, had it not been for
+the disinterested generosity of Burke, to whom, although an utter
+stranger, he applied for assistance. Burke aided him by introducing him to
+distinguished literary men; and his fortune was made. In 1781 he published
+<i>The Library</i>, which was well received. Crabbe then took orders, and was
+for a little time curate at Aldborough, his native place, while other
+preferment awaited him. In 1783 he appeared under still more favorable
+auspices, by publishing <i>The Village</i>, which had a decided success. Two
+livings were then given him; and he, much to his credit, married his early
+love, a young girl of Suffolk. In <i>The Village</i> he describes homely scenes
+with great power, in pentameter verse. The poor are the heroes of his
+humble epic; and he knew them well, as having been of them. In 1807
+appeared <i>The Parish Register</i>, in 1810 <i>The Borough</i>, and in 1812 his
+<i>Tales in Verse</i>,&mdash;the precursor, in the former style, however, of
+Words<a id="p401" />worth's lyrical stories. All these were excellent and very popular,
+because they were real, and from his own experience. <i>The Tales of the
+Hall</i>, referring chiefly to the higher classes of society, are more
+artificial, and not so good. His pen was most at home in describing
+smugglers, gipsies, and humble villagers, and in delineating poverty and
+wretchedness; and thus opening to the rich and titled, doors through which
+they might exercise their philanthropy and munificence. In this way Crabbe
+was a reformer, and did great good; although his scenes are sometimes
+revolting, and his pathos too exacting. As a painter of nature, he is true
+and felicitous; especially in marine and coast views, where he is a
+pre-Raphaelite in his minuteness. Byron called him &quot;Nature's sternest
+painter, but the best.&quot; He does not seem to write for effect, and he is
+without pretension; so that the critics were quite at fault; for what they
+mainly attack is not the poet's work so much as the consideration whether
+his works come up to his manifesto. Crabbe died in 1832, on the 3d of
+February, being one of the famous dead of that fatal year.</p>
+
+<p>Crabbe's poems mark his age. At an earlier time, when literature was for
+the fashionable few, his subjects would have been beneath interest; but
+the times had changed; education had been more diffused, and readers were
+multiplied. Goldsmith's <i>Deserted Village</i> had struck a new chord, upon
+which Crabbe continued to play. Of his treatment of these subjects it must
+be said, that while he holds a powerful pen, and portrays truth vividly,
+he had an eye only for the sadder conditions of life, and gives pain
+rather than excites sympathy in the reader. Our meaning will be best
+illustrated by a comparison of <i>The Village</i> of Crabbe with <i>The Deserted
+Village</i> of Goldsmith, and the pleasure with which we pass from the
+squalid scenes of the former to the gentler sorrows and sympathies of the
+latter.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch36-5"><span class="sc">Thomas Campbell.</span>&mdash;More identified with his age than<a id="p402" /> any other poet, and
+yet forming a link between the old and the new, was Campbell. Classical
+and correct in versification, and smothering nature with sonorous prosody,
+he still had the poetic fire, and an excellent power of poetic criticism.
+He was the son of a merchant, and was born at Glasgow on the 27th of July,
+1777. He thus grew up with the French revolution, and with the great
+progress of the English nation in the wars incident to it. He was
+carefully educated, and was six years at the University of Glasgow, where
+he received prizes for composition. He went later to Germany, after being
+graduated, to study Greek literature with Heyne. After some preliminary
+essays in verse, he published the <i>Pleasures of Hope</i> in 1799, before he
+was twenty-two years old. It was one of the greatest successes of the age,
+and has always since been popular. His subject was one of universal
+interest; his verse was high-sounding; and his illustrations modern&mdash;such
+as the fall of Poland&mdash;<i>Finis Poloni&aelig;</i>; and although there is some
+turgidity, and some want of unity, making the work a series of poems
+rather than a connected one, it was most remarkable for a youth of his
+age. It was perhaps unfortunate for his future fame; for it led the world
+to expect other and better things, which were not forthcoming. Travelling
+on the continent in the next year, 1800, he witnessed the battle of
+Hohenlinden from the monastery of St. Jacob, and wrote that splendid,
+ringing battle-piece, which has been so often recited and parodied. From
+that time he wrote nothing in poetry worthy of note, except songs and
+battle odes, with one exception. Among his battle-pieces which have never
+been equalled are <i>Ye Mariners of England</i>, <i>The Battle of the Baltic</i>,
+and <i>Lochiel's Warning</i>. His <i>Exile of Erin</i> has been greatly admired, and
+was suspected at the time of being treasonable; the author, however, being
+entirely innocent of such an intention, as he clearly showed.</p>
+
+<p>Besides reviews and other miscellanies, Campbell wrote <a id="p403" /><i>The Annals of
+Great Britain, from the Accession of George III. to the Peace of Amiens</i>,
+which is a graceful but not valuable work. In 1805 he received a pension
+of &pound;200 per annum.</p>
+
+<p>In 1809 he published his <i>Gertrude of Wyoming</i>&mdash;the exception referred
+to&mdash;a touching story, written with exquisite grace, but not true to the
+nature of the country or the Indian character. Like <i>Rasselas</i>, it is a
+conventional English tale with foreign names and localities; but as an
+English poem it has great merit; and it turned public attention to the
+beautiful Valley of Wyoming, and the noble river which flows through it.</p>
+
+<p>As a critic, Campbell had great acquirements and gifts. These were
+displayed in his elaborate <i>Specimens of the British Poets</i>, published in
+1819, and in his <i>Lectures on Poetry</i> before the Surrey Institution in
+1820. In 1827 he was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow; but
+afterwards his literary efforts were by no means worthy of his reputation.
+Few have read his <i>Pilgrim of Glencoe</i>; and all who have, are pained by
+its manifestation of his failing powers. In fact, his was an unfinished
+fame&mdash;a brilliant beginning, but no continuance. Sir Walter Scott has
+touched it with a needle, when he says, &quot;Campbell is in a manner a bugbear
+to himself; the brightness of his early success is a detriment to all his
+after efforts. He is afraid of the shadow which his own fame casts before
+him.&quot; Byron placed him in the second category of the greatest living
+English poets; but Byron was no critic.</p>
+
+<p>He also published a <i>Life of Petrarch</i>, and a <i>Life of Frederick the
+Great</i>; and, in 1830, he edited the <i>New Monthly Magazine</i>. He died at
+Boulogne, June 15th, 1844, after a long period of decay in mental power.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch36-6"><span class="sc">Samuel Rogers.</span>&mdash;Rogers was a companion or consort to Campbell, although
+the two men were very different person<a id="p404" />ally. As Campbell had borrowed from
+Akenside and written <i>The Pleasures of Hope</i>, Rogers enriched our
+literature with <i>The Pleasures of Memory</i>, a poem of exquisite
+versification, more finished and unified than its pendent picture;
+containing neither passion nor declamation, but polish, taste, and
+tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>Rogers was born in a suburb of London, in 1762. His father was a banker;
+and, although well educated, the poet was designed to succeed him, as he
+did, being until his death a partner in the same banking-house. Early
+enamored of poetry by reading Beattie's <i>Minstrel</i>, Rogers devoted all his
+spare time to its cultivation, and with great and merited success.</p>
+
+<p>In 1786 he produced his <i>Ode to Superstition</i>, after the manner of Gray,
+and in 1792 his <i>Pleasures of Memory</i>, which was enthusiastically
+received, and which is polished to the extreme. In 1812 appeared a
+fragment, <i>The Voyage of Columbus</i>, and in 1814 <i>Jacqueline</i>, in the same
+volume with Byron's <i>Lara</i>. <i>Human Life</i> was published in 1819. It is a
+poem in the old style, (most of his poems are in the rhymed pentameter
+couplet;) but in 1822 appeared his poem of <i>Italy</i>, in blank verse, which
+has the charm of originality in presentation, freshness of personal
+experience, picturesqueness in description, novelty in incident and story,
+scholarship, and taste in art criticism. In short, it is not only the best
+of his poems, but it has great merit besides that of the poetry. The story
+of Ginevra is a masterpiece of cabinet art, and is universally
+appreciated. With these works Rogers contented himself. Rich and
+distinguished, his house became a place of resort to men of distinction
+and taste in art: it was filled with articles of <i>vertu</i>; and Rogers the
+poet lived long as Rogers the <i>virtuoso</i>. His breakfast parties were
+particularly noted. His long, prosperous, and happy life was ended on the
+18th December, 1855, at the age of ninety-two.</p>
+
+<p>The position of Rogers may be best illustrated in the words<a id="p405" /> of Sir J.
+Mackintosh, in which he says: &quot;He appeared at the commencement of this
+literary revolution, without paying court to the revolutionary tastes, or
+seeking distinction by resistance to them.&quot; His works are not destined to
+live freshly in the course of literature, but to the historical student
+they mark in a very pleasing manner the characteristics of his age.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch36-7"><span class="sc">Percy B. Shelley.</span>&mdash;Revolutions never go backward; and one of the greatest
+characters in this forward movement was a gifted, irregular, splendid,
+unbalanced mind, who, while taking part in it, unconsciously, as one of
+many, stands out also in a very singular individuality.</p>
+
+<p>Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on the 4th of August, 1792, at Fieldplace,
+in Sussex, England. He was the eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley, and of
+an ancient family, traced back, it is said, to Sir Philip Sidney. When
+thirteen years old he was sent to Eton, where he began to display his
+revolutionary tendencies by his resistance to the fagging system; and
+where he also gave some earnest in writing of his future powers. At the
+age of sixteen he entered University College, Oxford, and appeared as a
+radical in most social, political, and religious questions. On account of
+a paper entitled <i>The Necessity of Atheism</i>, he was expelled from the
+university and went to London. In 1811 he made a runaway match with Miss
+Harriet Westbrook, the daughter of the keeper of a coffee-house, which
+brought down on him the wrath of his father. After the birth of two
+children, a separation followed; and he eloped with Miss Godwin in 1814.
+His wife committed suicide in 1816; and then the law took away from him
+the control of his children, on the ground that he was an atheist.</p>
+
+<p>After some time of residence in England, he returned to Italy, where soon
+after he met with a tragical end. Going in an open boat from Leghorn to
+Spezzia, he was lost in a storm on the Mediterranean: his body was washed
+on shore near <a id="p406" />the town of Via Reggio, where his remains were burned in
+the presence of Lord Byron, Leigh Hunt, and others. The ashes were
+afterwards buried in the Protestant cemetery at Rome in July, 1822.</p>
+
+<p>Shelley's principles were irrational and dangerous. He was a
+transcendentalist of the extreme order, and a believer in the
+perfectability of human nature. His works are full of his principles. The
+earliest was <i>Queen Mab</i>, in which his profanity and atheism are clearly
+set forth. It was first privately printed, and afterwards published in
+1821. This was followed by <i>Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude</i>, in 1816.
+In this he gives his own experience in the tragical career of the hero.
+His longest and most pretentious poem was <i>The Revolt of Islam</i>, published
+in 1819. It is in the Spenserian stanza. Also, in the same year, he
+published <i>The Cenci</i>, a tragedy, a dark and gloomy story on what should
+be a forbidden subject, but very powerfully written. In 1820 he also
+published <i>The Prometheus Unbound</i>, which is full of his irreligious
+views. His remaining works were smaller poems, among which may be noted
+<i>Adonais</i>, and the odes <i>To the Skylark</i> and <i>The Cloud</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In considering his character, we must first observe the power of his
+imagination; it was so strong and all-absorbing, that it shut out the real
+and the true. He was a man of extreme sensibility; and that sensibility,
+hurt by common contact with things and persons around him, made him morbid
+in morality and metaphysics. He was a polemic of the fiercest type; and
+while he had an honest desire for reform of the evils that he saw about
+him, it is manifest that he attacked existing institutions for the very
+love of controversy. Bold, retired, and proud, without a spice of vanity,
+if he has received harsh judgment from one half the critical world, who
+had at least the claim that they were supporting pure morals and true
+religion, his character has been unduly exalted by the other half, who
+have mistaken reckless dogma<a id="p407" />tism for true nobility of soul. The most
+charitable judgment is that of Moir, who says: &quot;It is needless to disguise
+the fact&mdash;and it accounts for all&mdash;his mind was diseased; he never knew,
+even from boyhood, what it was to breathe the atmosphere of healthy
+life&mdash;to have the <i>mens sana in corpore sano</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But of his poetical powers we must speak in a different manner. What he
+has left, gives token that, had he lived, he would have been one of the
+greatest modern poets. Thoroughly imbued with the Greek poetry, his
+verse-power was wonderful, his language stately and learned without
+pedantry, his inspiration was that of nature in her grandest moods, his
+fancy always exalted; and he presents the air of one who produces what is
+within him from an intense love of his art, without regard to the opinion
+of the world around him,&mdash;which, indeed, he seems to have despised more
+thoroughly than any other poet has ever done. Byron affected to despise
+it; Shelley really did.</p>
+
+<p>We cannot help thinking that, had he lived after passing through the fiery
+trial of youthful passions and disordered imagination, he might have
+astonished the world with the grand spectacle of a convert to the good and
+true, and an apostle in the cause of both. Of him an honest thinker has
+said,&mdash;and there is much truth in the apparent paradox,&mdash;&quot;No man who was
+not a fanatic, had ever more natural piety than he; and his supposed
+atheism is a mere metaphysical crotchet in which he was kept by the
+affected scorn and malignity of dunces.&quot;<sup><a href="#fn-37" id="fna-37">37</a></sup></p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch36-8"><span class="sc">John Keats.</span>&mdash;Another singular illustration of eccentricity and abnormal
+power in verse is found in the brief career of John Keats, the son of the
+keeper of a livery-stable in London, who was born on the 29th October,
+1795.</p>
+
+<p>Keats was a sensitive and pugnacious youth; and in 1810, <a id="p408" />after a very
+moderate education, he was apprenticed to a surgeon; but the love of
+poetry soon interfered with the surgery, and he began to read, not without
+the spirit of emulation, the works of the great poets&mdash;Chaucer, Spenser,
+Shakspeare, and Milton. After the issue of a small volume which attracted
+little or no attention, he published his <i>Endymion</i> in 1818, which, with
+some similarity in temperament, he inscribed to the memory of Thomas
+Chatterton. It is founded upon the Greek mythology, and is written in a
+varied measure. Its opening line has been a familiar quotation since:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It was assailed by all the critics; but particularly, although not
+unfairly, by Jeffrey, in the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>. An article in
+<i>Blackwood</i>, breathing the spirit of British caste, had the bad taste to
+tell the young apothecary to go back to his galley-pots. The excessive
+sensibility of Keats received a great shock from this treatment; but we
+cannot help thinking that too much stress has been laid upon this in
+saying that he was killed by it. This was more romantic than true. He was
+by inheritance consumptive, and had lost a brother by that disease. Add to
+this that his peculiar passions and longings took the form of fierce
+hypochondria.</p>
+
+<p>With a decided originality, he was so impressible that there are in his
+writings traces of the authors whom he was reading, if he did not mean to
+make them models of style.</p>
+
+<p>In 1820 he published a volume containing <i>Lamia</i>, <i>Isabella</i>, and <i>The Eve
+of St. Agnes</i>, and <i>Hyperion</i>, a fragment, which was received with far
+greater favor by the reviewers. Keats was self-reliant, and seems to have
+had something of that magnificent egotism which is not infrequently
+displayed by great minds.</p>
+
+<p>The judicious verdict at last pronounced upon him may be thus epitomized:
+he was a poet with fine fancy, original ideas, felicity of expression, but
+full of faults due to his indi<a id="p409" />viduality and his youth; and his life was
+not spared to correct these. In 1820 a hemorrhage of brilliant arterial
+blood heralded the end. He himself said, &quot;Bring me a candle; let me see
+this blood;&quot; and when it was brought, added, &quot;I cannot be deceived in that
+color; that drop is my death-warrant: I must die.&quot; By advice he went to
+Italy, where he grew rapidly worse, and died on the 23d of February, 1821,
+having left this for his epitaph: &quot;Here lies one whose name was writ in
+water.&quot; Thus dying at the age of twenty-four, he must be judged less for
+what he was, than as an earnest of what he would have been. <i>The Eve of
+St. Agnes</i> is one of the most exquisite poems in any language, and is as
+essentially allied to the simplicity and nature of the modern school of
+poetry as his <i>Endymion</i> is to the older school. Keats took part in what a
+certain writer has called &quot;the reaction against the barrel-organ style,
+which had been reigning by a kind of sleepy, divine right for half a
+century.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch36-9">Other Writers of the Period.</h4>
+
+
+<p>In consonance with the Romantic school of Poetry, and as contributors to
+the prose fiction of the period of Scott, Byron, and Moore, a number of
+gifted women have made good their claim to the favor of the reading world,
+and have left to us productions of no mean value. First among these we
+mention Mrs. <span class="sc">Felicia Dorothea Hemans</span>, 1794-1835: early married to Captain
+Hemans, of the army, she was not happy in the conjugal state, and lived
+most of her after-life in retirement, separated from her husband. Her
+style is harmonious, and her lyrical power excellent; she makes melody of
+common-places; and the low key in which her poetry is pitched made her a
+favorite with the multitude. There is special fervor in her religious
+poems. Most of her writings are fugitive and occasional pieces. Among the
+longer poems are <i>The Forest Sanctuary</i>, <i>Dartmoor</i>, (a lyric poem,) and
+<i>The Restoration of the works of Art to Italy</i>. <i>The Siege of Valencia</i>
+and <i>The Vespers of Palermo</i> are plays on historical subjects. There is a
+sameness in her poetry which tires; but few persons can be found who do
+not value highly such a descriptive poem as <i>Bernardo del Carpio</i>,
+conceived in the very spirit of the Spanish Ballads, and such a sad and
+tender moralizing as that found in <i>The Hour of Death</i>:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><a id="p410" />
+    Leaves have their time to fall,<br />
+    And flowers to wither, at the north-wind's breath,<br />
+    And stars to set&mdash;but all,<br />
+    Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Such poems as these will live when the greater part of what she has
+written has been forgotten, because its ministry has been accomplished.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Caroline Elizabeth Norton</i>, (born in 1808, still living:) she is the
+daughter of Thomas Sheridan, and the grand-daughter of the famous R. B.
+Sheridan. She married the Hon. Mr. Norton, and, like Mrs. Hemans, was
+unhappy in her union. As a poet, she has masculine gifts combined with
+feminine grace and tenderness. Her principal poems are <i>The Sorrows of
+Rosalie</i>, <i>The Undying One</i>, (founded on the legend of <i>The Wandering
+Jew</i>,) and <i>The Dream</i>. Besides these her facile pen has produced a
+multitude of shorter pieces, which have been at once popular. Her claims
+to enduring fame are not great, and she must be content with a present
+popularity.</p>
+
+<p><i>Letitia Elizabeth Landon</i>, 1802-1839: more gifted, and yet not as well
+trained as either of the preceding, Miss Landon (L. E. L.) has given vent
+to impassioned sentiment in poetry and prose. Besides many smaller pieces,
+she wrote <i>The Improvisatrice</i>, <i>The Troubadour</i>, <i>The Golden Violet</i>, and
+several prose romances, among which the best are <i>Romance and Reality</i>,
+and <i>Ethel Churchill</i>. She wrote too rapidly to finish with elegance; and
+her earlier pieces are disfigured by this want of finish, and by a lack of
+cool judgment; but her later writings are better matured and more correct.
+She married Captain Maclean, the governor of Cape Coast Castle, in Africa,
+and died there suddenly, from an overdose of strong medicine which she was
+accustomed to take for a nervous affection.</p>
+
+<p><i>Maria Edgeworth</i>, 1767-1849: she was English born, but resided most of
+her life in Ireland. Without remarkable genius, she may be said to have
+exercised a greater influence over her period than any other woman who
+lived in it. There is an aptitude and a practical utility in her stories
+which are felt in all circles. Her works for children are delightful and
+formative. Every one has read and re-read with pleasure the interesting
+and instructive stories contained in <i>The Parents' Assistant</i>. And what
+these are to the children, her novels are to those of larger growth. They
+are eighteen in number, and are illustrative of the society, fashion, and
+morals of the day; and always inculcate a good moral. Among them we may
+particularize <i>Forester</i>, <i>The Absentee</i>, and <i>The Modern Griselda</i>. All
+critics, even those who deny her great<a id="p411" /> genius, agree in their estimate of
+the moral value of her stories, every one of which is at once a
+portraiture of her age and an instructive lesson to it. The feminine
+delicacy with which she offers counsel and administers reproof gives a
+great charm to, and will insure the permanent popularity of, her
+productions.</p>
+
+<p><i>Jane Austen</i>, 1775-1817: as a novelist she occupied a high place in her
+day, but her stories are gradually sinking into an historic repose, from
+which the coming generations will not care to disturb them. <i>Pride and
+Prejudice</i> and <i>Sense and Sensibility</i> are perhaps the best of her
+productions, and are valuable as displaying the society and the nature
+around her with delicacy and tact.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mary Ferrier</i>, 1782-1855: like Miss Austen, she wrote novels of existing
+society, of which <i>The Marriage</i> and <i>The Inheritance</i> are the best known.
+They were great favorites with Sir Walter Scott, who esteemed Miss
+Ferrier's genius highly: they are little read at the present time.</p>
+
+<p><i>Robert Pollok</i>, 1799-1827: a Scottish minister, who is chiefly known by
+his long poem, cast in a Miltonic mould, entitled <i>The Course of Time</i>. It
+is singularly significant of religious fervor, delicate health, youthful
+immaturity, and poetic yearnings. It abounds in startling effects, which
+please at first from their novelty, but will not bear a calm, critical
+analysis. On its first appearance, <i>The Course of Time</i> was immensely
+popular; but it has steadily lost favor, and its highest flights are
+&quot;unearthly flutterings&quot; when compared with the powerful soarings of
+Milton's imagination and the gentle harmonies of Cowper's religious muse.
+Pollok died early of consumption: his youth and his disease account for
+the faults and defects of his poem.</p>
+
+<p><i>Leigh Hunt</i>, 1784-1859: a novelist, a poet, an editor, a critic, a
+companion of literary men, Hunt occupies a distinct position among the
+authors of his day. Wielding a sensible and graceful rather than a
+powerful pen, he has touched almost every subject in the range of our
+literature, and has been the champion and biographer of numerous literary
+friends. He was the companion of Byron, Shelley, Keats, Lamb, Coleridge,
+and many other authors. He edited at various times several radical
+papers&mdash;<i>The Examiner</i>, <i>The Reflector</i>, <i>The Indicator</i>, and <i>The
+Liberal</i>; for a satire upon the regent, published in the first, he was
+imprisoned for two years. Among his poems <i>The Story of Rimini</i> is the
+best. His <i>Legend of Florence</i> is a beautiful drama. There are few pieces
+containing so small a number of lines, and yet enshrining a full story,
+which have been as popular as his <i>Abou Ben Adhem</i>. Always cheerful,
+refined and delicate in style, appreciative of others, Hunt's place in
+English literature is enviable, if not very exalted; like the <a id="p412" />atmosphere,
+his writings circulate healthfully and quietly around efforts of greater
+poets than himself.</p>
+
+<p><i>James Hogg</i>, 1770-1835: a self-taught rustic, with little early
+schooling, except what the shepherd-boy could draw from nature, he wrote
+from his own head and heart without the canons and the graces of the
+Schools. With something of the homely nature of Burns, and the Scottish
+romance of Walter Scott, he produced numerous poems which are stamped with
+true genius. He catered to Scottish feeling, and began his fame by the
+stirring lines beginning;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    My name is Donald McDonald,<br />
+    I live in the Highlands so grand.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>His best known poetical works are <i>The Queen's Wake</i>, containing seventeen
+stories in verse, of which the most striking is that of <i>Bonny Kilmeny</i>.
+He was always called &quot;The Ettrick Shepherd.&quot; Wilson says of <i>The Queen's
+Wake</i> that &quot;it is a garland of fresh flowers bound with a band of rushes
+from the moor;&quot; a very fitting and just view of the work of one who was at
+once poet and rustic.</p>
+
+<p><i>Allan Cunningham</i>, 1785-1842; like Hogg, in that as a writer he felt the
+influence of both Burns and Scott, Cunningham was the son of a gardener,
+and a self-made man. In early life he was apprenticed to a mason. He wrote
+much fugitive poetry, among which the most popular pieces are, <i>A Wet
+Sheet and a Flowing Sea</i>, <i>Gentle Hugh Herries</i>, and <i>It's Hame and it's
+Hame</i>. Among his stories are <i>Traditional Tales of the Peasantry</i>, <i>Lord
+Roldan</i>, and <i>The Maid of Elwar</i>. His position for a time, as clerk and
+overseer of Chantrey's establishment, gave him the idea of writing <i>The
+Lives of Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects</i>. He was a
+voluminous author; his poetry is of a high lyrical order, and true to
+nature; but his prose will not retain its place in public favor: it is at
+once diffuse and obscure.</p>
+
+<p><i>Thomas Hope</i>, 1770-1831: an Amsterdam merchant, who afterwards resided in
+London, and who illustrated the progress of knowledge concerning the East
+by his work entitled, <i>Anastasius, or Memoirs of a Modern Greek</i>.
+Published anonymously, it excited a great interest, and was ascribed by
+the public to Lord Byron. The intrigues and adventures of the hero are
+numerous and varied, and the book has great literary merit; but it is
+chiefly of historical value in that it describes persons and scenes in
+Greece and Turkey, countries in which Hope travelled at a time when few
+Englishmen visited them.</p>
+
+<p><i>William Beckford</i>, 1760-1844: he was the son of an alderman, who<a id="p413" /> became
+Lord Mayor of London. After a careful education, he found himself the
+possessor of a colossal fortune. He travelled extensively, and wrote
+sketches of his travels. His only work of importance is that called
+<i>Vathek</i>, in which he describes the gifts, the career, and the fate of the
+Caliph of that name, who was the grandson of the celebrated Haroun al
+Raschid. His palaces are described in a style of Oriental gorgeousness;
+his temptations, his lapses from virtue, his downward progress, are
+presented with dramatic power; and there is nothing in our literature more
+horribly real and terror-striking than the <i>Hall of Eblis</i>,&mdash;that hell
+where every heart was on fire, where &quot;the Caliph Vathek, who, for the sake
+of empty pomp and forbidden power, had sullied himself with a thousand
+crimes, became a prey to grief without end and remorse without
+mitigation.&quot; Many of Beckford's other writings are blamed for their
+voluptuous character; the last scene in <i>Vathek</i> is, on the other hand, a
+most powerful and influential sermon. Beckford was eccentric and unsocial:
+he lived for some time in Portugal, but returned to England, and built a
+luxurious palace at Bath.</p>
+
+<p><i>William Roscoe</i>, 1753-1831: a merchant and banker of Liverpool. He is
+chiefly known by his <i>Life of Lorenzo de Medici</i>, and <i>The Life and
+Pontificate of Leo X.</i>, both of which contained new and valuable
+information. They are written in a pleasing style, and with a liberal and
+charitable spirit as to religious opinions. Since they appeared, history
+has developed new material and established more exacting canons, and the
+studies of later writers have already superseded these pleasing works.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch37">
+<h2 id="p414">Chapter XXXVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>Wordsworth, and the Lake School.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch37-1">The New School</a>. <a href="#ch37-2">William Wordsworth</a>. <a href="#ch37-3">Poetical Canons</a>. <a href="#ch37-4">The Excursion and
+   Sonnets</a>. <a href="#ch37-5">An Estimate</a>. <a href="#ch37-6">Robert Southey</a>. <a href="#ch37-7">His Writings</a>. <a href="#ch37-8">Historical Value</a>.
+   <a href="#ch37-9">S. T. Coleridge</a>. <a href="#ch37-10">Early Life</a>. <a href="#ch37-11">His Helplessness</a>. <a href="#ch37-12">Hartley and H. N.
+   Coleridge</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch37-1">The New School.</h4>
+
+
+<p>In the beginning of the year 1820 George III. died, after a very long&mdash;but
+in part nominal&mdash;reign of fifty-nine years, during a large portion of
+which he was the victim of insanity, while his son, afterwards George IV.,
+administered the regency of the kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>George III. did little, either by example or by generosity, to foster
+literary culture: his son, while nominally encouraging authors, did much
+to injure the tone of letters in his day. But literature was now becoming
+independent and self-sustaining: it needed to look no longer wistfully for
+a monarch's smile: it cared comparatively little for the court: it issued
+its periods and numbers directly to the English people: it wrote for them
+and of them; and when, in 1830, the last of the Georges died, after an
+ill-spent life, in which his personal pleasures had concerned him far more
+than the welfare of his people, former prescriptions and prejudices
+rapidly passed away; and the new epoch in general improvement and literary
+culture, which had already begun its course, received a marvellous
+impulsion.</p>
+
+<p>The great movement, in part unconscious, from the artificial rhetoric of
+the former age towards the simplicity of<a id="p415" /> nature, was now to receive its
+strongest propulsion: it was to be preached like a crusade; to be reduced
+to a system, and set forth for the acceptance of the poetical world: it
+was to meet with criticism, and even opprobrium, because it had the
+arrogance to declare that old things had entirely passed away, and that
+all things must conform themselves to the new doctrine. The high-priest of
+this new poetical creed was Wordsworth: he proposed and expounded it; he
+wrote according to its tenets; he defended his illustrations against the
+critics by elaborate prefaces and essays. He boldly faced the clamor of a
+world in arms; and what there was real and valuable in his works has
+survived the fierce battle, and gathered around him an army of proselytes,
+champions, and imitators.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch37-2"><span class="sc">Wordsworth.</span>&mdash;William Wordsworth was the son of the law-agent to the Earl
+of Lonsdale; he was born at Cockermouth, Cumberland, in 1770. It was a
+gifted family. His brother, Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, was Master of
+Trinity College. Another, the captain of an East Indiaman, was lost at sea
+in his own ship. He had also a clever sister, who was the poet's friend
+and companion as long as she lived.</p>
+
+<p>Wordsworth and his companions have been called the Lake Poets, because
+they resided among the English lakes. Perhaps too much has been claimed
+for the Lake country, as giving inspiration to the poets who lived there:
+it is beautiful, but not so surpassingly so as to create poets as its
+children. The name is at once arbitrary and convenient.</p>
+
+<p>Wordsworth was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, which he entered
+in 1787; but whenever he could escape from academic restraints, he
+indulged his taste for pedestrian excursions: during these his ardent mind
+became intimate and intensely sympathetic with nature, as may be seen in
+his <i>Evening Walk</i>, in the sketch of the skater, and in the large
+proportion of description in all his poems.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p416" />It is truer of him than perhaps of any other author, that the life of the
+man is the best history of the poet. All that is eventful and interesting
+in his life may be found translated in his poetry. Milton had said that
+the poet's life should be a grand poem. Wordsworth echoed the thought:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    If thou indeed derive thy light from Heaven,<br />
+    Then to the measure of that Heaven-born light,<br />
+    Shine, Poet! in thy place, and be content.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>He was not distinguished at college; the record of his days there may be
+found in <i>The Prelude</i>, which he calls <i>The Growth of a Poet's Mind</i>. He
+was graduated in 1791, with the degree of B.A., and went over to France,
+where he, among others, was carried away with enthusiasm for the French
+Revolution, and became a thorough Radical. That he afterwards changed his
+political views, should not be advanced in his disfavor; for many ardent
+and virtuous minds were hoping to see the fulfilment of recent predictions
+in greater freedom to man. Wordsworth erred in a great company, and from
+noble sympathies. He returned to England in 1792, with his illusions
+thoroughly dissipated. The workings of his mind are presented in <i>The
+Prelude</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In the same year he published <i>Descriptive Sketches</i>, and <i>An Evening
+Walk</i>, which attracted little attention. A legacy of &pound;900 left him by his
+friend Calvert, in 1795, enabled the frugal poet to devote his life to
+poetry, and particularly to what he deemed the emancipation of poetry from
+the fetters of the mythic and from the smothering ornaments of rhetoric.</p>
+
+<p>In Nov., 1797, he went to London, taking with him a play called <i>The
+Borderers</i>: it was rejected by the manager. In the autumn of 1798, he
+published his <i>Lyrical Ballads</i>, which contained, besides his own verses,
+a poem by an anonymous friend. The poem was <i>The Ancient Mariner</i>; the
+friend, Coleridge. In the joint operation, Wordsworth took the part <a id="p417" />based
+on nature; Coleridge illustrated the supernatural. The <i>Ballads</i> were
+received with undisguised contempt; nor, by reason of its company, did
+<i>The Ancient Mariner</i> have a much better hearing. Wordsworth preserved his
+equanimity, and an implicit faith in himself.</p>
+
+<p>After a visit to Germany, he settled in 1799 at Grasmere, in the Lake
+country, and the next year republished the <i>Lyrical Ballads</i> with a new
+volume, both of which passed to another edition in 1802. With this
+edition, Wordsworth ran up his revolutionary flag and nailed it to the
+mast.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch37-3"><span class="sc">Poetical Canons.</span>&mdash;It would be impossible as well as unnecessary to attempt
+an analysis of even the principal poems of so voluminous a writer; but it
+is important to state in substance the poetical canons he laid down. They
+may be found in the prefaces to the various editions of his <i>Ballads</i>, and
+may be thus epitomized:</p>
+
+<p>I. He purposely chose his incidents and situations from common life,
+because in it our elementary feelings coexist in a state of simplicity.</p>
+
+<p>II. He adopts the <i>language</i> of common life, because men hourly
+communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is
+originally derived; and because, being less under the influence of social
+vanity, they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated
+expressions.</p>
+
+<p>III. He asserts that the language of poetry is in no way different, except
+in respect to metre, from that of good prose. Poetry can boast of no
+celestial <i>ichor</i> that distinguishes her vital juices from those of prose:
+the same human blood circulates through the veins of them both. In works
+of imagination and sentiment, in proportion as ideas and feelings are
+valuable, whether the composition be in prose or verse, they require and
+exact one and the same language.</p>
+
+<p>Such are the principal changes proposed by Wordsworth; and we find Herder,
+the German poet and metaphysician,<a id="p418" /> agreeing with him in his estimate of
+poetic language. Having thus propounded his tenets, he wrote his earlier
+poems as illustrations of his views, affecting a simplicity in subject and
+diction that was sometimes simply ludicrous. It was an affected
+simplicity: he was simple with a purpose; he wrote his poems to suit his
+canons, and in that way his simplicity became artifice.</p>
+
+<p>Jeffrey and other critics rose furiously against the poems which
+inculcated such doctrines. &quot;This will never do&quot; were the opening words of
+an article in the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>. One of the <i>Rejected Addresses</i>,
+called <i>The Baby's D&eacute;but, by W. W.</i>, (spoken in the character of Nancy
+Lake, eight years old, who is drawn upon the stage in a go-cart,) parodies
+the ballads thus:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    What a large floor! 'tis like a town;<br />
+    The carpet, when they lay it down,<br />
+    Won't hide it, I'll be bound:<br />
+    And there's a row of lamps, my eye!<br />
+    How they do blaze: I wonder why<br />
+    They keep them on the ground?
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>And this, Jeffrey declares, is a flattering imitation of Wordsworth's
+style.</p>
+
+<p>The day for depreciating Wordsworth has gone by; but calmer critics must
+still object to his poetical views in their entireness. In binding all
+poetry to his <i>dicta</i>, he ignores that <i>mythus</i> in every human mind, that
+longing after the heroic, which will not be satisfied with the simple and
+commonplace. One realm in which Poetry rules with an enchanted sceptre is
+the land of reverie and day-dream,&mdash;a land of fancy, in which genius
+builds for itself castles at once radiant and, for the time, real; in
+which the beggar is a king, the poor man a Cr&#339;sus, the timid man a hero:
+this is the fairy-land of the imagination. Among Wordsworth's poems are a
+number called <i>Poems of the Imagination</i>. He wrote learnedly about the
+imagination and fancy; but the truth is, that of all the<a id="p419" /> great
+poets,&mdash;and, in spite of his faults, he is a great poet,&mdash;there is none so
+entirely devoid of imagination. What has been said of the heroic may be
+applied to wit, so important an element in many kinds of poetry; he
+ignores it because he was without it totally. If only humble life and
+commonplace incidents and unfigured rhetoric and bald language are the
+proper materials for the poetry, what shall be said of all literature,
+ancient and modern, until Wordsworth's day?</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch37-4"><span class="sc">The Excursion and Sonnets.</span>&mdash;With his growing fame and riper powers, he had
+deviated from his own principles, especially of language; and his peaceful
+epic, <i>The Excursion</i>, is full of difficult theology, exalted philosophy,
+and glowing rhetoric. His only attempt to adhere to his system presents
+the incongruity of putting these subjects into the lips of men, some of
+whom, the Scotch pedler for example, are not supposed to be equal to their
+discussion. In his language, too, he became far more polished and
+melodious. The young writer of the <i>Lyrical Ballads</i> would have been
+shocked to know that the more famous Wordsworth could write</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    A golden lustre slept upon the hills;
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>or speak of</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    A pupil in the many-chambered school,<br />
+    Where superstition weaves her airy dreams.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><i>The Excursion</i>, although long, is unfinished, and is only a portion of
+what was meant to be his great poem&mdash;<i>The Recluse</i>. It contains poetry of
+the highest order, apart from its mannerism and its improbable narrative;
+but the author is to all intents a different man from that of the
+<i>Ballads</i>: as different as the conservative Wordsworth of later years was
+from the radical youth who praised the French Revolution of 1791. As a
+whole, <i>The Excursion</i> is accurate, philosophic, and very dull, so that
+few readers have the <a id="p420" />patience to complete its perusal, while many enjoy
+its beautiful passages.</p>
+
+<p>To return to the events of his life. In 1802 he married; and, after
+several changes of residence, he finally purchased a place called
+Rydal-mount in 1813, where he spent the remainder of his long, learned,
+and pure life. Long-standing dues from the Earl of Lonsdale to his father
+were paid; and he received the appointment of collector at Whitehaven and
+stamp distributor for Cumberland. Thus he had an ample income, which was
+increased in 1842 by a pension of &pound;300 per annum. In 1843 he was made
+poet-laureate. He died in 1850, a famous poet, his reputation being due
+much more to his own clever individuality than to the poetic principles he
+asserted.</p>
+
+<p>His ecclesiastical sonnets compare favorably with any that have been
+written in English. Landor, no friend of the poet, says: &quot;Wordsworth has
+written more fine sonnets than are to be met with in the language
+besides.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch37-5"><span class="sc">An Estimate.</span>&mdash;The great amount of verse Wordsworth has written is due to
+his estimate of the proper uses of poetry. Where other men would have
+written letters, journals, or prose sketches, his ready metrical pen wrote
+in verse: an excursion to England or Scotland, <i>Yarrow Visited and
+Revisited</i>, journeys in Germany and Italy, are all in verse. He exhibits
+in them all great humanity and benevolence, and is emphatically and
+without cant the poet of religion and morality. Coleridge&mdash;a poet and an
+attached friend, perhaps a partisan&mdash;claims for him, in his <i>Biographia
+Literaria</i>, &quot;purity of language, freshness, strength, <i>curiosa felicitas</i>
+of diction, truth to nature in his imagery, imagination in the highest
+degree, but faulty fancy.&quot; We have already ventured to deny him the
+possession of imagination: the rest of his friend's eulogium is not
+undeserved. He had and has many ardent admirers, but none more ardent than
+himself. He constantly <a id="p421" />praised his own verses, and declared that they
+would ultimately conquer all prejudices and become universally popular&mdash;an
+opinion that the literary world does not seem disposed to adopt.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch37-6"><span class="sc">Robert Southey.</span>&mdash;Next to Wordsworth, and, with certain characteristic
+differences, of the same school, but far beneath him in poetical power, is
+Robert Southey, who was born at Bristol, August 12, 1774. He was the son
+of a linen-draper in that town. He entered Balliol College, Oxford, in
+1792, but left without taking his degree. In 1794 he published a radical
+poem on the subject of <i>Wat Tyler</i>, the sentiments of which he was
+afterwards very willing to repudiate. With the enthusiastic instinct of a
+poet, he joined with Wordsworth and Coleridge in a scheme called
+<i>Pantisocrasy</i>; that is, they were to go together to the banks of the
+Susquehanna, in a new country of which they knew nothing except by
+description; and there they were to realize a dream of nature in the
+golden age&mdash;a Platonic republic, where everything was to be in common, and
+from which vice and selfishness were to be forever excluded. But these
+young neo-platonists had no money, and so the scheme was given up.</p>
+
+<p>In 1795 he married Miss Fricker, a milliner of Bristol, and made a voyage
+to Lisbon, where his uncle was chaplain to the British Factory. He led an
+unsettled life until 1804, when he established himself at Keswick in the
+Lake country, where he spent his life. He was a literary man and nothing
+else, and perhaps one of the most industrious writers that ever held a
+literary pen. Much of the time, indeed, he wrote for magazines and
+reviews, upon whatever subject was suggested to him, to win his daily
+bread.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch37-7"><span class="sc">His Writings.</span>&mdash;After the publication of <i>Wat Tyler</i> he wrote an epic poem
+called <i>Joan of Arc</i>, in 1796, which was crude and severely criticized.
+After some other unimportant<a id="p422" /> essays, he inaugurated his purpose of
+illustrating the various oriental mythologies, by the publication of
+<i>Thalaba the Destroyer</i>, which was received with great disfavor at the
+time, and which first coupled his name with that of Wordsworth as of the
+school of Lake poets. It is in irregular metre, which at first has the
+charm of variety, but which afterwards loses its effect, on account of its
+broken, disjointed versification. In 1805 appeared <i>Madoc</i>&mdash;a poem based
+upon the subject of early Welsh discoveries in America. It is a long poem
+in two parts: the one descriptive of <i>Madoc in Wales</i> and the other of
+<i>Madoc in Aztlan</i>. Besides many miscellaneous works in prose, we notice
+the issue, in 1810, of <i>The Curse of Kehama</i>&mdash;the second of the great
+mythological poems referred to.</p>
+
+<p>Among his prose works must be mentioned <i>The Chronicle of the Cid</i>, <i>The
+History of Brazil</i>, <i>The Life of Nelson</i>, and <i>The History of the
+Peninsular War</i>. A little work called <i>The Doctor</i> has been greatly liked
+in America.</p>
+
+<p>Southey wrote innumerable reviews and magazine articles; and, indeed,
+tried his pen at every sort of literary work. His diction&mdash;in prose, at
+least&mdash;is almost perfect, and his poetical style not unpleasing. His
+industry, his learning, and his care in production must be acknowledged;
+but his poems are very little read, and, in spite of his own prophecies,
+are doomed to the shelf rather than retained upon the table. Like
+Wordsworth, he was one of the most egotistical of men; he had no greater
+admirer than Robert Southey; and had his exertions not been equal to his
+self-laudation, he would have been intolerable.</p>
+
+<p>The most singular instance of perverted taste and unmerited eulogy is to
+be found in his <i>Vision of Judgment</i>, which, as poet-laureate, he produced
+to the memory of George the Third. The severest criticism upon it is Lord
+Byron's <i>Vision of Judgment</i>&mdash;reckless, but clever and trenchant. The
+consistency and industry of Southey's life caused him to be<a id="p423" /> appointed
+poet-laureate upon the death of Pye; and in 1835, having declined a
+baronetcy, he received an annual pension of &pound;300. Having lost his first
+wife in 1837, he married Miss Bowles, the poetess, in 1839; but soon after
+his mind began to fail, and he had reached a state of imbecility which
+ended in death on the 21st of March, 1843. In 1837, at the age of
+sixty-three, he collected and edited his complete poetical works, with
+copious and valuable historical notes.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch37-8"><span class="sc">Historical Value.</span>&mdash;It is easy to see in what manner Southey, as a literary
+man, has reflected the spirit of the age. Politically, he exhibits
+partisanship from Radical to Tory, which may be clearly discerned by
+comparing his <i>Wat Tyler</i> with his <i>Vision of Judgment</i> and his <i>Odes</i>. As
+to literary and poetic canons, his varied metre, and his stories in the
+style of Wordsworth, show that he had abandoned all former schools. In his
+histories and biographies he is professedly historical; and in his epics
+he shows that greater range of learned investigation which is so
+characteristic of that age. The <i>Curse of Kehama</i> and <i>Thalaba</i> would have
+been impossible in a former age. He himself objected to be ranked with the
+Lakers; but Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge have too much in common,
+notwithstanding much individual difference, not to be classed together as
+innovators and asserters, whether we call them Lakers or something else.</p>
+
+<p>It was on the occasion of his publishing <i>Thalaba</i>, that his name was
+first coupled with that of Wordsworth. His own words are, &quot;I happened to
+be residing at Keswick when Mr. Wordsworth and I began to be acquainted.
+Mr. Coleridge also had resided there; and this was reason enough for
+classing us together as a school of poets.&quot; There is not much external
+resemblance, it is true, between <i>Thalaba</i> and the <i>Excursion</i>; but the
+same poetical motives will cause both to remain unread by the
+multitude&mdash;unnatural comparisons, recondite theology, and a great lack of
+common humanity.<a id="p424" /> That there was a mutual admiration is found in Southey's
+declaration that Wordsworth's sonnets contain the profoundest poetical
+wisdom, and that the <i>Preface</i> is the quintessence of the philosophy of
+poetry.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch37-9"><span class="sc">Samuel Taylor Coleridge.</span>&mdash;More individual, more eccentric, less
+commonplace, in short, a far greater genius than either of his fellows,
+Coleridge accomplished less, had less system, was more visionary and
+fragmentary than they: he had an amorphous mind of vast proportions. The
+man, in his life and conversation, was great; the author has left little
+of value which will last when the memory of his person has disappeared. He
+was born on the 21st of October, 1772, at Ottery St. Mary. His father was
+a clergyman and vicar of the parish. He received his education at Christ's
+Hospital in London, where, among others, he had Charles Lamb as a comrade,
+and formed with him a friendship which lasted as long as they both lived.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch37-10"><span class="sc">Early Life.</span>&mdash;There he was an erratic student, but always a great reader;
+and while he was yet a lad, at the age of fourteen, he might have been
+called a learned man.</p>
+
+<p>He had little self-respect, and from stress of poverty he intended to
+apprentice himself to a shoemaker; but friends who admired his learning
+interfered to prevent this, and he was sent with a scholarship to Jesus
+College, Cambridge, in 1791. Like Wordsworth and Southey, he was an
+intense Radical at first; and on this account left college without his
+degree in 1793. He then enlisted as a private in the 15th Light Dragoons;
+but, although he was a favorite with his comrades, whose letters he wrote,
+he made a very poor soldier. Having written a Latin sentence under his
+saddle on the stable wall, his superior education was recognized; and he
+was discharged from the service after only four months' duty. Eager for
+adventure, he joined Southey and Lloyd in <a id="p425" />their scheme of pantisocracy,
+to which we have already referred; and when that failed for want of money,
+he married the sister-in-law of Southey&mdash;Miss Fricker, of Bristol. He was
+at this time a Unitarian as well as a Radical, and officiated frequently
+as a Unitarian minister. His sermons were extremely eloquent. He had
+already published some juvenile poems, and a drama on the fall of
+Robespierre, and had endeavored to establish a periodical called <i>The
+Watchman</i>. He was always erratic, and dependent upon the patronage of his
+friends; in short, he always presented the sad spectacle of a man who
+could not take care of himself.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec"><span class="sc">His Writings.</span>&mdash;After a residence at Stowey, in Somersetshire, where he
+wrote some of his finest poems, among which were the first part of
+<i>Christabel</i>, <i>The Ancient Mariner</i>, and <i>Remorse</i>, a tragedy, he was
+enabled, through the kindness of friends, to go, in 1798, to Germany,
+where he spent fourteen months in the study of literature and metaphysics.
+In the year 1800 he returned to the Lake country, where he for some time
+resided with Southey at Keswick; Wordsworth being then at Grasmere. Then
+was established as a fixed fact in English literature the Lake school of
+poetry. These three poets acted and reacted upon each other. From having
+been great Radicals they became Royalists, and Coleridge's Unitarian
+belief was changed into orthodox churchmanship. His translation of
+Schiller's <i>Wallenstein</i> should rather be called an expansion of that
+drama, and is full of his own poetic fancies. After writing for some time
+for the <i>Morning Post</i>, he went to Malta as the Secretary to the Governor
+in 1804, at a salary of &pound;800 per annum. But his restless spirit soon drove
+him back to Grasmere, and to desultory efforts to make a livelihood.</p>
+
+<p>In 1816 he published the two parts of <i>Christabel</i>, an unfinished poem,
+which, for the wildness of the conceit, exquisite imagery, and charming
+poetic diction, stands quite <a id="p426" />alone in English literature. In a periodical
+called <i>The Friend</i>, which he issued, are found many of his original
+ideas; but it was discontinued after twenty-seven numbers. His <i>Biographia
+Literaria</i>, published in 1817, contains valuable sketches of literary men,
+living and dead, written with rare critical power.</p>
+
+<p>In his <i>Aids to Reflection</i>, published in 1825, are found his metaphysical
+tenets; his <i>Table-Talk</i> is also of great literary value; but his lectures
+on Shakspeare show him to have been the most remarkable critic of the
+great dramatist whom the world has produced.</p>
+
+<p>It has already been mentioned that when the first volume of Wordsworth's
+<i>Lyrical Ballads</i> was published, <i>The Ancient Mariner</i> was included in it,
+as a poem by an anonymous friend. It had been the intention of Coleridge
+to publish another poem in the second volume; but it was considered
+incongruous, and excluded. That poem was the exquisite ballad entitled
+<i>Love</i>, or <i>Genevieve</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch37-11"><span class="sc">His Helplessness.</span>&mdash;With no home of his own, he lived by visiting his
+friends; left his wife and children to the support of others, and seemed
+incapable of any other than this shifting and shiftless existence. This
+natural imbecility was greatly increased during a long period by his
+constant use of opium, which kept him, a greater portion of his life, in a
+world of dreams. He was fortunate in having a sincere and appreciative
+friend in Mr. Gilman, surgeon, near London, to whose house he went in
+1816; and where, with the exception of occasional visits elsewhere, he
+resided until his death in 1834. If the Gilmans needed compensation for
+their kindness, they found it in the celebrity of their visitor; even
+strangers made pilgrimages to the house at Highgate to hear the rhapsodies
+of &quot;the old man eloquent.&quot; Coleridge once asked Charles Lamb if he had
+ever heard him preach, referring to the early days when he was a Unitarian
+preacher. <a id="p427" />&quot;I never heard you do anything else,&quot; was the answer he
+received. He was the prince of talkers, and talked more coherently and
+connectedly than he wrote: drawing with ease from the vast stores of his
+learning, he delighted men of every degree. While of the Lake school of
+poetry, and while in some sort the creature of his age and his
+surroundings, his eccentricities gave him a rare independence and
+individuality. A giant in conception, he was a dwarf in execution; and
+something of the interest which attaches to a <i>lusus natur&aelig;</i> is the chief
+claim to future reputation which belongs to S. T. C.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch37-12"><span class="sc">Hartley Coleridge</span>, his son, (1796-1849,) inherited much of his father's
+talents; but was an eccentric, deformed, and, for a time, an intemperate
+being. His principal writings were monographs on various subjects, and
+articles for Blackwood. <span class="sc">Henry Nelson Coleridge</span>, (1800-1843,) a nephew and
+son-in-law of the poet, was also a gifted man, and a profound classical
+scholar. His introduction to the study of the great classic poets,
+containing his analysis of Homer's epics, is a work of great merit.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch38">
+<h2 id="p428">Chapter XXXVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Reaction in Poetry.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch38-1">Alfred Tennyson</a>. <a href="#ch38-2">Early Works</a>. <a href="#ch38-3">The Princess</a>. <a href="#ch38-4">Idyls of the King</a>.
+   <a href="#ch38-5">Elizabeth B. Browning</a>. <a href="#ch38-6">Aurora Leigh</a>. <a href="#ch38-7">Her Faults</a>. <a href="#ch38-8">Robert Browning</a>. <a href="#ch38-9">Other
+   Poets</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch38-1">Tennyson and the Brownings.</h4>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch-"><span class="sc">Alfred Tennyson.</span>&mdash;It is the certain fate of all extravagant movements,
+social or literary, to invite criticism and opposition, and to be followed
+by reaction. The school of Wordsworth was the violent protest against what
+remained of the artificial in poetry; but it had gone, as we have seen, to
+the other extreme. The affected simplicity, and the bald diction which it
+inculcated, while they raised up an army of feeble imitators, also
+produced in the ranks of poetry a vindication of what was good in the old;
+new theories, and a very different estimate of poetical subjects and
+expression. The first poet who may be looked upon as leading the
+reactionary party is Alfred Tennyson. He endeavored out of all the schools
+to synthesize a new one. In many of his descriptive pieces he followed
+Wordsworth: in his idyls, he adheres to the romantic school; in his
+treatment and diction, he stands alone.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch38-2"><span class="sc">Early Efforts.</span>&mdash;He was the son of a clergyman of Lincolnshire, and was
+born at Somersby, in 1810. After a few early and almost unknown efforts in
+verse, the first volume bearing his name was issued in 1830, while he was
+yet an under-graduate at Cambridge: it had the simple title&mdash;<a id="p429" /><i>Poems,
+chiefly Lyrical</i>. In their judgment of this new poet, the critics were
+almost as much at fault as they had been when the first efforts of
+Wordsworth appeared; but for very different reasons. Wordsworth was simple
+and intensely realistic. Tennyson was mystic and ideal: his diction was
+unusual; his little sketches conveyed an almost hidden moral; he seemed to
+inform the reader that, in order to understand his poetry, it must be
+studied; the meaning does not sparkle upon the surface; the language
+ripples, the sense flows in an undercurrent. His first essays exhibit a
+mania for finding strange words, or coining new ones, which should give
+melody, to his verse. Whether this was a process of development or not, he
+has in his later works gotten rid of much of this apparent mannerism,
+while he has retained, and even improved, his harmony. He exhibits a rare
+power of concentration, as opposed to the diffusiveness of his
+contemporaries. Each of his smaller poems is a thought, briefly, but
+forcibly and harmoniously, expressed. If it requires some exertion to
+comprehend it, when completely understood it becomes a valued possession.</p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to believe that such poems as <i>Mariana</i> and <i>Recollections
+of the Arabian Nights</i> were the production of a young man of twenty.</p>
+
+<p>In 1833 he published his second volume, containing additional poems, among
+which were <i>Enone</i>, <i>The May Queen</i>, <i>The Lotos-Eaters</i>, and <i>A Dream of
+Fair Women</i>. <i>The May Queen</i> became at once a favorite, because every one
+could understand it: it touched a chord in every heart; but his rarest
+power of dreamy fancy is displayed in such pieces as <i>The Arabian Nights</i>
+and the <i>Lotos-Eaters</i>. No greater triumph has been achieved in the realm
+of fancy than that in the court of good Haroun al Raschid, and amid the
+Lotos dreams of the Nepenthe coast. These productions were not received
+with the favor which they merited, and so he let the critics alone for
+nine years. In 1842 he again appeared in <a id="p430" />print, with, among other poems,
+the exquisite fragment of the <i>Morte d'Arthur</i>, <i>Godiva</i>, <i>St. Agnes</i>,
+<i>Sir Galahad</i>, <i>Lady Clara Vere de Vere</i>, <i>The Talking Oak</i>, and chief,
+perhaps, of all, <i>Locksley Hall</i>. In these poems he is not only a poet,
+but a philosopher. Each of these is an extended apothegm, presenting not
+only rules of life, but mottoes and maxims for daily use. They are
+soliloquies of the nineteenth century, and representations of its men and
+conditions.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch38-3"><span class="sc">The Princess.</span>&mdash;In 1847 he published <i>The Princess, a Medley</i>&mdash;a pleasant
+and suggestive poem on woman's rights, in which exquisite songs are
+introduced, which break the monotony of the blank verse, and display his
+rare lyric power. The <i>Bugle Song</i> is among the finest examples of the
+adaptation of sound to sense in the language; and there is nothing more
+truthful and touching than the short verses beginning,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    Home they brought her warrior dead.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Arthur Hallam, a gifted son of the distinguished historian, who was
+betrothed to Tennyson's sister, died young; and the poet has mourned and
+eulogized him in a long poem entitled <i>In Memoriam</i>. It contains one
+hundred and twenty-nine four-lined stanzas, and is certainly very musical
+and finished; but it is rather the language of calm philosophy elaborately
+studied, than that of a poignant grief. It is not, in our judgment, to be
+compared with his shorter poems, and is generally read and overpraised
+only by his more ardent admirers, who discover a crystal tear of genuine
+emotion in every stanza.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch38-4"><span class="sc">Idyls of the King.</span>&mdash;The fragment on the death of Arthur, already
+mentioned, foreshadowed a purpose of the poet's mind to make the legends
+of that almost fabulous monarch a vehicle for modern philosophy in English
+verse. <a id="p431" />In 1859 appeared a volume containing the <i>Idyls of the King</i>. They
+are rather minor epics than idyls. The simple materials are taken from the
+Welsh and French chronicles, and are chiefly of importance in that they
+cater to that English taste which finds national greatness typified in
+Arthur. It had been a successful stratagem with Spenser in <i>The Fairy
+Queen</i>, and has served Tennyson equally well in the <i>Idyls</i>. It unites the
+ages of fable and of chivalry; it gives a noble lineage to heroic deeds.
+The best is the last&mdash;<i>Guinevere</i>&mdash;almost the perfection of pathos in
+poetry. The picturesqueness of his descriptions is evinced by the fact
+that Gustave Dor&eacute; has chosen these <i>Idyls</i> as a subject for illustration,
+and has been eminently successful in his labor.</p>
+
+<p><i>Maud</i>, which appeared in 1855, notwithstanding some charming lyrical
+passages, may be considered Tennyson's failure. In 1869 he completed <i>The
+Idyls</i> by publishing <i>The Coming of Arthur</i>, <i>The Holy Grail</i>, and
+<i>Pelleas and Etteare</i>. He also finished the <i>Morte d'Arthur</i>, and put it
+in its proper place as <i>The Passing of Arthur</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Tennyson was appointed poet-laureate upon the death of Wordsworth, in
+1850, and receives besides a pension of &pound;200. He lived for a long time in
+great retirement at Farringford, on the Isle of Wight; but has lately
+removed to Petersfield, in Hampshire. It may be reasonably doubted whether
+this hermit-life has not injured his poetical powers; whether, great as he
+really is, a little inhalation of the air of busy every-day life would not
+have infused more of nature and freshness into his verse. Among his few
+<i>Odes</i> are that on the death of the Duke of Wellington, the dedication of
+his poems to the Queen, and his welcome to Alexandra, Princess of Wales,
+all of which are of great excellence. His <i>Charge of the Light Brigade</i>,
+at Balaclava, while it gave undue currency to that stupid military
+blunder, must rank as one of the finest battle-lyrics in the language.</p>
+
+<p>The poetry of Tennyson is eminently representative of the <a id="p432" />Victorian age.
+He has written little; but that little marks a distinct era in
+versification&mdash;great harmony untrammelled by artificial <i>correctness</i>; and
+in language, a search for novelty to supply the wants and correct the
+faults of the poetic vocabulary. He is national in the <i>Idyls</i>;
+philosophic in <i>The Two Voices</i>, and similar poems. The <i>Princess</i> is a
+gentle satire on the age; and though, in striving for the reputation of
+originality, he sometimes mistakes the original for the beautiful, he is
+really the laurelled poet of England in merit as well as in title.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch38-5"><span class="sc">Elizabeth Barrett Browning.</span>&mdash;The literary usher is now called upon to cry
+with the herald of the days of chivalry&mdash;<i>Place aux dames</i>. A few ladies,
+as we have seen, have already asserted for themselves respectable
+positions in the literary ranks. Without a question as to the relative
+gifts of mind in man and woman, we have now reached a name which must rank
+among those of the first poets of the present century&mdash;one which
+represents the Victorian age as fully and forcibly as Tennyson, and with
+more of novelty than he. Nervous in style, elevated in diction, bold in
+expression, learned and original, Mrs. Browning divides the poetic renown
+of the period with Tennyson. If he is the laureate, she was the
+acknowledged queen of poetry until her untimely death.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Elizabeth Barrett was born in London, in 1809. She was educated with
+great care, and began to write at a very early age. A volume, entitled
+<i>Essays on Mind, with Other Poems</i>, was published when she was only
+seventeen. In 1833 she produced <i>Prometheus Bound</i>, a translation of the
+drama of &AElig;schylus from the original Greek, which exhibited rare classical
+attainments; but which she considered so faulty that she afterwards
+retranslated it. In 1838 appeared <i>The Seraphim, and other Poems</i>; and in
+1839, <i>The Romaunt of the Page</i>. Not long after, the rupture of a
+blood-vessel brought<a id="p433" /> her to the verge of the grave; and while she was
+still in a precarious state of health, her favorite brother was drowned.
+For several years she lived secluded, studying and composing when her
+health permitted; and especially drawing her inspiration from original
+sources in Greek and Hebrew. In 1844 she published her collected poems in
+two volumes. Among these was <i>Lady Geraldine's Courtship</i>: an exquisite
+story, the perusal of which is said to have induced Robert Browning to
+seek her acquaintance. Her health was now partially restored; and they
+were married in 1846. For some time they resided at Florence, in a
+congenial and happy union. The power of passionate love is displayed in
+her <i>Sonnets from the Portuguese</i>, which are among the finest in the
+language. Differing in many respects from those of Shakspeare, they are
+like his in being connected by one impassioned thought, and being, without
+doubt, the record of a heart experience.</p>
+
+<p>Thoroughly interested in the social and political conditions of struggling
+Italy, she gave vent to her views and sympathies in a volume of poems,
+entitled <i>Casa Guidi Windows</i>. Casa Guidi was the name of their residence
+in Florence, and the poems vividly describe what she saw from its
+windows&mdash;divers forms of suffering, injustice, and oppression, which
+touched the heart of a tender woman and a gifted poet, and compelled it to
+burst forth in song.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch38-6"><span class="sc">Aurora Leigh.</span>&mdash;But by far the most important work of Mrs. Browning is
+<i>Aurora Leigh</i>: a long poem in nine books, which appeared in 1856, in
+which the great questions of the age, social and moral, are handled with
+great boldness. It is neither an epic, nor an idyl, nor a tale in verse:
+it combines features of them all. It presents her clear convictions of
+life and art, and is full of philosophy, largely expressed in the language
+of irony and sarcasm. She is an inspired advocate of the intellectual
+claims of woman; and the poem <a id="p434" />is, in some degree, an autobiography: the
+identity of the poet and the heroine gives a great charm to the narrative.
+There are few finer pieces of poetical inspiration than the closing scene,
+where the friend and lover returns blind and helpless, and the woman's
+heart, unconquered before, surrenders to the claims of misfortune as the
+champion of love. After a happy life with her husband and an only child,
+sent for her solace, this gifted woman died in 1863.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch38-7"><span class="sc">Her Faults.</span>&mdash;It is as easy to criticize Mrs. Browning's works as to admire
+them; but our admiration is great in spite of her faults: in part because
+of them, for they are faults of a bold and striking individuality. There
+is sometimes an obscurity in her fancies, and a turgidity in her language.
+She seems to transcend the poet's license with a knowledge that she is
+doing so. For example:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    We will sit on the throne of a purple sublimity,<br />
+    And grind down men's bones to a pale unanimity.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>And again, in speaking of Goethe, she says:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    His soul reached out from far and high,<br />
+    And fell from inner entity.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Her rhymes are frequently and arrogantly faulty: she seems to scorn the
+critics; she writes more for herself than for others, and infuses all she
+writes with her own fervent spirit: there is nothing commonplace or
+lukewarm. She is so strong that she would be masculine; but so tender that
+she is entirely feminine: at once one of the most vigorous of poets and
+one of the best of women. She has attained the first rank among the
+English poets.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch38-8"><span class="sc">Robert Browning.</span>&mdash;As a poet of decided individuality, which has gained for
+him many admirers, Browning claims particular mention. His happy marriage
+has for his fame <a id="p435" />the disadvantage that he gave his name to a greater
+poet; and it is never mentioned without an instinctive thought of her
+superiority. Many who are familiar with her verses have never read a line
+of her husband. This is in part due to a mysticism and an intense
+subjectivity, which are not adapted to the popular comprehension. He has
+chosen subjects unknown or uninteresting to the multitude of readers, and
+treats them with such novelty of construction and such an affectation of
+originality, that few persons have patience to read his poems.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Browning was born, in 1812, at Camberwell; and after a careful
+education, not at either of the universities, (for he was a dissenter,) he
+went at the age of twenty to Italy, where he eagerly studied the history
+and antiquity to be found in the monasteries and in the remains of the
+medi&aelig;val period. He also made a study of the Italian people. In 1835 he
+published a drama called <i>Paracelsus</i>, founded upon the history of that
+celebrated alchemist and physician, and delineating the conditions of
+philosophy in the fifteenth century. It is novel, antique, and
+metaphysical: it exhibits the varied emotions of human sympathy; but it is
+eccentric and obscure, and cannot be popular. He has been called the poet
+for poets; and this statement seems to imply that he is not the poet for
+the great world.</p>
+
+<p>In 1837 he published a tragedy called <i>Strafford</i>; but his Italian culture
+seems to have spoiled his powers for portraying English character, and he
+has presented a stilted Strafford and a theatrical Charles I.</p>
+
+<p>In 1840 appeared <i>Sordello</i>, founded upon incidents in the history of that
+Mantuan poet Sordello, whom Dante and Virgil met in purgatory; and who,
+deserting the language of Italy, wrote his principal poems in the
+Proven&ccedil;al. The critics were so dissatisfied with this work, that Browning
+afterwards omitted it in the later editions of his poems. In 1843 he
+published a tragedy entitled <i>A Blot on the 'Scutcheon</i>, and a<a id="p436" /> play
+called <i>The Dutchess of Cleves</i>. In 1850 appeared <i>Christmas Eve</i> and
+<i>Easter Day</i>. Concerning all these, it may be said that it is singular and
+sad that a real poetic gift, like that of Browning, should be so shrouded
+with faults of conception and expression. What leads us to think that many
+of these are an affectation, is that he has produced, almost with the
+simplicity of Wordsworth, those charming sketches, <i>The Good News from
+Ghent to Aix</i>, and <i>An Incident at Ratisbon</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Among his later poems we specially commend <i>A Death in the Desert</i>, and
+<i>Pippa Passes</i>, as less obscure and more interesting than any, except the
+lyrical pieces just mentioned. It is difficult to show in what manner
+Browning represents his age. His works are only so far of a modern
+character that they use the language of to-day without subsidizing its
+simplicity, and abandon the old musical couplet without presenting the
+intelligible if commonplace thought which it used to convey.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch38-9">Other Poets of the Latest Period.</h4>
+
+
+<p><i>Reginald Heber</i>, 1783-1826: a godly Bishop of Calcutta. He is most
+generally known by one effort, a little poem, which is a universal
+favorite, and has preached, from the day it appeared, eloquent sermons in
+the cause of missions&mdash;<i>From Greenland's Icy Mountains</i>. Among his other
+hymns are <i>Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning</i>, and <i>The Son of
+God goes forth to War</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Barry Cornwall</i>, born 1790: this is a <i>nom de plume</i> of <i>Bryan Proctor</i>,
+a pleasing, but not great poet. His principal works are <i>Dramatic Scenes</i>,
+<i>Mirandola</i>, a tragedy, and <i>Marcian Colonna</i>. His minor poems are
+characterized by grace and fluency. Among these are <i>The Return of the
+Admiral</i>; <i>The Sea, the Sea, the Open Sea</i>; and <i>A Petition to Time</i>. He
+also wrote essays and tales in prose&mdash;a <i>Life of Edmund Keane</i>, and a
+<i>Memoir of Charles Lamb</i>. His daughter, <i>Adelaide Anne Proctor</i>, is a
+gifted poetess, and has written, among other poems, <i>Legends and Lyrics</i>,
+and <i>A Chaplet of Verses</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>James Sheridan Knowles</i>, 1784-1862: an actor and dramatist. He left the
+stage and became a Baptist minister. His plays were very successful upon
+the stage. Among them, those of chief merit are <i>The Hunch<a id="p437" />back</i>,
+<i>Virginius and Caius Gracchus</i>, and <i>The Wife, a Tale of Mantua</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Jean Ingelow</i>, born 1830: one of the most popular of the later English
+poets. <i>The Song of Seven</i>, and <i>My Son's Wife Elizabeth</i>, are extremely
+pathetic, and of such general application that they touch all hearts. The
+latter is the refrain of <i>High Tide on the Coast of Lancashire</i>. She has
+published, besides, several volumes of stories for children, and one
+entitled <i>Studies for Stories</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Algernon Charles Swinburne</i>, born 1843: he is principally and very
+favorably known by his charming poem <i>Atalanta in Calydon</i>. He has also
+written a somewhat heterodox and licentious poem entitled <i>Laus Veneris</i>,
+<i>Chastelard</i>, and <i>The Song of Italy</i>; besides numerous minor poems and
+articles for magazines. He is among the most notable and prolific poets of
+the age; and we may hope for many and better works from his pen.</p>
+
+<p><i>Richard Harris Barham</i>, 1788-1845: a clergyman of the Church of England,
+and yet one of the most humorous of writers. He is chiefly known by his
+<i>Ingoldsby Legends</i>, which were contributed to the magazines. They are
+humorous tales in prose and verse; the latter in the vein of Peter Pindar,
+but better than those of Wolcot, or any writer of that school. Combined
+with the humorous and often forcible, there are touches of pathos and
+terror which are extremely effective. He also wrote a novel called <i>My
+Cousin Nicholas</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Philip James Bailey</i>, born 1816: he published, in 1839, <i>Festus</i>, a poem
+in dramatic form, having, for its <i>dramatis person&aelig;</i>, God in his three
+persons, Lucifer, angels, and man. Full of rare poetic fancy, it repels
+many by the boldness of its flight in the consideration of the
+incomprehensible, which many minds think the forbidden. <i>The Angel World</i>
+and <i>The Mystic</i> are of a similar kind; but his last work, <i>The Age, a
+Colloquial Satire</i> is on a mundane subject and in a simpler style.</p>
+
+<p><i>Charles Mackay</i>, born 1812: principally known by his fugitive pieces,
+which contain simple thoughts on pleasant language. His poetical
+collections are called <i>Town Lyrics</i> and <i>Egeria</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>John Keble</i>, 1792-1866: the modern George Herbert; a distinguished
+clergyman. He was Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and produced, besides
+<i>Tracts for the Times</i>, and other theological writings, <i>The Christian
+Year</i>, containing a poem for every Sunday and holiday in the
+ecclesiastical year. They are devout breathings in beautiful verse, and
+are known and loved by great numbers out of his own communion. Many of
+them have been adopted as hymns in many collections.</p>
+
+<p><i>Martin Farquhar Tupper</i>, born 1810: his principal work is <i>Proverbial<a id="p438" />
+Philosophy</i>, in two series. It was unwontedly popular; and Tupper's name
+was on every tongue. Suddenly, the world reversed its decision and
+discarded its favorite; so that, without having done anything to warrant
+the desertion, Tupper finds himself with but very few admirers, or even
+readers: so capricious is the <i>vox populi</i>. The poetry is not without
+merit; but the world cannot forgive itself for having rated it too high.</p>
+
+<p><i>Matthew Arnold</i>, born 1822: the son of Doctor Arnold of Rugby. He has
+written numerous critical papers, and was for some time Professor of
+Poetry at Oxford. <i>Sorab and Rustam</i> is an Eastern tale in verse, of great
+beauty. His other works are <i>The Strayed Reveller</i>, and <i>Empedocles on
+Etna</i>. More lately, an Inspector of Schools, he has produced several works
+on education, among which are <i>Popular Education in France</i> and <i>The
+Schools and Universities of the Continent</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch39">
+<h2 id="p439">Chapter XXXIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Later Historians.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch39-1">New Materials</a>. <a href="#ch39-2">George Grote</a>. <a href="#ch39-3">History of Greece</a>. <a href="#ch39-4">Lord Macaulay</a>. <a href="#ch39-5">History
+   of England</a>. <a href="#ch39-6">Its Faults</a>. <a href="#ch39-7">Thomas Carlyle</a>. <a href="#ch39-8">Life of Frederick II</a>. <a href="#ch39-9">Other
+   Historians</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch39-1">New Materials.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Nothing more decidedly marks the nineteenth century than the progress of
+history as a branch of literature. A wealth of material, not known before,
+was brought to light, increasing our knowledge and reversing time-honored
+decisions upon historic points. Countries were explored and their annals
+discovered. Expeditions to Egypt found a key to hieroglyphs; State papers
+were arranged to the hand of the scholar; archives, like those of
+Simancas, were thrown open. The progress of Truth, through the extension
+of education, unmasked ancient prescriptions and prejudices: thus, where
+the chronicle remained, philosophy was transformed; and it became evident
+that the history of man in all times must be written anew, with far
+greater light to guide the writer than the preceding century had enjoyed.
+Besides, the world of readers became almost as learned as the historian
+himself, and he wrote to supply a craving and a demand such as had never
+before existed. A glance at the labors of the following historians will
+show that they were not only annalists, but reformers in the full sense of
+the word: they re-wrote what had been written before, supplying defects
+and correcting errors.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch39-2"><a id="p440" /><span class="sc">George Grote.</span>&mdash;This distinguished writer was born near London, in 1794. He
+was the son of a banker, and received his education at the Charter House.
+Instead of entering one of the universities, he became a clerk in his
+father's banking-house. Early imbued with a taste for Greek literature, he
+continued his studies with great zeal; and was for many years collecting
+the material for a history of Greece. The subject was quietly and
+thoroughly digested in his mind before he began to write. A member of
+Parliament from 1832 to 1841, he was always a strong Whig, and was
+specially noted for his championship of the vote by ballot. There was no
+department of wholesome reform which he did not sustain. He opposed the
+corn laws, which had become oppressive; he favored the political rights of
+the Jews, and denounced prescriptive evils of every kind.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch39-3"><span class="sc">History of Greece.</span>&mdash;In 1846 he published the first volume of his <i>History
+of Greece from the Earliest Period to the Death of Alexander the Great</i>:
+the remaining volumes appeared between that time and 1856. The work was
+well received by critics of all political opinions; and the world was
+astonished that such a labor should have been performed by any writer who
+was not a university man. It was a luminous ancient history, in a fresh
+and racy modern style: the review of the mythology is grand; the political
+conditions, the manners and customs of the people, the military art, the
+progress of law, the schools of philosophy, are treated with remarkable
+learning and clearness. But he as clearly exhibits the political condition
+of his own age, by the sympathy which he displays towards the democracy of
+Athens in their struggles against the tenets and actions of the
+aristocracy. The historian writes from his own political point of view;
+and Grote's history exhibits his own views of reform as plainly as that of
+Mitford sets forth his aristocratic proclivities. Thus the English
+politics of the age play a part in the Grecian history.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p441" />There were several histories of Greece written not long before that of
+Grote, which may be considered as now set aside by his greater accuracy
+and better style. Among these the principal are that of <span class="sc">John Gillies</span>,
+1747-1836, which is learned, but statistical and dry; that of <span class="sc">Connop
+Thirlwall</span>, born 1797, Bishop of St. David's, which was greatly esteemed by
+Grote himself; and that of <span class="sc">William Mitford</span>, 1744-1827, to correct the
+errors and supply the deficiencies of which, Grote's work was written.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch39-4"><span class="sc">Lord Macaulay.</span>&mdash;Thomas Babington Macaulay was born at Rothley, in
+Leicestershire, on the 25th of October, 1800. His father, Zachary
+Macaulay, a successful West Indian merchant, devoted his later life to
+philanthropy. His mother was Miss Selina Mills, the daughter of a
+bookseller of Bristol. After an early education, chiefly conducted at
+home, he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1818, where he
+distinguished himself as a debater, and gained two prize poems and a
+scholarship. He was graduated in 1822, and afterwards continued his
+studies; producing, during the next four years, several of his stirring
+ballads. He began to write for the Edinburgh Review in 1825. In 1830 he
+entered Parliament, and was immediately noted for his brilliant oratory in
+advocating liberal principles. In 1834 he was sent to India, as a member
+of the Supreme Council; and took a prominent part in preparing an Indian
+code of laws. This code was published on his return to England, in 1838;
+but it was so kind and considerate to the natives, that the martinets in
+India defeated its adoption. From his return until 1847, he had a seat in
+Parliament as member for Edinburgh; but in the latter year his support of
+the grant to the Maynooth (Roman Catholic) College so displeased his
+constituents, that in the next election he lost his seat.</p>
+
+<p>During all these busy years he had been astonishing and delighting the
+reading world by his truly brilliant papers in <a id="p442" />the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>,
+which have been collected and published as <i>Miscellanies</i>. The subjects
+were of general interest; their treatment novel and bold; the learning
+displayed was accurate and varied; and the style pointed, vigorous, and
+harmonious. The papers upon <i>Clive</i> and <i>Hastings</i> are enriched by his
+intimate knowledge of Indian affairs, acquired during his residence in
+that country. His critical papers are severe and satirical, such as the
+articles on <i>Croker's Boswell</i>, and on <i>Mr. Robert Montgomery's Poems</i>.
+His unusual self-reliance as a youth led him to great vehemence in the
+expression of his opinions, as well as into errors of judgment, which he
+afterwards regretted. The radicalism which is displayed in his essay on
+<i>Milton</i> was greatly modified when he came to treat of kindred subjects in
+his History.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch39-5"><span class="sc">The History of England.</span>&mdash;He had long cherished the intention of writing
+the history of England, &quot;from the accession of James II. down to a time
+which is within the memory of men still living.&quot; The loss of his election
+at Edinburgh gave him the leisure necessary for carrying out this purpose.
+In 1848 he published the first and second volumes, which at once achieved
+an unprecedented popularity. His style had lost none of its brilliancy;
+his reading had been immense; his examination of localities was careful
+and minute. It was due, perhaps, to this growing fame, that the electors
+of Edinburgh, without any exertion on his part, returned him to Parliament
+in 1852. In 1855 the third and fourth volumes of his History appeared,
+bringing the work down to the peace of Ryswick, in 1697. All England
+applauded the crown when he was elevated to the peerage, in 1857, as Baron
+Macaulay of Rothley.</p>
+
+<p>It was now evident that Macaulay had deceived himself as to the magnitude
+of his subject; at least, he was never to finish it. He died suddenly of
+disease of the heart, on the 28th of December, 1859; and all that remained
+of his His<a id="p443" />tory was a fragmentary volume, published after his death by his
+sister, Lady Trevelyan, which reaches the death of William III., in 1702.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch39-6"><span class="sc">Its Faults.</span>&mdash;The faults of Macaulay's History spring from the character of
+the man: he is always a partisan or a bitter enemy. His heroes are angels;
+those whom he dislikes are devils; and he pursues them with the ardor of a
+crusader or the vendetta of a Corsican. The Stuarts are painted in the
+darkest colors; while his eulogy of William III. is fulsome and false. He
+blackens the character of Marlborough for real faults indeed; but for such
+as Marlborough had in common with thousands of his contemporaries. If, as
+has been said, that great captain deserved the greatest censure as a
+statesman and warrior, it is equally true, paradoxical as it may seem,
+that he deserved also the greatest praise in both capacities. Macaulay has
+fulminated the censure and withheld the praise.</p>
+
+<p>What is of more interest to Americans, he loses no opportunity of
+attacking and defaming William Penn; making statements which have been
+proved false, and attributing motives without reason or justice.</p>
+
+<p>His style is what the French call the <i>style coup&eacute;</i>,&mdash;short sentences,
+like those of Tacitus, which ensure the interest by their recurring
+shocks. He writes history with the pen of a reviewer, and gives verdicts
+with the authority of a judge. He seems to say, Believe the autocrat; do
+not venture to philosophize.</p>
+
+<p>His poetry displays tact and talent, but no genius; it is pageantry in
+verse. His <i>Lays of Ancient Rome</i> are scholarly, of course, and pictorial
+in description, but there is little of nature, and they are theatrical
+rather than dramatic; they are to be declaimed rather than to be read or
+sung.</p>
+
+<p>In society, Macaulay was a great talker&mdash;he harangued his friends; and
+there was more than wit in the saying of Sidney <a id="p444" />Smith, that his
+conversation would have been improved by a few &quot;brilliant flashes of
+silence.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But in spite of his faults, if we consider the profoundness of his
+learning, the industry of his studies, and the splendor of his style, we
+must acknowledge him as the most distinguished of English historians. No
+one has yet appeared who is worthy to complete the magnificent work which
+he left unfinished.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch39-7"><span class="sc">Thomas Carlyle.</span>&mdash;A literary brother of a very different type, but of a
+more distinct individuality, is Carlyle, who was born in Dumfries-shire,
+Scotland, in 1795. He was the eldest son of a farmer. After a partial
+education at home, he entered the University of Edinburgh, where he was
+noted for his attainments in mathematics, and for his omnivorous reading.
+After leaving the university he became a teacher in a private family, and
+began to study for the ministry, a plan which he soon gave up.</p>
+
+<p>His first literary effort was a <i>Life of Schiller</i>, issued in numbers of
+the <i>London Magazine</i>, in 1823-4. He turned his attention to German
+literature, in the knowledge of which he has surpassed all other
+Englishmen. He became as German as the Germans.</p>
+
+<p>In 1826 he married, and removed to Craigen-Puttoch, on a farm, where, in
+isolation and amid the wildness of nature, he studied, and wrote articles
+for the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, the <i>Foreign Quarterly</i>, and some of the
+monthly magazines. His study of the German, acting upon an innate
+peculiarity, began to affect his style very sensibly, as is clearly seen
+in the singular, introverted, parenthetical mode of expression which
+pervades all his later works. His earlier writings are in ordinary
+English, but specimens of <i>Carlylese</i> may be found in his <i>Sartor
+Resartus</i>, which at first appalled the publishers and repelled the general
+reader. Taking man's clothing as a nominal subject, he plunges into
+philosophical speculations with which<a id="p445" /> clothes have nothing to do, but
+which informed the world that an original thinker and a novel and curious
+writer had appeared.</p>
+
+<p>In 1834 he removed to Chelsea, near London, where he has since resided. In
+1837, he published his <i>French Revolution</i>, in three volumes,&mdash;<i>The
+Bastile</i>, <i>The Constitution</i>, <i>The Guillotine</i>. It is a fiery, historical
+drama rather than a history; full of rhapsodies, startling rhetoric,
+disconnected pictures. It has been fitly called &quot;a history in flashes of
+lightning.&quot; No one could learn from it the history of that momentous
+period; but one who has read the history elsewhere, will find great
+interest in Carlyle's wild and vivid pictures of its stormy scenes.</p>
+
+<p>In 1839 he wrote, in his dashing style, upon <i>Chartism</i>, and about the
+same time read a course of lectures upon <i>Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the
+Heroic in History</i>, in which he is an admirer of will and impulse, and
+palliates evil when found in combination with these.</p>
+
+<p>In 1845 he edited <i>The Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell</i>, and in
+his extravagant eulogies worships the hero rather than the truth.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch39-8"><span class="sc">Frederick II.</span>&mdash;In 1858 appeared the first two volumes of <i>The Life of
+Frederick the Great</i>, and since that time he has completed the work. This
+is doubtless his greatest effort. It is full of erudition, and contains
+details not to be found in any other biography of the Prussian monarch;
+but so singularly has he reasoned and commented upon his facts, that the
+enlightened reader often draws conclusions different from those which the
+author has been laboring to establish. While the history shows that, for
+genius and success, Frederick deserved to be called the Great, Carlyle
+cannot make us believe that he was not grasping, selfish, a dissembler,
+and an immoral man.</p>
+
+<p>The author's style has its admirers, and is a not unpleasing <a id="p446" />novelty and
+variety to lovers of plain English; but it wearies in continuance, and one
+turns to French or German with relief. The Essays upon <i>German
+Literature</i>, <i>Richter</i>, and <i>The Niebelungen Lied</i> are of great value to
+the young student. Such tracts as <i>Past and Present</i>, and <i>The Latter-Day
+Pamphlets</i>, have caused him to be called the &quot;Censor of the Age.&quot; He is
+too eccentric and prejudiced to deserve the name in its best meaning. If
+he fights shams, he sometimes mistakes windmills and wine-skins for
+monsters, and, what is worse, if he accost a shepherd or a milkmaid, they
+at once become <i>Amadis de Gaul</i> and <i>Dulcinea del Toboso</i>. In spite of
+these prejudices and peculiarities, Carlyle will always be esteemed for
+his arduous labors, his honest intentions, and his boldness in expressing
+his opinions. His likes and dislikes find ready vent in his written
+judgments, and he cares for neither friend nor foe, in setting forth his
+views of men and events. On many subjects it must be said his views are
+just. There are fields in which his word must be received with authority.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch39-9">Other Historians of the Latest Period.</h4>
+
+
+<p><i>John Lingard</i>, 1771-1851: a Roman Catholic priest. He was a man of great
+probity and worth. His chief work is <i>A History of England</i>, from the
+first invasion of the Romans to the accession of William and Mary. With a
+natural leaning to his own religious side in the great political
+questions, he displays great industry in collecting material, beauty of
+diction, and honesty of purpose. His history is of particular value, in
+that it stands among the many Protestant histories as the champion of the
+Roman Catholics, and gives an opportunity to &quot;hear the other side,&quot; which
+could not have had a more respectable advocate. In all the great
+controversies, the student of English history must consult Lingard, and
+collate his facts and opinions with those of the other historians. He
+wrote, besides, numerous theological and controversial works.</p>
+
+<p><i>Patrick Fraser Tytler</i>, 1791-1849: the author of <i>A History of Scotland
+from Alexander III. to James VI. (James I. of England)</i>, and <i>A History of
+England during the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary</i>. His <i>Universal History</i>
+has been used as a text-book, and in style and construction has great
+merit, although he does not rise to the dignity of a philosophic
+historian.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p447" /><i>Sir William Francis Patrick Napier</i>, 1785-1866: a distinguished soldier,
+and, like C&aelig;sar, a historian of the war in which he took part. His
+<i>History of the War in the Peninsula</i> stands quite alone. It is clear in
+its strategy and tactics, just to the enemy, and peculiar but effective in
+style. It was assailed by several military men, but he defended all his
+positions in bold replies to their strictures, and the work remains as
+authority upon the great struggle which he relates.</p>
+
+<p><i>Lord Mahon</i>, Earl of Stanhope, born 1805: his principal work is a
+<i>History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles</i>.
+He had access to much new material, and from the Stuart papers has drawn
+much of interest with reference to that unfortunate family. His view of
+the conduct of Washington towards Major Andr&eacute; has been shown to be quite
+untenable. He also wrote a <i>History of the War of Succession in Spain</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Henry Thomas Buchle</i>, 1822-1862: he was the author of a <i>History of
+Civilization</i>, of which he published two volumes, the work remaining
+unfinished at the time of his death. For bold assumptions, vigorous style,
+and great reading, this work must be greatly admired; but all his theories
+are based on second principles, and Christianity, as a divine institution,
+is ignored. It startled the world into admiration, but has not retained
+the place in popular esteem which it appeared at first to make for itself.
+He is the English <i>Comte</i>, without the eccentricity of his model.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sir Archibald Alison</i>, 1792-1867: he is the author of <i>The History of
+Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration
+of the Bourbons</i>, and a continuation from 1815 to 1852. It may be doubted
+whether even the most dispassionate scholar can write the history of
+contemporary events. We may be thankful for the great mass of facts he has
+collated, but his work is tinctured with his high Tory principles; his
+material is not well digested, and his style is clumsy.</p>
+
+<p><i>Agnes Strickland</i>, born 1806: after several early attempts Miss
+Strickland began her great task, which she executed nobly&mdash;<i>The Queens of
+England</i>. Accurate, philosophic, anecdotal, and entertaining, this work
+ranks among the most valuable histories in English. If the style is not so
+nervous as that of masculine writers, there is a ready intuition as to the
+rights and the motives of the queens, and a great delicacy combined with
+entire lack of prudery in her treatment of their crimes. The library of
+English history would be singularly incomplete without Miss Strickland's
+work. She also wrote <i>The Queens of Scotland</i>, and <i>The Bachelor Kings of
+England</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p448" /><i>Henry Hallam</i>, 1778-1859: the principal works of this judicious and
+learned writer are <i>A View of Europe during the Middle Ages</i>, <i>The
+Constitutional History of England</i>, and <i>An Introduction to the Literature
+of Europe</i> in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. With
+the skill of an advocate he combines the calmness of a judge; and he has
+been justly called &quot;the accurate Hallam,&quot; because his facts are in all
+cases to be depended on. By his clear and illustrative treatment of dry
+subjects, he has made them interesting; and his works have done as much to
+instruct his age as those of any writer. Later researches in literature
+and constitutional history may discover more than he has presented, but he
+taught the new explorers the way, and will always be consulted with
+profit, as the representative of this varied learning during the first
+half of the nineteenth century.</p>
+
+<p><i>James Anthony Froude</i>, born 1818: an Oxford graduate, Mr. Froude
+represents the Low Church party in a respectable minority. His chief work
+is <i>A History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of
+Elizabeth</i>. With great industry, and the style of a successful novelist in
+making his groups and painting his characters, he has written one of the
+most readable books published in this period. He claimed to take his
+authorities from unpublished papers, and from the statute-books, and has
+endeavored to show that Henry VIII. was by no means a bad king, and that
+Elizabeth had very few faults. His treatment of Anne Boleyn and Mary Queen
+of Scots is unjust and ignoble. Not content with publishing what has been
+written in their disfavor, with the omniscience of a romancer, he asserts
+their motives, and produces thoughts which they never uttered. A race of
+powerful critics has sprung forth in defence of Mary, and Mr. Froude's
+inaccuracies and injustice have been clearly shown. To novel readers who
+are fond of the sensational, we commend his work: to those who desire
+historic facts and philosophies, we proclaim it to be inaccurate,
+illogical, and unjust in the highest degree.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sharon Turner</i>, 1768-1847: among many historical efforts, principally
+concerning England in different periods, his <i>History of the Anglo-Saxons</i>
+stands out prominently as a great work. He was an eccentric scholar, and
+an antiquarian, and he found just the place to delve in when he undertook
+that history. The style is not good&mdash;too epigrammatic and broken; but his
+research is great, his speculations bold, and his information concerning
+the numbers, manners, arts, learning, and other characters of the
+Anglo-Saxons, immense. The student of English history must read Turner for
+a knowledge of the Saxon period.</p>
+
+<p><i>Thomas Arnold</i>, 1795-1832: widely known and revered as the Great
+Schoolmaster. He was head-master at Rugby, and influenced his pupils <a id="p449" />more
+than any modern English instructor. Accepting the views of Niebuhr, he
+wrote a work on <i>Roman History</i> up to the close of the second Punic war.
+But he is more generally known by his historical lectures delivered at
+Oxford, where he was Professor of Modern History. A man of original views
+and great honesty of purpose, his influence in England has been
+strengthened by the excellent biography written by his friend Dean
+Stanley.</p>
+
+<p><i>William Hepworth Dixon</i>, born 1821: he was for some time editor of <i>The
+Athen&aelig;um</i>. In historic biography he appears as a champion of men who have
+been maligned by former writers. He vindicates <i>William Penn</i> from the
+aspersions of Lord Macaulay, and <i>Bacon</i> from the charges of meanness and
+corruption.</p>
+
+<p><i>Charles Merivale</i>, born 1808: he is a clergyman, and a late Fellow of
+Cambridge, and is favorably known by his admirable work entitled, <i>The
+History of the Romans under the Empire</i>. It forms an introduction to
+Gibbon, and displays a thorough grasp of the great epoch, varied
+scholarship, and excellent taste. His analyses of Roman literature are
+very valuable, and his pictures of social life so vivid that we seem to
+live in the times of the C&aelig;sars as we read.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch40">
+<h2 id="p450">Chapter XL.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Later Novelists as Social Reformers.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch40-1">Bulwer</a>. <a href="#ch40-2">Changes in Writing</a>. <a href="#ch40-3">Dickens's Novels</a>. <a href="#ch40-4">American Notes</a>. <a href="#ch40-5">His
+   Varied Powers</a>. <a href="#ch40-6">Second Visit to America</a>. <a href="#ch40-7">Thackeray</a>. <a href="#ch40-8">Vanity Fair</a>. <a href="#ch40-9">Henry
+   Esmond</a>. <a href="#ch40-10">The Newcomes</a>. <a href="#ch40-11">The Georges</a>. <a href="#ch40-12">Estimate of his Powers</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<p>The great feature in the realm of prose fiction, since the appearance of
+the works of Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett, had been the Waverley
+novels of Sir Walter Scott; but these apart, the prose romance had not
+played a brilliant part in literature until the appearance of Bulwer, who
+began, in his youth, to write novels in the old style; but who underwent
+several organic changes in modes of thought and expression, and at last
+stood confessed as the founder of a new school.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch40-1"><span class="sc">Bulwer.</span>&mdash;Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer was a younger son of General
+Bulwer of Heydon Hall, Norfolk, England. He was born, in 1806, to wealth
+and ease, but was early and always a student. Educated at Cambridge, he
+took the Chancellor's prize for a poem on <i>Sculpture</i>. His first public
+effort was a volume of fugitive poems, called <i>Weeds and Wild Flowers</i>, of
+more promise than merit. In 1827 he published <i>Falkland</i>, and very soon
+after <i>Pelham, or the Adventures of a Gentleman</i>. The first was not
+received favorably; but <i>Pelham</i> was at once popular, neither for the
+skill of the plot nor for its morality, but because it describes the
+character, dissipations, and good qualities of a fashionable young man,
+which are always interesting to an English public. Those novels that
+immediately followed are so alike in general <a id="p451" />features that they may be
+called the Pelham series. Of these the principal are <i>The Disowned</i>,
+<i>Devereux</i>, and <i>Paul Clifford</i>&mdash;the last of which throws a sentimental,
+rosy light upon the person and adventures of a highwayman; but it is too
+unreal to have done as much injury as the <i>Pirate's Own Book</i>, or the
+<i>Adventures of Jack Sheppard</i>. It may be safely asserted that <i>Paul
+Clifford</i> never produced a highwayman. Of the same period is <i>Eugene
+Aram</i>, founded upon the true story of a scholar who was a murderer&mdash;a
+painful subject powerfully handled.</p>
+
+<p>In 1831 Bulwer entered Parliament, and seems to have at once commenced a
+new life. With his public duties he combined severe historical study; and
+the novels he now produced gave witness of his riper and better learning.
+Chief among these were <i>Rienzi</i>, and <i>The Last Days of Pompeii</i>. The
+former is based upon the history of that wonderful and unfortunate man
+who, in the fourteenth century, attempted to restore the Roman republic,
+and govern it like an ancient tribune. The latter is a noble production:
+he has caught the very spirit of the day in which Pompeii was submerged by
+the lava-flood; his characters are masterpieces of historic delineation;
+he handles like an adept the conflicting theologies, Christian, Roman, and
+Egyptian; and his natural scenes&mdash;Vesuvius in fury, the Bay of Naples in
+the lurid light, the crowded amphitheatre, and the terror which fell on
+man and beast, gladiator and lion&mdash;are <i>chef-d'&#339;uvres</i> of Romantic art.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch40-2"><span class="sc">Changes in Writing.</span>&mdash;For a time he edited <i>The New Monthly Magazine</i>, and
+a change came over the spirit of his novels. This was first noticed in his
+<i>Ernest Maltravers</i>, and the sequel, <i>Alice, or the Mysteries</i>, which are
+marked by sentimental passion and mystic ideas. In <i>Night and Morning</i> he
+is still mysterious: a blind fate seems to preside over his characters,
+robbing the good of its free merit and condoning the evil.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p452" />In 1838 he was made a baronet. His versatile pen now turned to the drama;
+and although he produced nothing great, his <i>Lady of Lyons</i>, <i>Richelieu</i>,
+<i>Money</i>, and <i>The Sea Captain</i> have always since been favorites upon the
+stage, subsidizing the talents of actors like Macready, Kean, and Edwin
+Booth.</p>
+
+<p>We must now chronicle another change, from the mystic to the supernatural,
+as displayed in <i>Zanoni</i> and <i>Lucretia</i>, and especially in <i>A Strange
+Story</i>, which is the strangest of all. It was at the same period that he
+wrote <i>The Last of the Barons</i>, or the story of Warwick the king-maker,
+and <i>Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings</i>. Both are valuable to the
+student of English history as presenting the fruits of his own historic
+research.</p>
+
+<p>The last and most decided, and, we may add, most beneficial, change in
+Bulwer as a writer, was manifested in his publication of the <i>Caxtons</i>,
+the chief merit of which is as an usher of the novels which were to
+follow. Pisistratus Caxton is the modern Tristram Shandy, and becomes the
+putative editor of the later novels. First of these is <i>My Novel, or
+Varieties of English Life</i>. It is an admirable work: it inculcates a
+better morality, and a sense of Christian duty, at which Pelham would have
+laughed in scorn. Like it, but inferior to it, is <i>What Will He do with
+It?</i> which has an interesting plot, an elevated style, and a rare human
+sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>Among other works, which we cannot mention, he wrote <i>The New Timon</i>, and
+<i>King Arthur</i>, in poetry, and a prose history entitled <i>Athens, its Rise
+and Fall</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Without the highest genius, but with uncommon scholarship and great
+versatility, Bulwer has used the materials of many kinds lying about him,
+to make marvellous mosaics, which imitate very closely the finest efforts
+of word-painting of the great geniuses of prose fiction.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch40-3"><span class="sc">Charles Dickens.</span>&mdash;Another remarkable development of<a id="p453" /> the age was the use
+of prose fiction, instead of poetry, as the vehicle of satire in the cause
+of social reform. The world consents readily to be amused, and it likes to
+be amused at the expense of others; but it soon tires of what is simply
+amusing or satirical unless some noble purpose be disclosed. The novels of
+former periods had interested by the creation of character and scenes; and
+there had been numerous satires prompted by personal pique. It is the
+glory of this latest age that it demands what shall so satirize the evil
+around it in men, in classes, in public institutions, that the evil shall
+recoil before the attack, and eventually disappear. Chief among such
+reformers are Dickens and Thackeray.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Dickens, the prince of modern novelists, was born at Landsport,
+Portsmouth, England, in 1812. His father was at the time a clerk in the
+Pay Department of the Navy, but afterwards became a reporter of debates in
+Parliament. After a very hard early life and an only tolerable education,
+young Dickens made some progress in the study of law; but soon undertook
+his father's business as reporter, in which he struggled as he has made
+David Copperfield to do in becoming proficient.</p>
+
+<p>His first systematic literary efforts were as a daily writer and reporter
+for <i>The True Sun</i>; he then contributed his sketches of life and
+character, drawn from personal observation, to the <i>Morning Chronicle</i>:
+these were an earnest of his future powers. They were collected as
+<i>Sketches by Boz</i>, in two volumes, and published in 1836.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec"><span class="sc">Pickwick.</span>&mdash;In 1837 he was asked by a publisher to prepare a series of
+comic sketches of cockney sportsmen, to illustrate, as well as to be
+illustrated by, etchings by Seymour. This yoking of two geniuses was a
+trammel to both; but the suicide of Seymour dissolved the connection, and
+Dickens had free play to produce the <i>Pickwick Papers</i>, by Boz, which were
+illustrated, as he proceeded, by H. K. Browne (Phiz). <a id="p454" />The work met and
+has retained an unprecedented popularity. Caricature as it was, it
+caricatured real, existent oddities; everything was probable; the humor
+was sympathetic if farcical, the assertion of humanity bold, and the
+philosophy of universal application. He had touched our common nature in
+all ranks and conditions; he had exhibited men and women of all types; he
+had exposed the tricks of politics and the absurdity of elections; the
+snobs of society were severely handled. He was the censor of law courts,
+the exposer of swindlers, the dread of cockneys, the friend of rustics and
+of the poor; and he has displayed in the principal character, that of the
+immortal Pickwick, the power of a generous, simple-hearted, easily
+deceived, but always philanthropic man, who comes through all his trials
+without bating a jot of his love for humanity and his faith in human
+nature. But the master-work of his plastic hand was Sam Weller, whose wit
+and wisdom pervaded both hemispheres, and is as potent to excite laughter
+to-day as at the first.</p>
+
+<p>In this work he began that assault, not so much on shams as upon
+prominent, unblushing evil, which he carried on in some form or other in
+all his later works; and which was to make him prominent among the
+reformers and benefactors of his age. He was at once famous, and his pen
+was in demand to amuse the idle and to aid the philanthropic.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec"><span class="sc">Nicholas Nickleby.</span>&mdash;The <i>Pickwick Papers</i> were in their intention a series
+of sketches somewhat desultory and loosely connected. His next work was
+<i>Nicholas Nickleby</i>, a complete story, in which he was entirely
+successful. Wonderful in the variety and reality of his characters, his
+powerful satire was here principally directed against the private
+boarding-schools in England, where unloved children, exiled and forgotten,
+were ill fed, scantily clothed, untaught, and beaten. Do-the-boys' Hall
+was his type, and many a school prison under that name was fearfully
+exposed and scourged. <a id="p455" />The people read with wonder and applause; these
+haunts of cruelty were scrutinized, some of them were suppressed; and
+since Nicholas Nickleby appeared no such school can live, because Squeers
+and Smike are on every lip, and punishment awaits the tyrant.</p>
+
+<p>Our scope will not permit a review of his numerous novels. In <i>Oliver
+Twist</i> he denounces the parish system in its care of orphans, and throws a
+Drummond light upon the haunts of crime in London.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Old Curiosity Shop</i> exposes the mania of gaming, and seems to have
+been a device for presenting the pathetic pictures of <i>Little Nell</i> and
+her grandfather, the wonderful and rapid learning of the marchioness, and
+the uncommon vitality of Mr. Richard Swiveller; and also the compound of
+will and hideousness in Quilp.</p>
+
+<p>He affected to find in the receptacle of Master Humphrey's clock, his
+<i>Barnaby Rudge</i>, a very dramatic picture of the great riot incited by Lord
+George Gordon in 1780, which, in its gathering, its fury, and its easy
+dispersion, was not unlike that of Wat Tyler. Dickens's delineations are
+eminently historic, and present a better notion of the period than the
+general history itself.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch40-4"><span class="sc">American Notes.</span>&mdash;In 1841 Dickens visited America, where he was received by
+the public with great enthusiasm, and annoyed, as the author of his
+biography says, by many individuals. On his return to England, he produced
+his <i>American Notes for General Circulation</i>. They were sarcastic,
+superficial, and depreciatory, and astonished many whose hospitalities he
+had received. But, in 1843, he published <i>Martin Chuzzlewit</i>, in which
+American peculiarities are treated with the broadest caricature. The
+<i>Notes</i> might have been forgiven; but the novel excited a great and just
+anger in America. His statements were not true; his pictures were not
+just; his prejudice led him to malign a people who had <a id="p456" />received him with
+a foolish hospitality. He had eaten and drunk at the hands of the men whom
+he abused, and his character suffered more than that of his intended
+victims. In taking a few foibles for his caricature, he had left our
+merits untold, and had been guilty of the implication that we had none,
+although he knew that there were as elegant gentlemen, as refined ladies,
+and as cultivated society in America as the best in England. But a truce
+to reproaches; he has been fully forgiven.</p>
+
+<p>His next novel was <i>Dombey and Son</i>, in which he attacks British pomp and
+pride of state in the haughty merchant. It is full of character and of
+pathos. Every one knows, as if they had appeared among us, the proud and
+rigid Dombey, J. B. the sly, the unhappy Floy, the exquisite Toots, the
+inimitable Nipper, Sol Gills the simple, and Captain Cuttle with his hook
+and his notes.</p>
+
+<p>This was followed by <i>David Copperfield</i>, which is, to some extent, an
+autobiography describing the struggles of his youth, his experience in
+acquiring short-hand to become a reporter, and other vicissitudes of his
+own life. In it there is an attack upon the system of model prisons; but
+the chief interest is found in his wonderful portraitures of varied and
+opposite characters: the Peggottys, Steerforth, the inimitable Micawber,
+Betsy Trotwood; Agnes, the lovely and lovable; Mr. Dick, with such noble
+method in his madness; Dora, the child-wife; the simple Traddles, and
+Uriah Heep, the 'umble intriguer and villain.</p>
+
+<p><i>Bleak House</i> is a tremendous onslaught upon the Chancery system, and is
+said to have caused a modification of it; his knowledge of law gave him
+the power of an expert in detailing and dissecting its enormities.</p>
+
+<p><i>Little Dorrit</i> presents the heartlessness of society, and is besides a
+full and fearful picture of the system of imprisonment for debt. For
+variety, power, and pathos, it is one of his best efforts.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p457" /><i>A Tale of Two Cities</i> is a gloomy but vivid story of the French
+Revolution, which has by no means the popularity of his other works.</p>
+
+<p>In <i>Hard Times</i>, a shorter story, he has shown the evil consequences of a
+hard, statistical, cramming education, in which the sympathies are
+repressed, and the mind made a practical machine. The failure of Gradgrind
+has warned many a parent from imitating him.</p>
+
+<p><i>Great Expectations</i> failed to fulfil the promise of the name; but Joe
+Gargery is as original a character as any he had drawn.</p>
+
+<p>His last completed story is <i>Our Mutual Friend</i>, which, although unequal
+to his best novels, has still original characters and striking scenes. The
+rage for rising in the social scale ruins the Veneerings, and Podsnappery
+is a well-chosen name far the heartless dogmatism which rules in English
+society.</p>
+
+<p>Besides these splendid works, we must mention the delight he has given,
+and the good he has done in expanding individual and public charity, by
+his exquisite Christmas stories, of which <i>The Chimes</i>, <i>The Christmas
+Carol</i>, and <i>The Cricket on the Hearth</i> are the best.</p>
+
+<p>His dramatic power has been fully illustrated by the ready adaptations of
+his novels to the stage; they are, indeed, in scenes, personages, costume,
+and interlocution, dramas in all except the form; and he himself was an
+admirable actor.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch40-5"><span class="sc">His Varied Powers.</span>&mdash;His tenderness is touching, and his pathos at once
+excites our sympathy. He does not tell us to feel or to weep, but he shows
+us scenes like those in the life of Smike, and in the sufferings and death
+of Little Nell, which so simply appeal to the heart that we are for the
+time forgetful of the wand which conjures them before us.</p>
+
+<p>Dickens is bold in the advocacy of truth and in denouncing error; he is
+the champion of honest poverty; he is the foe of class pretension and
+oppression; he is the friend of<a id="p458" /> friendless children; the reformer of
+those whom society has made vagrants. Without many clear assertions of
+Christian doctrine, but with no negation of it, he believes in doing good
+for its own sake,&mdash;in self-denial, in the rewards which virtue gives
+herself. His faults are few and venial. His merry life smacks too much of
+the practical joke and the punch-bowl; he denounces cant in the
+self-appointed ministers of the gospel, but he is not careful to draw
+contrasted pictures of good pastors. His opinion seems to be based upon a
+human perfectibility. But for rare pictures of real life he has never been
+surpassed; and he has instructed an age, concerning itself, wisely,
+originally, and usefully. He has the simplicity of Goldsmith, and the
+truth to nature of Fielding and Smollett, without a spice of
+sentimentalism or of impurity; he has brought the art of prose fiction to
+its highest point, and he has left no worthy successor. He lived for years
+separated from his wife on the ground of incompatibility, and, during his
+later years at Gadshill, twenty miles from London, to avoid the
+dissipations and draughts upon his time in that city.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch40-6"><span class="sc">Second Visit to America.</span>&mdash;In 1868 he again visited America, to read
+portions of his own works. He was well received by the public; but society
+had learned its lesson on his former visit, and he was not overwhelmed
+with a hospitality he had so signally failed to appreciate. And if we had
+learned better, he had vastly improved; the genius had become a gentleman.
+His readings were a great pecuniary success, and at their close he made an
+amend which was graceful and proper; so that when he departed from our
+shores his former errors were fully condoned, and he left an admiring
+hemisphere behind him.</p>
+
+<p>In the glow of health, and while writing, in serial numbers, a very
+promising novel entitled <i>The Mystery of Edwin Drood</i>, he was struck by
+apoplexy, in June, 1870, and in a<a id="p459" /> few hours was dead. England has hardly
+experienced a greater loss. All classes of men mourned when he was buried
+in Westminster Abbey, in the poets' corner, among illustrious writers,&mdash;a
+prose-poet, none of whom has a larger fame than he; a historian of his
+time of greater value to society than any who distinctively bear the
+title. His characters are drawn from life; his own experience is found in
+<i>Nicholas Nickleby</i> and <i>David Copperfield</i>; <i>Micawber</i> is a caricature of
+his own father. <i>Traddles</i> is said to represent his friend Talfourd.
+<i>Skimpole</i> is supposed to be an original likeness of Leigh Hunt, and
+William and Daniel Grant, of Manchester, were the originals of the
+<i>Brothers Cheeryble</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch40-7"><span class="sc">William Makepeace Thackeray.</span>&mdash;Dickens gives us real characters in the garb
+of fiction; but Thackeray uses fiction as the vehicle of social
+philosophy. Great name, second only to Dickens; he is not a story-teller,
+but an eastern Cadi administering justice in the form of apologue. Dickens
+is eminently dramatic; Thackeray has nothing dramatic, neither scene nor
+personage. He is Democritus the laughing philosopher, or Jupiter the
+thunderer; he arraigns vice, pats virtue on the shoulder, shouts for
+muscular Christianity, uncovers shams,&mdash;his personages are only names.
+Dickens describes individuals; Thackeray only classes: his men and women
+are representatives, and, with but few exceptions, they excite our sense
+of justice, but not our sympathy; the principal exception is <i>Colonel
+Newcome</i>, a real individual creation upon whom Thackeray exhausted his
+genius, and he stands alone.</p>
+
+<p>Thackeray was born in Calcutta, of an old Yorkshire family, in 1811. His
+father was in the civil service, and he was sent home, when a child of
+seven, for his education at the Charter House in London. Thence he was
+entered at Cambridge, but left without being graduated. An easy fortune of
+&pound;20,000 led him to take life easily; he studied <a id="p460" />painting with somewhat of
+the desultory devotion he has ascribed to Clive Newcome, and, like that
+worthy, travelled on the Continent. Partly by unsuccessful investments,
+and partly by careless living, his means were spent, and he took up
+writing as a profession. The comic was his forte, and his early pieces,
+written under the pseudonym of Michael Angelo Fitzmarsh and George Fitz
+Boodle, are broadly humorous, but by no means in his later finished style.
+<i>The Great Hoggarty Diamond</i> (1841) did not disclose his full powers.</p>
+
+<p>In 1841, <i>Punch</i>, a weekly comic illustrated sheet, was begun, and it
+opened to Thackeray a field which exactly suited him. Short scraps of
+comedy, slightly connected sketches, and the weekly tale of brick, chimed
+with his humor, and made him at once a favorite. The best of these serial
+contributions were <i>The Snob Papers</i>: they are as fine specimens of
+humorous satire as exist in the language. But these would not have made
+him famous, as they did not disclose his power as a novelist.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch40-8"><span class="sc">Vanity Fair.</span>&mdash;This was done by his <i>Vanity Fair</i>, which was published, in
+monthly numbers, between 1846 and 1848. It was at once popular, and is the
+most artistic of all his works. He called it a novel without a hero, and
+he is right; the mind repudiates all aspirants for the post, and settles
+upon poor Major Sugar-Plums as the best man in it. He could not have said
+<i>without a heroine</i>, for does not the world since ring with the fame of
+Becky Sharpe, the cleverest and wickedest little woman in England? The
+virtuous reader even is sorry that Becky must come to grief, as, with a
+proper respect to morality, the novelist makes her.</p>
+
+<p>Never had the Vanity Fair of European society received so scathing a
+dissection; and its author was immediately recognized as one of the
+greatest living satirists and novelists. If he adheres more to the old
+school of Fielding, who was his <a id="p461" />model, in his plots and handling of the
+story, he was evidently original in his satire.</p>
+
+<p>In 1847, upon the completion of this work, he began his <i>History of
+Pendennis</i>, in serial numbers, in which he presents the hero, Arthur
+Pendennis, as an average youth of the day, full of faults and foibles, but
+likewise generous and repentant. Here he enlists the sympathies which one
+never feels for perfection; and here, too, he portrays female loveliness
+and endurance in his Mrs. Pendennis and Laura. Arthur is a purer Tom Jones
+and Laura a superior Sophia Western.</p>
+
+<p>In 1851 he gave a course of lectures, repeated in America the next year,
+on &quot;the English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century.&quot; There was no one
+better fitted to write such a course; he felt with them and was of them.
+But if this enabled him to present them sympathetically, it also caused
+him to overrate them, and in some cases to descend to the standpoint of
+their own partial views. He is wrong in his estimate of Swift, and too
+eulogistic of Addison; but he is thoroughly English in both.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch40-9"><span class="sc">Henry Esmond.</span>&mdash;The study of history necessary to prepare these led to his
+undertaking a novel on the time of Queen Anne, entitled <i>The History of
+Henry Esmond, Esq., written by himself</i>. His appreciation of the age is
+excellent; but the book, leaving for the most part the comic field in
+which he was most at home, is drier and less read than his others; as an
+historical presentation a great success, with rare touches of pathos; as a
+work of fiction not equal to his other stories. The comic muse assumes a
+tragic, or at least a very sombre, dress. We have a portraiture of Queen
+Anne in her last days, and a sad picture of him who, to the Protestant
+succession, was the pretender, and to the hopeful Jacobites, James III.
+The character of Marlborough is given with but little of what was really
+meritorious in that great captain.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p462" />His novel of <i>Pendennis</i> gave him, after the manner of Bulwer's <i>Caxton</i>,
+an editor in <i>Arthur Pendennis</i>, who presents us <i>The Newcomes, Memoirs of
+a Most Respectable Family</i>, which he published in a serial form,
+completing it in 1855.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch40-10"><span class="sc">The Newcomes.</span>&mdash;In that work we have the richest culture, the finest
+satire, and the rarest social philosophy. The character&mdash;the hero by
+pre-eminence&mdash;is Colonel Newcome, a nobleman of nature's creation,
+generous, simple, a yearningly affectionate father, a friend to all the
+poor and afflicted, one of the best men ever delineated by a novelist; few
+hearts are so hard as not to be touched by the story of his death in his
+final retirement at the Charter House. When, surrounded by weeping
+friends, he heard the bell, &quot;a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face,
+and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said 'Adsum,' and fell
+back: it was the word we used at school when names were called; and, lo!
+he, whose heart was that of a little child, had answered to his name, and
+stood in the presence of the Master.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch40-11"><span class="sc">The Georges.</span>&mdash;While he was writing <i>The Newcomes</i>, he had prepared a
+course of four lectures on the <i>Four Georges</i>, kings of England, with
+which he made his second visit to the United States, and which he
+delivered in the principal cities, to make a fund for his daughters and
+for his old age. It was entirely successful, and he afterwards read them
+in England and Scotland. They are very valuable historically, as they give
+us the truth with regard to men whose reigns were brilliant and on the
+whole prosperous, but who themselves, with the exception of the third of
+the name, were as bad men as ever wore crowns. George III. was continent
+and honest, but a maniac, and Mr. Thackeray has treated him with due
+forbearance and eulogy.</p>
+
+<p>In 1857, Mr. Thackeray was a candidate for Parliament <a id="p463" />from Oxford, but
+was defeated by a small majority; his conduct in the election was so
+magnanimous, that his defeat may be regarded as an advantage to his
+reputation.</p>
+
+<p>In the same year he began <i>The Virginians</i>, which may be considered his
+failure; it is historically a continuation of <i>Esmond</i>,&mdash;some of the
+English characters, the Esmonds in Virginia, being the same as in that
+work. But his presentation and estimate of Washington are a caricature,
+and his sketch of General James Wolfe, the hero of Quebec, is tame and
+untrue to life. His descriptions of Virginia colonial life are unlike the
+reality; but where he is on his own ground, describing English scenes and
+customs in that day, he is more successful. To paint historical characters
+is beyond the power of his pencil, and his Doctor Johnson is not the man
+whom Boswell has so successfully presented.</p>
+
+<p>In 1860 he originated the <i>Cornhill Magazine</i>, to which his name gave
+unusual popularity: it attained a circulation of one hundred
+thousand&mdash;unprecedented in England. In that he published <i>Lovel the
+Widower</i>, which was not much liked, and a charming reproduction of the
+Newcomes,&mdash;for it is nothing more,&mdash;entitled <i>The Adventures of Philip on
+His Way through the World</i>. Philip is a more than average Englishman, with
+a wicked father and rather a stupid wife; but &quot;the little sister&quot; is a
+star&mdash;there is no finer character in any of his works. <i>Philip</i>, in spite
+of its likeness to <i>The Newcomes</i>, is a delightful book.</p>
+
+<p>With an achieved fame, a high position, a home which he had just built at
+Kensington, a large income, he seemed to have before him as prosperous an
+old age as any one could desire, when, such are the mysteries of
+Providence, he was found dead in his room on the morning of December 24,
+1863.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch40-12"><span class="sc">Estimate of His Powers.</span>&mdash;Thackeray's excellences are manifest: he was the
+master of idiomatic English, a great <a id="p464" />moralist and reformer, and the king
+of satire, all the weapons of which he managed with perfect skill. He had
+a rapier for aristocratic immunities of evil, arrows to transfix
+prescriptions and shams; and with snobs (we must change the figure) he
+played as a cat does with a mouse, torturing and then devouring. In the
+words of Miss Bront&eacute;, &quot;he was the first social regenerator of the day, the
+very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the
+warped system of things.&quot; But this was his chief and glorious strength: in
+the truest sense, he was a satirist and a humorist, but not a novelist; he
+could not create character. His dramatic persons do not speak for
+themselves; he tells us what they are and do. His mission seems to have
+been to arraign and demolish evil rather than to applaud good, and thus he
+enlists our sinless anger as crusaders rather than our sympathy as
+philanthropists. In Dickens we are sometimes disposed to skip a little, in
+our ardor, to follow the plot and find the d&eacute;nouement. In Thackeray we
+read every word, for it is the philosophy we want; the plot and personages
+are secondary, as indeed he considered them; for he often tells us, in the
+time of greatest depression of his hero, that it will all come out right
+at the end,&mdash;that Philip will marry Charlotte, and have a good income,
+while the poor soul is wrestling with the <i>res augusta domi</i>. Dickens and
+Thackeray seemed to draw from each other in their later works; the former
+philosophizing more in his <i>Little Dorrit</i> and <i>Our Mutual Friend</i>, and
+the latter attempting more of the descriptive in <i>The Newcomes</i> and
+<i>Philip</i>. Of minor pieces we may mention his <i>Rebecca</i> and <i>Rowena</i>, and
+his <i>Kickleburys on the Rhine</i>; his <i>Essay on Thunder</i> and <i>Small Beer</i>;
+his <i>Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo</i>, in 1846, and his
+published collection of smaller sketches called <i>The Roundabout Papers</i>.
+That Thackeray was fully conscious of the dignity of his functions may be
+gathered from his own words in <i>Henry Esmond</i>. &quot;I would have history
+familiar rather than heroic, and think <a id="p465" />Mr. Hogarth and Mr. Fielding.
+[and, we may add, Mr. Thackeray,] will give our children a much better
+idea of the manners of that age in England than the <i>Court Gazette</i> and
+the newspapers which we get thence.&quot; At his death he left an unfinished
+novel, entitled <i>Dennis Duval</i>. A gifted daughter, who was his kind
+amanuensis. Miss <span class="sc">Anne E. Thackeray</span>, has written several interesting tales,
+among which are <i>The Village on the Cliff</i> and <i>The Story of Elizabeth</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch41">
+<h2 id="p466">Chapter XLI.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Later Writers.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch41-1">Charles Lamb</a>. <a href="#ch41-2">Thomas Hood</a>. <a href="#ch41-3">Thomas de Quincey</a>. <a href="#ch41-4">Other Novelists</a>. <a href="#ch41-5">Writers
+   on Science and Philosophy</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch41-1"><span class="sc">Charles Lamb.</span>&mdash;This distinguished writer, although not a novelist like
+Dickens and Thackeray, in the sense of having produced extensive works of
+fiction, was, like them, a humorist and a satirist, and has left
+miscellaneous works of rare merit. He was born in London, and was the son
+of a servant to one of the Benches of the Inner Temple; he was educated at
+Christ's Hospital, where he became the warm friend of Coleridge. In 1792
+he received an appointment as clerk in the South Sea House, which he
+retained until 1825, when, owing to the distinction he had obtained in the
+world of letters, he was permitted to retire with a pension of &pound;450. He
+describes his feelings on this happy release from business, in his essay
+on <i>The Superannuated Man</i>. He was an eccentric man, a serio-comic
+character, whose sad life is singularly contrasted with his irrepressible
+humor. His sister, whom he has so tenderly described as Bridget Elia, in a
+fit of insanity killed their mother with a carving-knife, and Lamb devoted
+himself to her care.</p>
+
+<p>He was a poet, and left quaint and beautiful album verses and minor
+pieces. As a dramatist, he is known by his tragedy <i>John Woodvil</i>, and the
+farce <i>Mr. H&mdash;&mdash;</i>, neither of which was a success. But he has given us in
+his <i>Specimens of Old English Dramatists</i> the result of great reading and
+rare criticism.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p467" />But it is chiefly as a writer of essays and short stories that he is
+distinguished. The <i>Essays of Elia</i>, in their vein, mark an era in the
+literature; they are light, racy, seemingly dashed off, but really full of
+his reading of the older English authors. Indeed, he is so quaint in
+thought and style, that he seems an anachronism&mdash;a writer of the
+Elizabethan period returned to life in this century. He bubbles over with
+puns, jests, and repartees; and although not popular in the sense of
+reaching the multitude, he is the friend and companion of congenial
+readers. Among his essays, we may mention the stories of <i>Rosamund Gray</i>
+and <i>Old Blind Margaret</i>. <i>Dream Children</i> and <i>The Child Angel</i> are those
+of greatest power; but every one he has written is charming. His sly hits
+at existing abuses are designed to laugh them away. He was the favorite of
+his literary circle, and as a talker had no superior. After a life of
+care, not unmingled with pleasures, he died in 1834. Lamb's letters are
+racy, witty, idiomatic, and unlabored; and, as most of them are to
+colleagues in literature and on subjects of social and literary interest,
+they are important aids in studying the history of his period.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch41-2"><span class="sc">Thomas Hood.</span>&mdash;The greatest humorist, the best punster, and the ablest
+satirist of his age, Hood attacked the social evils around him with such
+skill and power that he stands forth as a philanthropist. He was born in
+London in 1798, and, after a limited education, he began to learn the art
+of engraving; but his pen was more powerful than his burin. He soon began
+to contribute to the <i>London Magazine</i> his <i>Whims and Oddities</i>; and, in
+irregular verse, satirized the would-be great men of the time, and the
+eccentric legislation they proposed in Parliament. These short poems are
+full of puns and happy <i>jeux de mots</i>, and had a decided effect in
+frustrating the foolish plans. After this he published <i>National Tales</i>,
+in the same comic vein; but also produced his exquisite serious pieces,
+<i>The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies</i>, <i>Hero <a id="p468" />and Leander</i>, and others, all
+of which are striking and tasteful. In 1838 he commenced <i>The Comic
+Annual</i>, which appeared for several years, brimful of mirth and fun. He
+was editor of various magazines,&mdash;<i>The New Monthly</i>, and <i>Hood's
+Magazine</i>. For <i>Punch</i> he wrote <i>The Song of the Shirt</i>, and <i>The Bridge
+of Sighs</i>. No one can compute the good done by both; the hearts touched;
+the pockets opened. The sewing women were better paid, more cared for,
+elevated in the social scale; and many of them saved from that fate which
+is so touchingly chronicled in <i>The Bridge of Sighs</i>. Hood was a true poet
+and a great poet. <i>Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg</i> is satire, story,
+epic, comedy, in one.</p>
+
+<p>If he owed to Smollett's <i>Humphrey Clinker</i> the form of his <i>Up the
+Rhine</i>, he has equalled Smollett in the narrative, in the variety of
+character, and in the admirable cacography of Martha Penny. His
+caricatures fasten facts in the memory, and every tourist up the Rhine
+recognizes Hood's personages wherever he lands.</p>
+
+<p>After a life of ill-health and pecuniary struggle, Hood died, greatly
+lamented, on the 3d of May, 1845, and left no successor to wield his
+subtle pen.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch41-3"><span class="sc">Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859).</span>&mdash;This singular author, and very learned and
+original thinker, owes much of his reputation to the evil habit of
+opium-eating, which affected his personal life and authorship. His most
+popular work is <i>The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater</i>, which
+interests the reader by its curious pictures of the abnormal conditions in
+which he lived and wrote. He abandoned this noxious practice in the year
+1820. He produced much which he did not publish; and his writings all
+contain a suggestion of strength and scholarship, a surplus beyond what he
+has given to the world. There are numerous essays and narratives, among
+which his paper entitled <i>Murder considered as One of the Fine Arts</i> is
+especially notable. His prose is considered a model of good English.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p469" />The death of Dickens and Thackeray left England without a novelist of
+equal fame and power, but with a host of scholarly and respectable pens,
+whose productions delight the popular taste, and who are still in the tide
+of busy authorship.</p>
+
+<p>Our purpose is already accomplished, and we might rest without the
+proceeding beyond the middle of the century; but it will be proper to make
+brief mention of those, some of whom have already departed, but many of
+whom still remain, and are producing new works, who best illustrate the
+historical value and teachings of English literature, and whose writings
+will be read in the future for their delineations of the habits and
+conditions of the present period.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch41-4">Other Novelists.</h4>
+
+
+<p><i>Captain Frederick Marryat</i>, of the Royal Navy, 1792-1848: in his sea
+novels depicts naval life with rare fidelity, and with, a roystering
+joviality which makes them extremely entertaining. The principal of these
+are <i>Frank Mildmay</i>, <i>Newton Forster</i>, <i>Peter Simple</i>, and <i>Midshipman
+Easy</i>. His works constitute a truthful portrait of the British Navy in the
+beginning of the eighteenth century, and have influenced many
+high-spirited youths to choose a maritime profession.</p>
+
+<p><i>George P. R. James</i>, 1806-1860: is the author of nearly two hundred
+novels, chiefly historical, which have been, in their day, popular. It was
+soon found, however, that he repeated himself, and the sameness of
+handling began to tire his readers. His &quot;two travellers,&quot; with whom he
+opens his stories, have become proverbially ridiculous. But he has
+depicted scenes in modern history with skill, and especially in French
+history. His <i>Richelieu</i> is a favorite; and in his <i>Life of Charlemagne</i>
+he has brought together the principal events in the career of that
+distinguished monarch with logical force and historical accuracy.</p>
+
+<p><i>Benjamin d'Israeli</i>, born 1805: is far more famous as a persevering,
+acute, and able statesman than as a novelist. In proof of this, having
+surmounted unusual difficulties, he has been twice Chancellor of the
+Exchequer and once Prime Minister of England. Among his earlier novels,
+which are pictures of existing society, are: <i>Vivian Gray</i>, <i>Contarini
+Fleming</i>, <i>Coningsby</i>, and <i>Henrietta Temple</i>. In <i>The Wondrous Tale of
+Alroy</i> he has described the career of that singular claim<a id="p470" />ant to the
+Jewish Messiahship. <i>Lothair</i>, which was published in 1869, is the story
+of a young nobleman who was almost enticed to enter the Roman Catholic
+Church. The descriptions of society are either very much overwrought or
+ironical; but his knowledge of State craft and Church craft renders the
+book of great value to the history of religious polemics. His father,
+<i>Isaac d'Israeli</i>, is favorably known as the author of <i>The Curiosities of
+Literature</i>, <i>The Amenities of Literature</i>, and <i>The Quarrels of Authors</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Charles Lever</i>, 1806-1872: he was born in Dublin, and, after a partial
+University career, studied medicine. He has embodied his experience of
+military life in several striking but exaggerated works,&mdash;among these are:
+<i>The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer</i>, <i>Charles O'Malley</i>, and <i>Jack
+Hinton</i>. He excels in humor and in picturesque battle-scenes, and he has
+painted the age in caricature. Of its kind, <i>Charles O'Malley</i> stands
+pre-eminent: the variety of character is great; all classes of military
+men figure in the scenes, from the Duke of Wellington to the inimitable
+Mickey Free. He was for some time editor of the <i>Dublin University
+Magazine</i>, and has written numerous other novels, among which are: <i>Roland
+Cashel</i>, <i>The Knight of Gwynne</i>, and <i>The Dodd Family Abroad</i>; and, last
+of all, <i>Lord Kilgobbin</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Charles Kingsley</i>, born 1809: this accomplished clergyman, who is a canon
+of Chester, is among the most popular English writers,&mdash;a poet, a
+novelist, and a philosopher. He was first favorably known by a poetical
+drama on the story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, entitled <i>The Saint's
+Tragedy</i>. Among his other works are: <i>Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet</i>;
+<i>Hypatia, the Story of a Virgin Martyr</i>; <i>Andromeda; Westward Ho! or the
+Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh</i>; <i>Two Years Ago</i>; and <i>Hereward, the Last
+of the English</i>. This last is a very vivid historical picture of the way
+in which the man of the fens, under the lead of this powerful outlaw, held
+out against William the Conqueror. The busy pen of Kingsley has produced
+numerous lectures, poems, reviews, essays, and some plain and useful
+sermons. He is now Professor of Modern History at Cambridge.</p>
+
+<p><i>Charlotte Bront&eacute;</i>, 1816-1855: if of an earlier period, this gifted woman
+would demand a far fuller mention and a more critical notice than can be
+with justice given of a contemporary. She certainly wrote from the depths
+of her own consciousness. <i>Jane Eyre</i>, her first great work, was received
+with intense interest, and was variously criticized. The daughter of a
+poor clergyman at Haworth, and afterwards a teacher in a school at
+Brussels, with little knowledge of the world, she produced a powerful book
+containing much curious philosophy, and <a id="p471" />took rank at once among the first
+novelists of the age. Her other works, if not equal to <i>Jane Eyre</i>, are
+still of great merit, and deal profoundly with the springs of human
+action. They are: <i>The Professor</i>, <i>Villette</i>, and <i>Shirley</i>. Her
+characters are portraits of the men and women around her, painted from
+life; and she speaks boldly of motives and customs which other novelists
+have touched very delicately. She had two gifted sisters, who were also
+successful novelists; but who died young. Miss Bront&eacute; died a short time
+after her marriage to Mr. Nichol, her father's curate. <i>Mrs. Elizabeth
+Gaskell</i>, her near friend, and the author of a successful novel called
+<i>Mary Barton</i>, has written an interesting biography of Mrs. Nichol.</p>
+
+<p><i>George Eliot</i>, born 1820: under this pseudonym, Miss Evans has written
+several works of great interest. Among these are: <i>Adam Bede</i>; <i>The Mill
+on the Floss</i>; <i>Romola</i>, an Italian story; <i>Felix Holt</i>; and <i>Silas
+Marner</i>. Simple, and yet eminently dramatic in scene, character, and
+interlocution, George Eliot has painted pictures from middle and common
+life, and is thus the exponent of a large humanity. She is now the wife of
+the popular author, G. H. Lewes.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dinah Maria Muloch</i> (Mrs. Craik), born 1826: a versatile writer. She is
+best known by her novels entitled <i>John Halifax</i> and <i>The Ogilvies</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Wilkie Collins</i>, born 1824: he is the son of a landscape-painter, and is
+renowned for his curious and well-concealed plots, phantom-like
+characters, and striking effects. Among his novels the best known are:
+<i>Antonina</i>, <i>The Dead Secret</i>, <i>The Woman in White</i>, <i>No Name</i>,
+<i>Armadale</i>, <i>The Moonstone</i>, and <i>Man and Wife</i>. There is a sameness in
+these works; and yet it is evident that the author has put his invention
+on the rack to create new intrigues, and to mystify his reader from the
+beginning to the end of each story.</p>
+
+<p><i>Charles Reade</i>, born 1814: he is one of the most prolific writers of the
+day, as well as one of the most readable in all that he has written. He
+draws many impassioned scenes, and is as sensuous in literature as Rubens
+in art. Among his principal works are: <i>White Lies</i>, <i>Love Me Little, Love
+Me Long</i>; <i>The Cloister and The Hearth</i>; <i>Hard Cash</i>, and <i>Griffith
+Gaunt</i>, which convey little, if any, practical instruction. His <i>Never Too
+Late to Mend</i> is of great value in displaying the abuses of the prison
+system in England; and his <i>Put Yourself in His Place</i> is a very powerful
+attack upon the Trades' Unions. A singular epigrammatic style keeps up the
+interest apart from the story.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mary Russell Mitford</i>, 1786-1855: she was a poet and a dramatist, but is
+chiefly known by her stories. In the collection called <i>Our Vil<a id="p472" />lage</i>, she
+has presented beautiful and simple pictures of English country life which
+are at once touching and instructive.</p>
+
+<p><i>Charlotte Mary Yonge</i>, born 1823: among the many interesting works of
+this author, <i>The Heir of Redclyff</i> is the first and best. This was
+followed by <i>Daisy Chain</i>, <i>Heartsease</i>, <i>The Clever Woman of the Family</i>,
+and numerous other works of romance and of history,&mdash;all of which are
+valuable for their high tone of moral instruction and social manners.</p>
+
+<p><i>Anthony Trollope</i>, born 1815: he and his brother, Thomas Adolphus
+Trollope, are sons of that Mrs. Frances Trollope who abused our country in
+her work entitled <i>The Domestic Manners of the Americans</i>, in terms that
+were distasteful even to English critics. Anthony Trollope is a successful
+writer of society-novels, which, without being of the highest order, are
+faithful in their portraitures. Among those which have been very popular
+are: <i>Barchester Towers</i>, <i>Framley Parsonage</i>, <i>Doctor Thorne</i>, and <i>Orley
+Farm</i>, He travelled in the United States, and has published a work of
+discernment entitled <i>North America</i>. His brother Thomas is best known by
+his <i>History of Florence to the Fall of the Republic</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Thomas Hughes</i>, born 1823: the popular author of <i>Tom Brown's School-Days
+at Rugby</i>, and <i>Tom Brown at Oxford</i>,&mdash;books which display the workings of
+these institutions, and set up a standard for English youth. The first is
+the best, and has made him famous.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4 id="ch41-5">Writers on Science and Philosophy.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Although these do not come strictly within the scope of English
+literature, they are so connected with it in the composition of general
+culture, and give such a complexion to the age, that it is well to mention
+the principal names.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sir William Hamilton</i>, 1788-1856: for twenty years Professor of Logic and
+Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. His voluminous lectures on
+both these subjects were edited, after his death, by Mansel and Veitch,
+and have been since of the highest authority.</p>
+
+<p><i>William Whewell</i>, 1795-1866: for some time Master of Trinity College,
+Cambridge. He has written learnedly on many subjects: his most valuable
+works are: <i>A History of the Inductive Sciences</i>, <i>The Elements of
+Morality</i>, and <i>The Plurality of Worlds</i>. Of Whewell it has been pithily
+said, that &quot;science was his forte, and omniscience his foible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><i>Richard Whately, D.D.</i>, 1787-1863: he was appointed in 1831 Arch<a id="p473" />bishop
+of Dublin and Kildare, in Ireland. His chief works are: <i>Elements of
+Logic</i>, <i>Elements of Rhetoric</i>, and <i>Lectures on Political Economy</i>. He
+gave a new impetus to the study of Logic and Rhetoric, and presented the
+formal logic of Aristotle anew to the world; thus marking a distinct epoch
+in the history of that much controverted science.</p>
+
+<p><i>John Ruskin</i>, born 1819: he ranks among the most original critics in art;
+but is eccentric in his opinions. His powers were first displayed in his
+<i>Modern Painters</i>. In his <i>Seven Lamps of Architecture</i> he has laid down
+the great fundamental principles of that art, among the forms of which the
+Gothic claims the pre-eminence. These are further carried out in <i>The
+Stones of Venice</i>. He is a transcendentalist and a pre-Raphaelite, and
+exceedingly dogmatic in stating his views. His descriptive powers are very
+great.</p>
+
+<p><i>Hugh Miller</i>, 1802-1856: an uneducated mechanic, he was a brilliant
+genius and an observant philosopher. His best works are: <i>The Old Red
+Sandstone</i>, <i>Footprints of the Creator</i>, and <i>The Testimonies of the
+Rocks</i>. He shot himself in a fit of insanity.</p>
+
+<p><i>John Stuart Mill</i>, born 1806: the son of James Mill, the historian of
+India. He was carefully educated, and has written on many subjects. He is
+best known by his <i>System of Logic</i>; his work on <i>Political Economy</i>; and
+his <i>Treatise on Liberty</i>. Each of these topics being questions of
+controversy, Mr. Mill states his views strongly in respect to opposing
+systems, and is very clear in the expression of his own dogmas.</p>
+
+<p><i>Thomas Chalmers, D.D.</i>, 1780-1847: this distinguished divine won his
+greatest reputation as an eloquent preacher. He was for some time
+Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of St. Andrew's, and wrote
+on <i>Natural Theology</i>, <i>The Evidences of Christianity</i>, and some lectures
+on <i>Astronomy</i>. But all his works are glowing sermons rather than
+philosophical treatises.</p>
+
+<p><i>Richard Chevenix Trench, D.D.</i>, born 1807: the present Archbishop of
+Dublin. He has written numerous theological works of popular value, among
+which are <i>Notes on the Parables, and on Miracles</i>. He has also published
+two series of charming lectures on English philology, entitled <i>The Study
+of Words</i> and <i>English Past and Present</i>. They are suggestive and
+discursive rather than philosophical, but have incited many persons to
+pursue this delightful study.</p>
+
+<p><i>Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.</i>, born 1815: Dean of Westminster. He was
+first known by his excellent biography of Dr. Arnold of Rugby; but has
+since enriched biblical literature by his lectures on <i>The Eastern Church</i>
+and on <i>The Jewish Church</i>. He accompanied the Prince of <a id="p474" />Wales on his
+visit to Palestine, and was not only eager in collecting statistics, but
+has reproduced them with poetic power.</p>
+
+<p><i>Nicholas Wiseman, D.D.</i>, 1802-1865: the head of the Roman Catholic Church
+in England. Cardinal Wiseman has written much on theological and
+ecclesiastical questions; but he is best known to the literary world by
+his able lectures on <i>The Connection between Science and Revealed
+Religion</i>, which are additionally valuable because they have no sectarian
+character.</p>
+
+<p><i>Charles Darwin</i>, born 1809: although he began his career at an early age,
+his principal works are so immediately of the present time, and his
+speculations are so involved in serious controversies, that they are not
+within the scope of this work. His principal works are: <i>The Origin of
+Species by means of Natural Selection</i>, and <i>The Descent of Man</i>. His
+facts are curious and very carefully selected; but his conclusions have
+been severely criticized.</p>
+
+<p><i>Frederick Max M&uuml;ller</i>, born 1823: a German by birth. He is a professional
+Oxford, and has done more to popularize the Science of Language than any
+other writer. He has written largely on Oriental linguistics, and has
+given two courses of lectures on <i>The Science of Language</i>, which have
+been published, and are used as text-books. His <i>Chips from a German
+Workshop</i> is a charming book, containing his miscellaneous articles in
+reviews and magazines.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="ch42">
+<h2 id="p475">Chapter XLII.</h2>
+
+<h3>English Journalism.</h3>
+
+
+<blockquote class="abs"><p>
+   <a href="#ch42-1">Roman News Letters</a>. <a href="#ch42-2">The Gazette</a>. <a href="#ch42-3">The Civil War</a>. <a href="#ch42-4">Later Divisions</a>. <a href="#ch42-5">The
+   Reviews</a>. <a href="#ch42-6">The Monthlies</a>. <a href="#ch42-7">The Dailies</a>. <a href="#ch42-8">The London Times</a>. <a href="#ch42-9">Other
+   Newspapers</a>.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch42-1"><span class="sc">Roman News Letters.</span>&mdash;English serials and periodicals, from the very time
+of their origin, display, in a remarkable manner, the progress both of
+English literature and of English history, and form the most striking
+illustration that the literature interprets the history. In using the
+caption, &quot;journalism,&quot; we include all forms of periodical
+literature&mdash;reviews, magazines, weekly and daily papers. The word
+journalism is, in respect to many of them, a misnomer, etymologically
+considered: it is a French corruption of <i>diurnal</i>, which, from the Latin
+<i>dies</i>, should mean a daily paper; but it is now generally used to include
+all periodicals. The origin of newspapers is quite curious, and antedates
+the invention of printing. The <i>acta diurna</i>, or journals of public
+events, were the daily manuscript reports of the Roman Government during
+the later commonwealth. In these, among other matters of public interest,
+every birth, marriage, and divorce was entered. As an illustration of the
+character of these brief entries, we have the satire of Petronius, which
+he puts in the mouth of the freed man Trimalchio: &quot;The seventh of the
+Kalends of Sextilis, on the estate at Cum&aelig;, were born thirty boys, twenty
+girls; were carried from the floor to the barn, 500,000 bushels of wheat;
+were broke 500 oxen. The same day the slave Mithridates was crucified for
+blasphemy against the Emperor's genius; the same day was placed in the
+chest <a id="p476" />the sum of ten millions sesterces, which could not be put out to
+use.&quot; Similar in character were the <i>Acta Urbana</i>, or city register, the
+<i>Acta Publica</i>, and the <i>Acta Senatus</i>, whose names indicate their
+contents. They were brief, almost tabular, and not infrequently
+sensational.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch42-2"><span class="sc">The Gazette.</span>&mdash;After the downfall of Rome, and during the Dark Ages, there
+are few traces of journalism. When Venice was still in her palmy days, in
+1563, during a war with the Turks, printed bulletins were issued from time
+to time, the price for reading which was a coin of about three farthings'
+value called a <i>gazetta</i>; and so the paper soon came to be called a
+gazette. Old files, to the amount of thirty volumes, of great historical
+value, may be found in the Magliabecchian Library at Florence.</p>
+
+<p>Next in order, we find in France <i>Affiches</i>, or <i>placards</i>, which were
+soon succeeded by regular sheets of advertisement, exhibited at certain
+offices.</p>
+
+<p>As early as the time of the intended invasion of England by the Spanish
+Armada, about the year 1588, we find an account of its defeat and
+dispersion in the <i>Mercurie</i>, issued by Queen Elizabeth's own printer. In
+another number is the news of a plot for killing the queen, and a
+statement that instruments of torture were on board the vessels, to set up
+the Inquisition in London. Whether true or not, the newspaper said it; and
+the English people believed it implicitly.</p>
+
+<p>About 1600, with the awakening spirit of the people, there began to appear
+periodical papers containing specifically news from Germany, from Italy,
+&amp;c. And during the Thirty Years' War there was issued a weekly paper
+called <i>The Certain News of the Present Week</i>. Although the word <i>news</i> is
+significant enough, many persons considered it as made up of the initial
+letters representing the cardinal points of the compass, <i>N.E.W.S.</i>, from
+which the curious people looked for satisfying intelligence.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch42-3"><a id="p477" /><span class="sc">The Civil War.</span>&mdash;The progress of English journalism received a great
+additional impetus when the civil war broke out between Charles I. and his
+Parliament, in 1642. To meet the demands of both parties for intelligence,
+numbers of small sheets were issued: <i>Truths from York</i> told of the rising
+in the king's favor there. There were: <i>Tidings from Ireland</i>, <i>News from
+Hull</i>, telling of the siege of that place in 1643; <i>The Dutch Spy</i>; <i>The
+Parliament Kite</i>; <i>The Secret Owl</i>; <i>The Scot's Dove</i>, with the
+olive-branch. Then flourished the <i>Weekly Discoverer</i>, and <i>The Weekly
+Discoverer Stripped Naked</i>. But these were only bare and partial
+statements, which excited rancor without conveying intelligence. &quot;Had
+there been better vehicles for the expression of public opinion,&quot; says the
+author of the Student's history of England, &quot;the Stuarts might have been
+saved from some of those schemes which proved so fatal to themselves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In the session of Parliament held in 1695, there occurred a revolution of
+great moment. There had been an act, enforced for a limited time, to
+restrain unlicensed printing, and under it censors had been appointed;
+but, in this year, the Parliament refused to re-enact or continue it, and
+thus the press found itself comparatively free.</p>
+
+<p>We have already referred to the powerful influence of the essayists in
+<i>The Tatler</i>, <i>Spectator</i>, <i>Guardian</i>, and <i>Rambler</i>, which may be called
+the real origin of the present English press.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch42-4"><span class="sc">Later Divisions.</span>&mdash;Coming down to the close of the eighteenth century, we
+find the following division of English periodical literature:
+<i>Quarterlies</i>, usually called <i>Reviews</i>; <i>Monthlies</i>, generally entitled
+<i>Magazines</i>; <i>Weeklies</i>, containing digests of news; and <i>Dailies</i>, in
+which are found the intelligence and facts of the present moment; and in
+this order, too, were the intellectual strength and learning of the time
+at first employed. The <i>Quarterlies</i> contained the articles <a id="p478" />of the great
+men&mdash;the acknowledged critics in politics, literature, and art; the
+<i>Magazines</i>, a current literature of poetry and fiction; the <i>Weeklies</i>
+and <i>Dailies</i>, reporters' facts and statistics; the latter requiring
+activity rather than cleverness, and beginning to be a vehicle for
+extensive advertisements.</p>
+
+<p>This general division has been since maintained; but if the order has not
+been reversed, there can be no doubt that the great dailies have steadily
+risen; on most questions of popular interest in all departments, long and
+carefully written articles in the dailies, from distinguished pens,
+anticipate the quarterlies, or force them to seek new grounds and forms of
+presentation after forestalling their critical opinions. Not many years
+ago, the quarterlies subsidized the best talent; now the men of that class
+write for <i>The Times</i>, <i>Standard</i>, <i>Telegraph</i>, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Let us look, in the order we have mentioned, at some representatives of
+the press in its various forms.</p>
+
+<p>Each of the principal reviews represents a political party, and at the
+same time, in most cases, a religious denomination; and they owe much of
+their interest to the controversial spirit thus engendered.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch42-5"><span class="sc">Reviews.</span>&mdash;First among these, in point of origin, is the <i>Edinburgh
+Review</i>, which was produced by the joint efforts of several young, and
+comparatively unknown, gentlemen, among whom were Francis (afterwards)
+Lord Jeffrey, Lord Murray, Mr. (since Lord) Brougham, and the Rev. Sydney
+Smith. The latter gentleman was appointed first editor, and remained long
+enough in Edinburgh to edit the first number. Thereafter Jeffrey conducted
+it. The men were clever, witty, studious, fearless; and the Review was not
+only from the first a success, but its fiat was looked for by authors with
+fear and trembling. It became a vehicle for the efforts of the best minds.
+Macaulay wrote for it those brilliant miscellanies which at once
+established his fame, and gave it much of its <a id="p479" />popularity. In it Jeffrey
+attacked the Lake poetry, and incurred the hatred of Byron. Its
+establishment, in 1803, was an era in the world of English letters. The
+papers were not merely reviews, but monographs on interesting subjects&mdash;a
+new anatomy of history; it was in a general way an exponent, but quite an
+independent one, of the Whig party, or those who would liberally construe
+the Constitution,&mdash;putting Churchmen and Dissenters on the same platform;
+although published in Edinburgh, it was neither Scotch nor Presbyterian.
+It attacked ancient prescriptions and customs; agitated questions long
+considered settled both of present custom and former history; and thus
+imitated the champion knights who challenged all comers, and sustained no
+defeats.</p>
+
+<p>Occupying opposite ground to this is the great English review called the
+<i>London Quarterly</i>: it was established in 1809; is an uncompromising
+Tory,&mdash;entirely conservative as to monarchy, aristocracy, and Established
+Church. Its first editor was William Gifford; but it attained its best
+celebrity under the charge of John Gibson Lockhart, the son-in-law of Sir
+Walter Scott, a man of singular critical power. Among its distinguished
+contributors were Southey, Scott, Canning, Croker, and Wordsworth.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>North British Review</i>, which never attained the celebrity of either
+of these, and which has at length, in 1871, been discontinued, occupied
+strong Scottish and Presbyterian ground, and had its respectable
+supporters.</p>
+
+<p>But besides the parties mentioned, there is a floating one, growing by
+slow but sure accretion, know as the <i>Radical</i>. It includes men of many
+stamps, mainly utilitarian,&mdash;radical in politics, innovators, radical in
+religion, destructive as to systems of science and arts, a learned and
+inquisitive class,&mdash;rational, transcendental, and intensely dogmatic. As a
+vent for this varied party, the <i>Westminster Review</i> was founded by Mr
+Bentham, in 1824. Its articles are always well written, and sometimes
+dangerous, according to our orthodox no<a id="p480" />tions. It is supported by such
+writers as Mill, Bowring, and Buckle.</p>
+
+<p>Besides these there are numerous quarterlies of more or less limited
+scope, as in science or art, theology or law; such as <i>The Eclectic, The
+Christian Observer, The Dublin</i>, and many others.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch42-6"><span class="sc">The Monthlies.</span>&mdash;Passing from the reviews to the monthlies, we find the
+range and number of these far greater, and the matter lighter. The first
+great representative of the modern series, and one that has kept its issue
+up to the present day, is Cave's <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, which commenced
+its career in 1831, and has been continued, after Cave's death, by Henry &amp;
+Nichols, who wrote under the pseudonym of <i>Sylvanus Urban</i>. It is a strong
+link between past and present. Johnson sent his <i>queries</i> to it while
+preparing his dictionary, and at the present day it is the favorite
+vehicle of antiquarians and historians. Passing by others, we find
+Blackwood's <i>Edinburgh Magazine</i>, first published in 1817. Originally a
+strong and bitter conservative, it kept up its popularity by its fine
+stories and poems. Among the most notable papers in Blackwood are the
+<i>Noctes Ambrosian&aelig;</i>, in which Professor Wilson, under the pseudonym of
+<i>Christopher North</i>, took the greater part.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the magazines had little or no political proclivity, but were
+chiefly literary. Among them are <i>Fraser's</i>, begun in 1830, and the
+<i>Dublin University</i>, in 1832.</p>
+
+<p>A charming light literature was presented by the <i>New Monthly</i>: in
+politics it was a sort of set-off to Blackwood: in it Captain Marryat
+wrote his famous sea stories; and among other contributors are the ever
+welcome names of Hood, Lytton, and Campbell. The <i>Penny Magazine</i>, of
+Knight, was issued from 1832 to 1845.</p>
+
+<p>Quite a new era dawned upon the magazine world in the establishment of
+several new ones, under the auspices of fa<a id="p481" />mous authors; among which we
+mention <i>The Cornhill</i>, edited by Thackeray, in 1859, with unprecedented
+success, until his tender heart compelled him to resign it; <i>Temple Bar</i>,
+by Sala, in 1860, is also very successful.</p>
+
+<p>In 1850 Dickens began the issue of <i>Household Words</i>, and in 1859 this was
+merged into <i>All the Year Round</i>, which owed its great popularity to the
+prestige of the same great writer.</p>
+
+<p>Besides these, devoted to literature and criticism, there are also many
+monthlies issued in behalf of special branches of knowledge, art, and
+science, which we have not space to refer to.</p>
+
+<p>Descending in the order mentioned, we come to the weeklies, which, besides
+containing summaries of daily intelligence, also share the magazine field
+in brief descriptive articles, short stories, and occasional poems.</p>
+
+<p>A number of these are illustrated journals, and are of great value in
+giving us pictorial representations of the great events and scenes as they
+pass, with portraits of men who have become suddenly famous by some
+special act or appointment. Their value cannot be too highly appreciated;
+they supply to the mind, through the eye, what the best descriptions in
+letter-press could not give; and in them satire uses comic elements with
+wonderful effect. Among the illustrated weeklies, the <i>Illustrated London
+News</i> has long held a high place; and within a short period <i>The Graphic</i>
+has exhibited splendid pictures of men and things of timely interest. Nor
+must we forget to mention <i>Punch</i>, which has been the grand jester of the
+realm since its origin. The best humorous and witty talent of England has
+found a vent in its pages, and sometimes its pathos has been productive of
+reform. Thackeray, Cuthbert Bede, Mark Lemon, Hood, have amused us in its
+pages, and the clever pencil of Leech has made a series of etching which
+will never grow tiresome. To it Thackeray <a id="p482" />contributed his <i>Snob Papers</i>,
+and Hood <i>The Song of the Shirt</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sec" id="ch42-7"><span class="sc">The Dailies.</span>&mdash;But the great characteristic of the age is the daily
+newspaper, so common a blessing that we cease to marvel at it, and yet
+marvellous as it is common. It is the product of quick intelligence, of
+great energy, of concurrent and systematized labor, and, in order to
+fulfil its mission, it seems to subsidize all arts and invade all
+subjects&mdash;steam, mechanics, photography, phonography, and electricity. The
+news which it prints and scatters comes to it on the telegraph; long
+orations are phonographically reported; the very latest mechanical skill
+is used in its printing; and the world is laid at our feet as we sit at
+the breakfast-table and read its columns.</p>
+
+<p>I shall not go back to the origin of printing, to show the great progress
+that has been made in the art from that time to the present; nor shall I
+attempt to explain the present process, which one visit to a press-room
+would do far better than any description; but I simply refer to the fact
+that fifty years ago newspapers were still printed with the hand-press,
+giving 250 impressions per hour&mdash;no cylinder, no flying Hoe, (that was
+patented only in 1847.) Now, the ten-cylinder Hoe, steam driven, works off
+20,000 sheets in an hour, and more, as the stereotyper may multiply the
+forms. What an emblem of art-progress is this! Fifty years ago
+mail-coaches carried them away. Now, steamers and locomotives fly with
+them all over the world, and only enlarge and expand the story, the great
+facts of which have been already sent in outline by telegraph.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it possible to overrate the value of a good daily paper: as the
+body is strengthened by daily food, so are we built up mentally and
+spiritually for the busy age in which we live by the world of intelligence
+contained in the daily journal. A great book and a good one is offered for
+the read<a id="p483" />ing of many who have no time to read others, and a great culture
+in morals, religion, politics, is thus induced. Of course it would be
+impossible to mention all the English dailies. Among them <i>The London
+Times</i> is pre-eminent, and stands highest in the opinion of the
+ministerial party, which fears and uses it.</p>
+
+<p>There was a time when the press was greatly trammelled in England, and
+license of expression was easily charged with constructive treason; but at
+present it is remarkably free, and the great, the government, and existing
+abuses, receive no soft treatment at its hands.</p>
+
+<p><i id="ch42-8">The London Times</i> was started by John Walter, a printer, in 1788, there
+having been for three years before a paper called the <i>London Daily
+Universal Register</i>. In 1803 his son, John, went into partnership, when
+the circulation was but 1,000. Within ten years it was 5,000. In 1814,
+cleverly concealing the purpose from his workmen, he printed the first
+sheet ever printed by steam, on K&#339;nig's press. The paper passed, at his
+death, into the hands of his son, the third John, who is a scholar,
+educated at Eton and Oxford, like his father a member of Parliament, and
+who has lately been raised to the peerage. The <i>Times</i> is so influential
+that it may well be called a third estate in the realm: its writers are
+men of merit and distinction; its correspondence secures the best foreign
+intelligence; and its travelling agents, like Russell and others, are the
+true historians of a war. English journalism, it is manifest, is eminently
+historical. The files of English newspapers are the best history of the
+period, and will, by their facts and comments, hereafter confront specious
+and false historians. Another thing to be observed is the impersonality of
+the British press, not only in the fact that names are withheld, but that
+the articles betray no authorship; that, in short, the paper does not
+appear as the glorification of one man or set of men, but like an
+unprejudiced relator, censor, and judge.</p>
+
+<p id="ch42-9"><a id="p484" />Of the principal London papers, the <i>Morning Post</i> (Liberal, but not
+Radical,) was begun in 1772. The <i>Globe</i> (at first Liberal, but within a
+short time Tory), in 1802. The <i>Standard</i> (Conservative), in 1827. The
+<i>Daily News</i> (high-class Liberal), in 1846. The <i>News</i> announced itself as
+pledged to <i>Principles of Progress and Improvement</i>. <i>The Daily Telegraph</i>
+was started in 1855, and claims the largest circulation. It is also a
+<i>Liberal</i> paper.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="index">
+<h2 id="p485">Index of Authors</h2>
+
+
+
+<p>Addison, Joseph, <a href="#p258">258</a>.<br />
+Akenside, Mark, <a href="#p351">351</a>.<br />
+Alcuin, <a href="#p40">40</a>.<br />
+Aldhelm, Abbot, <a href="#p40">40</a>.<br />
+Alfred the Great, <a href="#p42">42</a>.<br />
+Alfric, surnamed Germanicus, <a href="#p40">40</a>.<br />
+Alison, Sir Archibald, <a href="#p447">447</a>.<br />
+Alured of Rievaux, <a href="#p49">49</a>.<br />
+Arbuthnot, John, <a href="#p252">252</a>.<br />
+Arnold, Matthew, <a href="#p438">438</a>.<br />
+Arnold, Thomas, <a href="#p448">448</a>.<br />
+Ascham, Roger, <a href="#p103">103</a>.<br />
+Ashmole, Elias, <a href="#p232">232</a>.<br />
+Aubrey, John, <a href="#p232">232</a>.<br />
+Austen, Jane, <a href="#p411">411</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Bacon, Francis, <a href="#p156">156</a>.<br />
+Bacon, Roger, <a href="#p59">59</a>.<br />
+Bailey, Philip James, <a href="#p437">437</a>.<br />
+Baillie, Joanna, <a href="#p368">368</a>.<br />
+Barbauld, Anne Letitia, <a href="#p359">359</a>.<br />
+Barbour, John, <a href="#p89">89</a>.<br />
+Barclay, Robert, <a href="#p228">228</a>.<br />
+Barham, Richard Harris, <a href="#p437">437</a>.<br />
+Barklay, Alexander, <a href="#p102">102</a>.<br />
+Barrow, Isaac, <a href="#p230">230</a>.<br />
+Baxter, Richard, <a href="#p226">226</a>.<br />
+Beattie, James, <a href="#p356">356</a>.<br />
+Beaumont, Francis, <a href="#p154">154</a>.<br />
+Beckford, William, <a href="#p412">412</a>.<br />
+Bede the Venerable, <a href="#p37">37</a>.<br />
+Benoit, <a href="#p52">52</a>.<br />
+Berkeley, George, <a href="#p278">278</a>.<br />
+Blair, Hugh, <a href="#p369">369</a>.<br />
+Blind Harry, <a href="#p89">89</a>.<br />
+Bolingbroke, Viscount, (Henry St. John,) <a href="#p278">278</a>.<br />
+Boswell, James, <a href="#p321">321</a>.<br />
+Browne, Sir Thomas, <a href="#p225">225</a>.<br />
+Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, <a href="#p432">432</a>.<br />
+Browning, Robert, <a href="#p434">434</a>.<br />
+Buchanan, George, <a href="#p126">126</a>.<br />
+Buckle, Henry Thomas, <a href="#p447">447</a>.<br />
+Bulwer, Edward George Earle Lytton, <a href="#p450">450</a>.<br />
+Bunyan, John, <a href="#p228">228</a>.<br />
+Burke, Edmund, <a href="#p369">369</a>.<br />
+Burnet, Gilbert, <a href="#p231">231</a>.<br />
+Burney, Frances, <a href="#p368">368</a>.<br />
+Burns, Robert, <a href="#p397">397</a>.<br />
+Burton, Robert, <a href="#p125">125</a>.<br />
+Butler, Samuel, <a href="#p198">198</a>.<br />
+Byron, Rt. Hon. George Gordon, <a href="#p384">384</a></p>
+
+<p>Caedmon, <a href="#p34">34</a>.<br />
+Cambrensis, Giraldus, <a href="#p49">49</a>.<br />
+Camden, William, <a href="#p126">126</a>.<br />
+Campbell, Thomas, <a href="#p401">401</a>.<br />
+Carlyle, Thomas, <a href="#p444">444</a>.<br />
+Cavendish, George, <a href="#p102">102</a>.<br />
+Caxton, William, <a href="#p92">92</a>.<br />
+Chapman, George, <a href="#p127">127</a>.<br />
+Chatterton, Thomas, <a href="#p340">340</a>.<br />
+Chaucer, Geoffrey, <a href="#p60">60</a>.<br />
+Chillingworth, William, <a href="#p222">222</a>.<br />
+Coleridge, Hartley, <a href="#p427">427</a>.<br />
+Coleridge, Henry Nelson, <a href="#p427">427</a>.<br />
+Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, <a href="#p424">424</a>.<br />
+Collier, John Payne, <a href="#p153">153</a>.<br />
+Collins, William, <a href="#p357">357</a>.<br />
+Colman, George, <a href="#p366">366</a>.<br />
+Colman, George, (The Younger,) <a href="#p366">366</a>.<br />
+Congreve, William, <a href="#p236">236</a>.<br />
+Cornwall, Barry, <a href="#p436">436</a>.<br />
+Colton, Charles, <a href="#p205">205</a>.<br />
+Coverdale, Miles, <a href="#p170">170</a>.<br />
+<a id="p486" />
+Cowley, Abraham, <a href="#p195">195</a>.<br />
+Cowper, William, <a href="#p353">353</a>.<br />
+Crabbe, George, <a href="#p400">400</a>.<br />
+Cumberland, Richard, <a href="#p363">363</a>.<br />
+Cunningham, Allan, <a href="#p412">412</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Daniel, Samuel, <a href="#p127">127</a>.<br />
+Davenant, Sir William, <a href="#p205">205</a>.<br />
+Davies, Sir John, <a href="#p127">127</a>.<br />
+Defoe, Daniel, <a href="#p282">282</a>.<br />
+Dekker, Thomas, <a href="#p154">154</a>.<br />
+De Quincey, Thomas, <a href="#p468">468</a>.<br />
+Dickens, Charles, <a href="#p452">452</a>.<br />
+Dixon, William Hepworth, <a href="#p449">449</a>.<br />
+Donne, John, <a href="#p127">127</a>.<br />
+Drayton, Michael, <a href="#p127">127</a>.<br />
+Dryden, John, <a href="#p207">207</a>.<br />
+Dunbar, William, <a href="#p90">90</a>.<br />
+Dunstan, (called Saint,) <a href="#p41">41</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Eadmer, <a href="#p49">49</a>.<br />
+Edgeworth, Maria, <a href="#p410">410</a>.<br />
+Erigena, John Scotus, <a href="#p40">40</a>.<br />
+Etherege, Sir George, <a href="#p238">238</a>.<br />
+Evelyn, John, <a href="#p231">231</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Falconer, William, <a href="#p357">357</a>.<br />
+Farquhar, George, <a href="#p238">238</a>.<br />
+Ferrier, Mary, <a href="#p411">411</a>.<br />
+Fielding, Henry, <a href="#p288">288</a>.<br />
+Fisher, John, <a href="#p102">102</a>.<br />
+Florence of Worcester, <a href="#p49">49</a>.<br />
+Foote, Samuel, <a href="#p363">363</a>.<br />
+Ford, John, <a href="#p154">154</a>.<br />
+Fox, George, <a href="#p226">226</a>.<br />
+Froissart, Sire Jean, <a href="#p58">58</a>.<br />
+Fronde, James Anthony, <a href="#p448">448</a>.<br />
+Fuller, Thomas, <a href="#p224">224</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Gaimar, Geoffrey, <a href="#p52">52</a>.<br />
+Garrick, David, <a href="#p361">361</a>.<br />
+Gay, John, <a href="#p252">252</a>.<br />
+Geoffrey, <a href="#p52">52</a>.<br />
+Geoffrey of Monmouth, <a href="#p48">48</a>.<br />
+Gibbon, Edward, <a href="#p317">317</a><br />
+Gillies, John, <a href="#p441">441</a>.<br />
+Goldsmith, Oliver, <a href="#p301">301</a>.<br />
+Gowen, John, <a href="#p86">86</a>.<br />
+Gray, Thomas, <a href="#p351">351</a>.<br />
+Greene, Robert, <a href="#p136">136</a>.<br />
+Greville, Sir Fulke, <a href="#p127">127</a>.<br />
+Grost&ecirc;te, Robert, <a href="#p59">59</a>.<br />
+Grote, George, <a href="#p440">440</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Hakluyt, Richard, <a href="#p126">126</a>.<br />
+Hall, Joseph, <a href="#p221">221</a>.<br />
+Hallam, Henry, <a href="#p448">448</a>.<br />
+Harvey, Gabriel, <a href="#p110">110</a>.<br />
+Heber, Reginald, <a href="#p436">436</a>.<br />
+Hemans, Mrs. Felicia Dorothea, <a href="#p409">409</a>.<br />
+Henry of Huntingdon, <a href="#p49">49</a>.<br />
+Hennyson, Robert, <a href="#p90">90</a>.<br />
+Herbert, George, <a href="#p203">203</a>.<br />
+Herrick, Robert, <a href="#p204">204</a>.<br />
+Heywood, John, <a href="#p131">131</a>.<br />
+Higden, Ralph, <a href="#p50">50</a>.<br />
+Hobbes, Thomas, <a href="#p125">125</a>.<br />
+Hogg, James, <a href="#p412">412</a>.<br />
+Hollinshed, Raphael, <a href="#p126">126</a>.<br />
+Hood, Thomas, <a href="#p467">467</a>.<br />
+Hooker, Richard, <a href="#p125">125</a>.<br />
+Hope, Thomas, <a href="#p412">412</a>.<br />
+Hume, David, <a href="#p311">311</a>.<br />
+Hunt, Leigh, <a href="#p411">411</a>.<br />
+Hyde, Edward, Earl of Clarendon, <a href="#p205">205</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Ingelow, Jean, <a href="#p437">437</a>.<br />
+Ingulphus, Abbot of Croyland, <a href="#p49">49</a>.<br />
+Ireland, Samuel, <a href="#p153">153</a>.</p>
+
+<p>James I, (of Scotland,) <a href="#p89">89</a>.<br />
+Johnson, Doctor Samuel, <a href="#p324">324</a>.<br />
+Jonson, Ben, <a href="#p153">153</a>.<br />
+Junius, <a href="#p331">331</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Keats, John, <a href="#p407">407</a>.<br />
+Keble, John, <a href="#p437">437</a>.<br />
+Knowles, James Sheridan, <a href="#p436">436</a>.<br />
+Kyd, Thomas, <a href="#p136">136</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Lamb, Charles, <a href="#p466">466</a>.<br />
+Landon, Letitia Elizabeth, <a href="#p410">410</a>.<br />
+Langland, <a href="#p56">56</a>.<br />
+Latimer, Hugh, <a href="#p102">102</a>.<br />
+Layamon, <a href="#p53">53</a>.<br />
+Lee, Nathaniel, <a href="#p240">240</a>.<br />
+Leland, John, <a href="#p102">102</a>.<br />
+Lingard, John, <a href="#p446">446</a>.<br />
+Locke, John, <a href="#p231">231</a>.<br />
+Lodge, Thomas, <a href="#p135">135</a>.<br />
+<a id="p487" />
+Luc de la Barre, <a href="#p52">52</a>.<br />
+Lydgate, John, <a href="#p90">90</a>.<br />
+Lyly, John, <a href="#p136">136</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Macaulay, Thomas Babington, <a href="#p441">441</a>.<br />
+Mackay, Charles, <a href="#p437">437</a>.<br />
+Mackenzie, Henry, <a href="#p307">307</a>.<br />
+Macpherson, Doctor James, <a href="#p336">336</a>.<br />
+Mahon, Lord, <a href="#p447">447</a>.<br />
+Mandevil, Sir John, <a href="#p58">58</a>.<br />
+Manning, Robert, <a href="#p59">59</a>.<br />
+Marlowe, Christopher, <a href="#p134">134</a>.<br />
+Marston, John, <a href="#p136">136</a>.<br />
+Massinger, <a href="#p154">154</a>.<br />
+Matthew of Westminster, <a href="#p49">49</a>.<br />
+Mestre, Thomas, <a href="#p32">32</a>.<br />
+Milton, John, <a href="#p174">174</a>.<br />
+Mitford, William, <a href="#p444">444</a>.<br />
+Moore, Thomas, <a href="#p390">390</a>.<br />
+More, Hannah, <a href="#p367">367</a>.<br />
+More, Sir Thomas, <a href="#p99">99</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Napier. Sir William Francis Patrick, <a href="#p447">447</a>.<br />
+Nash, Thomas, <a href="#p136">136</a>.<br />
+Newton, Sir Isaac, <a href="#p278">278</a>.<br />
+Norton, Mrs. Caroline Elizabeth, <a href="#p410">410</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Occleve, Thomas, <a href="#p89">89</a>.<br />
+Ormulum, <a href="#p54">54</a>.<br />
+Otway, Thomas, <a href="#p239">239</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Paley, William, <a href="#p370">370</a>.<br />
+Paris, Matthew, <a href="#p49">49</a>.<br />
+Parnell, Thomas, <a href="#p252">252</a>.<br />
+Pecock, Reginald, <a href="#p102">102</a>.<br />
+Peele, George, <a href="#p136">136</a>.<br />
+Penn, William, <a href="#p227">227</a>.<br />
+Pepys, Samuel, <a href="#p232">232</a>.<br />
+Percy, Dr. Thomas, (Bishop,) <a href="#p358">358</a>.<br />
+Philip de Than, <a href="#p52">52</a>.<br />
+Pollok, Robert, <a href="#p411">411</a>.<br />
+Pope, Alexander, <a href="#p241">241</a>.<br />
+Prior, Matthew, <a href="#p251">251</a>.<br />
+Purchas, Samuel, <a href="#p126">126</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Quarles, Francis, <a href="#p203">203</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Raleigh, Sir Walter, <a href="#p126">126</a>.<br />
+Richard I., (C&#339;ur de Lion,) <a href="#p52">52</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Richardson, Samuel, <a href="#p285">285</a>.<br />
+Robert of Gloucester, <a href="#p55">55</a>.<br />
+Robertson, William, <a href="#p315">315</a>.<br />
+Roger de Hovedin, <a href="#p49">49</a>.<br />
+Rogers, Samuel, <a href="#p403">403</a>.<br />
+Roscoe, William, <a href="#p413">413</a>.<br />
+Rowe, Nicholas, <a href="#p240">240</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Sackville, Thomas, <a href="#p127">127</a>.<br />
+Scott, Sir Michael, <a href="#p59">59</a>.<br />
+Scott, Walter, <a href="#p371">371</a>.<br />
+Shakspeare, William, <a href="#p137">137</a>.<br />
+Shelley, Percy Bysshe, <a href="#p405">405</a>.<br />
+Shenstone, William, <a href="#p357">357</a>.<br />
+Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, <a href="#p364">364</a>.<br />
+Sherlock, William, <a href="#p230">230</a>.<br />
+Shirley, <a href="#p154">154</a>.<br />
+Sidney, Sir Philip, <a href="#p107">107</a>.<br />
+Skelton, John, <a href="#p95">95</a>.<br />
+Smollett, Tobias George, <a href="#p292">292</a>.<br />
+South, Robert, <a href="#p230">230</a>.<br />
+Southern, Thomas, <a href="#p240">240</a>.<br />
+Southey, Robert, <a href="#p421">421</a>.<br />
+Spencer, Edmund, <a href="#p104">104</a>.<br />
+Steele, Sir Richard, <a href="#p264">264</a>.<br />
+Sterne, Lawrence, <a href="#p296">296</a>.<br />
+Still, John, <a href="#p132">132</a>.<br />
+Stillingfleet, Edward, <a href="#p230">230</a>.<br />
+Stow, John, <a href="#p126">126</a>.<br />
+Strickland, Agnes, <a href="#p447">447</a>.<br />
+Suckling, Sir John, <a href="#p204">204</a>.<br />
+Surrey, Earl of, <a href="#p98">98</a>.<br />
+Swift, Jonathan, <a href="#p268">268</a>.<br />
+Swinburne, Algernon Charles, <a href="#p437">437</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Tailor, Robert, <a href="#p136">136</a>.<br />
+Taylor, Jeremy, <a href="#p223">223</a>.<br />
+Temple, Sir William, <a href="#p277">277</a>.<br />
+Tennyson, Alfred, <a href="#p428">428</a>.<br />
+Thackeray, Anne E., <a href="#p465">465</a>.<br />
+Thackeray, William Makepeace, <a href="#p459">459</a>.<br />
+Thirlwall, Connop, <a href="#p441">441</a>.<br />
+Thomas of Ercildoun, <a href="#p59">59</a>.<br />
+Thomson, James, <a href="#p347">347</a>.<br />
+Tickell, Thomas, <a href="#p252">252</a>.<br />
+Tupper, Martin Farquhar, <a href="#p437">437</a>.<br />
+Turner, Sharon, <a href="#p448">448</a>.<br />
+Tusser, Thomas, <a href="#p102">102</a>.<br />
+Tyndale, William, <a href="#p169">169</a>.<br />
+Tytler, Patrick Frazer, <a href="#p446">446</a>.</p>
+
+<p><a id="p488" />Udall, Nicholas, <a href="#p132">132</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Vanbrugh, Sir John, <a href="#p237">237</a>.<br />
+Vaughan, Henry, <a href="#p205">205</a>.<br />
+Vitalis, Ordericus, <a href="#p49">49</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Wace, Richard, <a href="#p51">51</a>.<br />
+Waller, Edmund, <a href="#p204">204</a>.<br />
+Walpole, Horace, <a href="#p321">321</a>.<br />
+Walton, Izaak, <a href="#p202">202</a>.<br />
+Warton, Joseph, <a href="#p368">368</a>.<br />
+Warton, Thomas, <a href="#p368">368</a>.<br />
+Watts, Isaac, <a href="#p252">252</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Webster, <a href="#p154">154</a>.<br />
+White, Henry Kirke, <a href="#p358">358</a>.<br />
+Wiclif, John, <a href="#p77">77</a>.<br />
+William of Jumi&egrave;ges, <a href="#p49">49</a>.<br />
+William of Malmsbury, <a href="#p47">47</a>.<br />
+William of Poictiers, <a href="#p49">49</a>.<br />
+Wither, George, <a href="#p203">203</a>.<br />
+Wolcot, John, <a href="#p367">367</a>.<br />
+Wordsworth, William, <a href="#p415">415</a>.<br />
+Wyat, Sir Thomas, <a href="#p97">97</a>.<br />
+Wycherley, William, <a href="#p235">235</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Young, Edward, <a href="#p253">253</a>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<h3>The End.</h3>
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter" id="footnotes">
+<h2>Footnotes</h2>
+
+
+
+<p><a href="#fna-1" id="fn-1">1.</a>  His jurisdiction extended from Norfolk around to Sussex.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-2" id="fn-2">2.</a>  This is the usually accepted division of tribes; but Dr. Latham denies
+that the Jutes, or inhabitants of Jutland, shared in the invasion. The
+difficult question does not affect the scope of our inquiry.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-3" id="fn-3">3.</a>  Gibbon's Decline and Fall, c. lv.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-4" id="fn-4">4.</a>  H. Martin, Histoire de France, i. 53.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-5" id="fn-5">5.</a>  Vindication of the Ancient British Poems.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-6" id="fn-6">6.</a>  Craik's English Literature, i. 37.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-7" id="fn-7">7.</a>  Sharon Turner, History of the Anglo-Saxons, book ix., c. i.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-8" id="fn-8">8.</a>  Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-9" id="fn-9">9.</a>  Kemble (&quot;Saxon in England&quot;) suggests the resemblance between the
+fictitious landing of Hengist and Horsa &quot;in three keels,&quot; and the Gothic
+tradition of the migration of Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Gepid&aelig; to the
+mouth of the Vistula in the same manner. Dr. Latham (English Language)
+fixes the Germanic immigration into Britain at the middle of the fourth,
+instead of the middle of the fifth century.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-10" id="fn-10">10.</a>  Lectures on Modern History, lect, ii.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-11" id="fn-11">11.</a>  Sharon Turner.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-12" id="fn-12">12.</a>  Turner, ch. xii.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-13" id="fn-13">13.</a>  For the discussion of the time and circumstances of the introduction
+of French into law processes, see Craik, i. 117.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-14" id="fn-14">14.</a>  Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, i. 199. For an admirable
+summary of the bardic symbolisms and mythological types exhibited in the
+story of Arthur, see H. Martin, Hist. de France, liv. xx.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-15" id="fn-15">15.</a>  Craik says, (i. 198,) &quot;Or, as he is also called, <i>Lawemon</i>&mdash;for the
+old character represented in this instance by our modern <i>y</i> is really
+only a guttural, (and by no means either a <i>j</i> or a <i>z</i>,) by which it is
+sometimes rendered.&quot; Marsh says, &quot;Or, perhaps, <i>Lagamon</i>, for we do not
+know the sound of <i>y</i> in this name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-16" id="fn-16">16.</a>  Introduction to the Poets of Queen Elizabeth's Age.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-17" id="fn-17">17.</a>  So called from his having a regular district or <i>limit</i> in which to
+beg.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-18" id="fn-18">18.</a>  Spelled also Wycliffe, Wicliff, and Wyklyf.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-19" id="fn-19">19.</a>  Am. ed., i. 94.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-20" id="fn-20">20.</a>  Wordsworth, Ecc. Son., xvii.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-21" id="fn-21">21.</a>  &quot;The Joyous Science, as the profession of minstrelsy was termed, had
+its various ranks, like the degrees in the Church and in chivalry.&quot;&mdash;<i>Sir
+Walter Scott</i>, (<i>The Betrothed</i>.)</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-22" id="fn-22">22.</a>  1st, the real presence; 2d, celibacy; 3d, monastic vows; 4th, low
+mass; 5th, auricular confession; 6th, withholding the cup from the laity.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-23" id="fn-23">23.</a>  &quot;The Earl of Surrey is said to have translated one of Virgil's books
+without rhyme, and, besides our tragedies, a few short poems had appeared
+in blank verse.... These petty performances cannot be supposed to have
+much influenced Milton; ... finding blank verse easier than rhyme, he was
+desirous of persuading himself that it is better.&quot;&mdash;<i>Lives of the
+Poets&mdash;Milton</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-24" id="fn-24">24.</a>  From this dishonor Mr. Froude's researches among the statute books
+have not been able to lift him, for he gives system to horrors which were
+before believed to be eccentric; and, while he fails to justify the
+monarch, implicates a trembling parliament and a servile ministry, as if
+their sharing the crime made it less odious.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-25" id="fn-25">25.</a>  The reader's attention is called&mdash;or recalled&mdash;to the masterly
+etching of Sir Philip Sidney, in Motley's History of the United
+Netherlands. The low chant of the <i>cuisse rompue</i> is especially pathetic.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-26" id="fn-26">26.</a>  This last claim of title was based upon the voyages of the Cabots,
+and the unsuccessful colonial efforts of Raleigh and Gilbert.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-27" id="fn-27">27.</a>  Froude, i. 65.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-28" id="fn-28">28.</a>  Introduction to fifth canto of Marmion.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-29" id="fn-29">29.</a>  Froude, i. 73.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-30" id="fn-30">30.</a>  Opening scene of The Merry Wives of Windsor.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-31" id="fn-31">31.</a>  Rev. A. Dyce attributes this play to Marlowe or Kyd.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-32" id="fn-32">32.</a>  The dates as determined by Malone are given: many of them differ from
+those of Drake and Chalmers.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-33" id="fn-33">33.</a> </p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+    If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined<br />
+    The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><i>Pope, Essay on Man</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-34" id="fn-34">34.</a>  Life of Addison.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-35" id="fn-35">35.</a>  Macaulay: Art. on Warren Hastings.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-36" id="fn-36">36.</a>  The handwriting of Junius professionally investigated by Mr. Charles
+P. Chabot. London, 1871.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#fna-37" id="fn-37">37.</a>  H. C. Robinson, Diary II., 79.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of English Literature, Considered as an
+Interpreter of English History, by Henry Coppee
+
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+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/15176.txt b/15176.txt
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+++ b/15176.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of English Literature, Considered as an
+Interpreter of English History, by Henry Coppee
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History
+       Designed as a Manual of Instruction
+
+Author: Henry Coppee
+
+Release Date: February 26, 2005 [EBook #15176]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH LITERATURE, ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History.
+
+Designed as a _Manual of Instruction_.
+
+By
+
+Henry Coppee, LL.D.,
+
+President of the Lehigh University.
+
+   The Roman Epic abounds in moral and poetical defects; nevertheless it
+   remains the most complete picture of the national mind at its highest
+   elevation, the most precious document of national history, if the
+   history of an age is revealed in its ideas, no less than in its events
+   and incidents.--Rev. C. Merivale.
+
+   _History of the Romans under the Empire_, c. xli.
+
+Second Edition.
+Philadelphia:
+Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger.
+1873.
+
+
+
+
+Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by Claxton,
+Remsen & Haffelfinger, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at
+Washington.
+
+
+
+Stereotyped by J. Fagan & Son, Philadelphia.
+
+
+
+
+To The Right Reverend William Bacon Stevens, D.D., LL.D., Bishop Of
+Pennsylvania.
+
+My Dear Bishop:
+
+I desire to connect your name with whatever may be useful and valuable in
+this work, to show my high appreciation of your fervent piety, varied
+learning, and elegant literary accomplishments; and, also, far more than
+this, to record the personal acknowledgment that no man ever had a more
+constant, judicious, generous and affectionate brother, than you have been
+to me, for forty years of intimate and unbroken association.
+
+Most affectionately and faithfully yours,
+
+Henry Coppee.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+
+It is not the purpose of the author to add another to the many volumes
+containing a chronological list of English authors, with brief comments
+upon each. Such a statement of works, arranged according to periods, or
+reigns of English monarchs, is valuable only as an abridged dictionary of
+names and dates. Nor is there any logical pertinence in clustering
+contemporary names about a principal author, however illustrious he may
+be. The object of this work is to present prominently the historic
+connections and teachings of English literature; to place great authors in
+immediate relations with great events in history; and thus to propose an
+important principle to students in all their reading. Thus it is that
+Literature and History are reciprocal: they combine to make eras.
+
+Merely to establish this historic principle, it would have been sufficient
+to consider the greatest authors, such as Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare,
+Milton, Dryden, and Pope; but it occurred to me, while keeping this
+principle before me, to give also a connected view of the course of
+English literature, which might, in an academic curriculum, show students
+how and what to read for themselves. Any attempt beyond this in so
+condensed a work must prove a failure, and so it may well happen that some
+readers will fail to find a full notice, or even a mention, of some
+favorite author.
+
+English literature can only be studied in the writings of the authors here
+only mentioned; but I hope that the work will be found to contain
+suggestions for making such extended reading profitable; and that teachers
+will find it valuable as a syllabus for fuller courses of lectures.
+
+To those who would like to find information as to the best editions of the
+authors mentioned, I can only say that I at first intended and began to
+note editions: I soon saw that I could not do this with any degree of
+uniformity, and therefore determined to refer all who desire this
+bibliographic assistance, to _The Dictionary of Authors_, by my friend S.
+Austin Allibone, LL.D., in which bibliography is a strong feature. I am
+not called upon to eulogize that noble work, but I cannot help saying that
+I have found it invaluable, and that whether mentioned or not, no writer
+can treat of English authors without constant recurrence to its accurate
+columns: it is a literary marvel of our age.
+
+It will be observed that the remoter periods of the literature are those
+in which the historic teachings are the most distinctly visible; we see
+them from a vantage ground, in their full scope, and in the interrelations
+of their parts. Although in the more modern periods the number of writers
+is greatly increased, we are too near to discern the entire period, and
+are in danger of becoming partisans, by reason of our limited view.
+Especially is this true of the age in which we live. Contemporary history
+is but party-chronicle: the true philosophic history can only be written
+when distance and elevation give due scope to our vision.
+
+The principle I have laid down is best illustrated by the great literary
+masters. Those of less degree have been treated at less length, and many
+of them will be found in the smaller print, to save space. Those who study
+the book should study the small print as carefully as the other.
+
+After a somewhat elaborate exposition of English literature, I could not
+induce myself to tack on an inadequate chapter on American literature;
+and, besides, I think that to treat the two subjects in one volume would
+be as incongruous as to write a joint biography of Marlborough and
+Washington. American literature is too great and noble, and has had too
+marvelous a development to be made an appendix to English literature.
+
+If time shall serve, I hope to prepare a separate volume, exhibiting the
+stages of our literature in the Colonial period, the Revolutionary epoch,
+the time of Constitutional establishment, and the present period. It will
+be found to illustrate these historical divisions in a remarkable manner.
+
+H. C.
+
+The Lehigh University, _October_, 1872.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE HISTORICAL SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT.
+
+   Literature and Science--English Literature--General Principle--Celts
+   and Cymry--Roman Conquest--Coming of the Saxons--Danish Invasions--The
+   Norman Conquest--Changes in Language
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+LITERATURE A TEACHER OF HISTORY. CELTIC REMAINS.
+
+   The Uses of Literature--Italy, France, England--Purpose of the
+   Work--Celtic Literary Remains--Druids and Druidism--Roman
+   Writers--Psalter of Cashel--Welsh Triads and Mabinogion--Gildas and St.
+   Colm
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE AND HISTORY.
+
+   The Lineage of the Anglo-Saxon--Earliest Saxon Poem--Metrical
+   Arrangement--Periphrasis and Alliteration--Beowulf--Caedmon--Other
+   Saxon Fragments--The Appearance of Bede
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE VENERABLE BEDE AND THE SAXON CHRONICLE.
+
+   Biography--Ecclesiastical History--The Recorded Miracles--Bede's
+   Latin--Other Writers--The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: its Value--Alfred the
+   Great--Effect of the Danish Invasions
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE NORMAN CONQUEST AND ITS EARLIEST LITERATURE.
+
+   Norman Rule--Its Oppression--Its Benefits--William of
+   Malmesbury--Geoffrey of Monmouth--Other Latin Chronicles--Anglo-Norman
+   Poets--Richard Wace--Other Poets
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE MORNING TWILIGHT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
+
+   Semi-Saxon Literature--Layamon--The Ormulum--Robert of
+   Gloucester--Langland. Piers Plowman--Piers Plowman's Creed--Sir Jean
+   Froissart--Sir John Mandevil
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAUCER, AND THE EARLY REFORMATION.
+
+   A New Era: Chaucer--Italian Influence--Chaucer as a Founder--Earlier
+   Poems--The Canterbury Tales--Characters--Satire--Presentations of
+   Woman--The Plan Proposed
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAUCER (CONTINUED).--REFORMS IN RELIGION AND SOCIETY.
+
+   Historical Facts--Reform in Religion--The Clergy, Regular and
+   Secular--The Friar and the Sompnour--The Pardonere--The Poure
+   Persone--John Wiclif--The Translation of the Bible--The Ashes of Wiclif
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAUCER (CONTINUED).--PROGRESS OF SOCIETY, AND OF LANGUAGE.
+
+   Social Life--Government--Chaucer's English--His Death--Historical
+   Facts--John Gower--Chaucer and Gower--Gower's Language--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE BARREN PERIOD BETWEEN CHAUCER AND SPENSER.
+
+   Greek Literature--Invention of Printing. Caxton--Contemporary
+   History--Skelton--Wyatt--Surrey--Sir Thomas Moore--Utopia, and other
+   Works--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+SPENSER AND THE ELIZABETHAN AGE.
+
+   The Great Change--Edward VI. and Mary--Sidney--The Arcadia--Defence of
+   Poesy--Astrophel and Stella--Gabriel Harvey--Edmund Spenser: Shepherd's
+   Calendar--His Great Work
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE HISTORY IN THE FAERIE QUEENE.
+
+   The Faerie Queene--The Plan Proposed--Illustrations of the History--The
+   Knight and the Lady--The Wood of Error and the Hermitage--The
+   Crusades--Britomartis and Sir Artegal--Elizabeth--Mary Queen of
+   Scots--Other Works--Spenser's Fate--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE ENGLISH DRAMA.
+
+   Origin of the Drama--Miracle Plays--Moralities--First Comedy--Early
+   Tragedies--Christopher Marlowe--Other Dramatists--Playwrights and
+   Morals
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
+
+   The Power of Shakspeare--Meagre Early History--Doubts of his
+   Identity--What is known--Marries and goes to London--"Venus" and
+   "Lucrece"--Retirement and Death--Literary Habitudes--Variety of the
+   Plays--Table of Dates and Sources
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE (CONTINUED).
+
+   The Grounds of his Fame--Creation of Character--Imagination and
+   Fancy--Power of Expression--His Faults--Influence of
+   Elizabeth--Sonnets--Ireland and Collier--Concordance--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+BACON, AND THE RISE OF THE NEW PHILOSOPHY.
+
+   Birth and Early Life--Treatment of Essex--His Appointments--His
+   Fall--Writes Philosophy--Magna Instauratio--His Defects--His Fame--His
+   Essays
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE ENGLISH BIBLE.
+
+   Early Versions--The Septuagint--The Vulgate--Wiclif;
+   Tyndale--Coverdale; Cranmer--Geneva; Bishop's Bible--King James's
+   Bible--Language of the Bible--Revision
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+JOHN MILTON, AND THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH.
+
+   Historical Facts--Charles I.--Religious Extremes--Cromwell--Birth and
+   Early Works--Views of Marriage--Other Prose Works--Effects of the
+   Restoration--Estimate of his Prose
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE POETRY OF MILTON.
+
+   The Blind Poet--Paradise Lost--Milton and Dante--His
+   Faults--Characteristics of the Age--Paradise Regained--His
+   Scholarship--His Sonnets--His Death and Fame
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+COWLEY, BUTLER, AND WALTON.
+
+   Cowley and Milton--Cowley's Life and Works--His Fame--Butler's
+   Career--Hudibras--His Poverty and Death--Izaak Walton--The Angler; and
+   Lives--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+DRYDEN, AND THE RESTORED STUARTS.
+
+   The Court of Charles II.--Dryden's Early Life--The Death of
+   Cromwell--The Restoration--Dryden's Tribute--Annus Mirabilis--Absalom
+   and Achitophel--The Death of Charles--Dryden's Conversion--Dryden's
+   Fall--His Odes
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF THE GREAT REBELLION AND OF THE RESTORATION.
+
+   The English Divines--Hall--Chillingsworth--Taylor--Fuller--Sir T.
+   Browne--Baxter--Fox--Bunyan--South--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE DRAMA OF THE RESTORATION.
+
+   The License of the Age--Dryden--Wycherley--Congreve--Vanbrugh--
+   Farquhar--Etherege--Tragedy--Otway--Rowe--Lee--Southern
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+POPE, AND THE ARTIFICIAL SCHOOL.
+
+   Contemporary History--Birth and Early Life--Essay, on Criticism--Rape
+   of the Lock--The Messiah--The Iliad--Value of the Translation--The
+   Odyssey--Essay on Man--The Artificial School--Estimate of Pope--Other
+   Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+ADDISON, AND THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE.
+
+   The Character of the Age--Queen Anne--Whigs and Tories--George
+   I.--Addison: The Campaign--Sir Roger de Coverley--The Club--Addison's
+   Hymns--Person and Literary Character
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+STEELE AND SWIFT.
+
+   Sir Richard Steele--Periodicals--The Crisis--His Last Days--Jonathan
+   Swift: Poems--The Tale of a Tub--Battle of the Books--Pamphlets--M. B.
+   Drapier--Gulliver's Travels--Stella and Vanessa--His Character and
+   Death
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF MODERN FICTION.
+
+   The New Age--Daniel Defoe--Robinson Crusoe--Richardson--Pamela, and
+   Other Novels--Fielding--Joseph Andrews--Tom Jones--Its
+   Moral--Smollett--Roderick Random--Peregrine Pickle
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+STERNE, GOLDSMITH, AND MACKENZIE.
+
+   The Subjective School--Sterne: Sermons--Tristram Shandy--Sentimental
+   Journey--Oliver Goldsmith--Poems: The Vicar--Histories, and Other
+   Works--Mackenzie--The Man of Feeling
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE HISTORICAL TRIAD IN THE SCEPTICAL AGE.
+
+   The Sceptical Age--David Hume--History of England--Metaphysics--Essay
+   on Miracles--Robertson--Histories--Gibbon--The Decline and Fall
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+SAMUEL JOHNSON AND HIS TIMES.
+
+   Early Life and Career--London--Rambler and Idler--The Dictionary--Other
+   Works--Lives of the Poets--Person and Character--Style--Junius
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THE LITERARY FORGERS IN THE ANTIQUARIAN AGE.
+
+   The Eighteenth Century--James Macpherson--Ossian--Thomas
+   Chatterton--His Poems--The Verdict--Suicide--The Cause
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+POETRY OF THE TRANSITION SCHOOL.
+
+   The Transition Period--James Thomson--The Seasons--The Castle of
+   Indolence--Mark Akenside--Pleasures of the Imagination--Thomas
+   Gray--The Elegy. The Bard--William Cowper--The Task--Translation of
+   Homer--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THE LATER DRAMA.
+
+   The Progress of the Drama--Garrick--Foote--Cumberland--Sheridan--George
+   Colman--George Colman, the Younger--Other Dramatists and
+   Humorists--Other Writers on Various Subjects
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY: SCOTT.
+
+   Walter Scott--Translations and Minstrelsy--The Lay of the Last
+   Minstrel--Other Poems--The Waverley Novels--Particular
+   Mention--Pecuniary Troubles--His Manly Purpose--Powers
+   Overtasked--Fruitless Journey--Return and Death--His Fame
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY: BYRON AND MOORE.
+
+   Early Life of Byron--Childe Harold and Eastern Tales--Unhappy
+   Marriage--Philhellenism and Death--Estimate of his Poetry--Thomas
+   Moore--Anacreon--Later Fortunes--Lalla Rookh--His Diary--His Rank as
+   Poet
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY (CONTINUED).
+
+   Robert Burns--His Poems--His Career--George Crabbe--Thomas
+   Campbell--Samuel Rogers--P. B. Shelley--John Keats--Other Writers
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+WORDSWORTH, AND THE LAKE SCHOOL.
+
+   The New School--William Wordsworth--Poetical Canons--The Excursion and
+   Sonnets--An Estimate--Robert Southey--His Writings--Historical
+   Value--S. T. Coleridge--Early Life--His Helplessness--Hartley and H. N.
+   Coleridge
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+THE REACTION IN POETRY.
+
+   Alfred Tennyson--Early Works--The Princess--Idyls of the
+   King--Elizabeth B. Browning--Aurora Leigh--Her Faults--Robert
+   Browning--Other Poets
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+THE LATER HISTORIANS.
+
+   New Materials--George Grote--History of Greece--Lord Macaulay--History
+   of England--Its Faults--Thomas Carlyle--Life of Frederick II.--Other
+   Historians
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE LATER NOVELISTS AS SOCIAL REFORMERS.
+
+   Bulwer--Changes in Writers--Dickens's Novels--American Notes--His
+   Varied Powers--Second Visit to America--Thackeray--Vanity Fair--Henry
+   Esmond--The Newcomes--The Georges--Estimate of his Powers
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+THE LATER WRITERS.
+
+   Charles Lamb--Thomas Hood--Thomas de Quincey--Other Novelists--Writers
+   on Science and Philosophy
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+ENGLISH JOURNALISM.
+
+   Roman News Letters--The Gazette--The Civil War--Later Divisions--The
+   Reviews--The Monthlies--The Dailies--The London Times--Other Newspapers
+
+
+Alphabetical Index of Authors
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE HISTORICAL SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT.
+
+
+   Literature and Science. English Literature. General Principle. Celts
+   and Cymry. Roman Conquest. Coming of the Saxons. Danish Invasions. The
+   Norman Conquest. Changes in Language.
+
+
+
+LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.
+
+
+There are two words in the English language which are now used to express
+the two great divisions of mental production--_Science_ and _Literature_;
+and yet, from their etymology, they have so much in common, that it has
+been necessary to attach to each a technical meaning, in order that we may
+employ them without confusion.
+
+_Science_, from the participle _sciens_, of _scio, scire_, to know, would
+seem to comprise all that can be known--what the Latins called the _omne
+scibile_, or all-knowable.
+
+_Literature_ is from _litera_, a letter, and probably at one remove from
+_lino, litum_, to anoint or besmear, because in the earlier times a tablet
+was smeared with wax, and letters were traced upon it with a graver.
+Literature, in its first meaning, would, therefore, comprise all that can
+be conveyed by the use of letters.
+
+But language is impatient of retaining two words which convey the same
+meaning; and although science had at first to do with the fact of knowing
+and the conditions of knowledge in the abstract, while literature meant
+the written record of such knowledge, a far more distinct sphere has been
+given to each in later times, and special functions assigned them.
+
+In general terms, Science now means any branch of knowledge in which men
+search for principles reaching back to the ultimate, or for facts which
+establish these principles, or are classified by them in a logical order.
+Thus we speak of the mathematical, physical, metaphysical, and moral
+sciences.
+
+Literature, which is of later development as at present used, comprises
+those subjects which have a relation to human life and human nature
+through the power of the imagination and the fancy. Technically,
+literature includes _history, poetry, oratory, the drama_, and _works of
+fiction_, and critical productions upon any of these as themes.
+
+Such, at least, will be a sufficiently exact division for our purpose,
+although the student will find them overlapping each other's domain
+occasionally, interchanging functions, and reciprocally serving for each
+other's advantage. Thus it is no confusion of terms to speak of the poetry
+of science and of the science of poetry; and thus the great functions of
+the human mind, although scientifically distinct, co-operate in harmonious
+and reciprocal relations in their diverse and manifold productions.
+
+
+ENGLISH LITERATURE.--English Literature may then be considered as
+comprising the progressive productions of the English mind in the paths of
+imagination and taste, and is to be studied in the works of the poets,
+historians, dramatists, essayists, and romancers--a long line of brilliant
+names from the origin of the language to the present day.
+
+To the general reader all that is profitable in this study dates from the
+appearance of Chaucer, who has been justly styled the Father of English
+Poetry; and Chaucer even requires a glossary, as a considerable portion
+of his vocabulary has become obsolete and much of it has been modified;
+but for the student of English literature, who wishes to understand its
+philosophy and its historic relations, it becomes necessary to ascend to a
+more remote period, in order to find the origin of the language in which
+Chaucer wrote, and the effect produced upon him by any antecedent literary
+works, in the root-languages from which the English has sprung.
+
+
+GENERAL PRINCIPLE.--It may be stated, as a general principle, that to
+understand a nation's literature, we must study the history of the people
+and of their language; the geography of the countries from which they
+came, as well as that in which they live; the concurrent historic causes
+which have conspired to form and influence the literature. We shall find,
+as we advance in this study, that the life and literature of a people are
+reciprocally reflective.
+
+
+I. CELTS AND CYMRY.--Thus, in undertaking the study of English literature,
+we must begin with the history of the Celts and Cymry, the first
+inhabitants of the British Islands of whom we have any record, who had
+come from Asia in the first great wave of western migration; a rude,
+aboriginal people, whose languages, at the beginning of the Christian era,
+were included in one family, the _Celtic_, comprising the _British_ or
+_Cambrian_, and the _Gadhelic_ classes. In process of time these were
+subdivided thus:
+
+    The British into
+      _Welsh_, at present spoken in Wales.
+      _Cornish_, extinct only within a century.
+      _Armorican_, Bas Breton, spoken in French Brittany.
+    The Gadhelic into
+      _Gaelic_, still spoken in the Scottish Highlands.
+      _Irish_, or _Erse_, spoken in Ireland.
+      _Manx_, spoken in the Isle of Man.
+
+Such are the first people and dialects to be considered as the antecedent
+occupants of the country in which English literature was to have its
+birth.
+
+
+II. ROMAN CONQUEST.--But these Celtic peoples were conquered by the Romans
+under Caesar and his successors, and kept in a state of servile thraldom
+for four hundred and fifty years. There was but little amalgamation
+between them and their military masters. Britain was a most valuable
+northern outpost of the Roman Empire, and was occupied by large garrisons,
+which employed the people in hard labors, and used them for Roman
+aggrandizement, but despised them too much to attempt to elevate their
+condition. Elsewhere the Romans depopulated, where they met with barbarian
+resistance; they made a solitude and called it peace--for which they gave
+a triumph and a cognomen to the conqueror; but in Britain, although
+harassed and endangered by the insurrections of the natives, they bore
+with them; they built fine cities like London and York, originally
+military outposts, and transformed much of the country between the Channel
+and the Tweed from pathless forest into a civilized residence.
+
+
+III. COMING OF THE SAXONS.--Compelled by the increasing dangers and
+troubles immediately around the city of Rome to abandon their distant
+dependencies, the Roman legions evacuated Britain, and left the people,
+who had become enervated, spiritless, and unaccustomed to the use of arms,
+a prey to their fierce neighbors, both from Scotland and from the
+continent.
+
+The Saxons had already made frequent incursions into Britain, while rival
+Roman chieftains were contesting for pre-eminence, and, as early as the
+third century, had become so troublesome that the Roman emperors were
+obliged to appoint a general to defend the eastern coast, known as _comes
+litoris Saxonici_, or count of the Saxon shore.[1]
+
+These Saxons, who had already tested the goodliness of the land, came when
+the Romans departed, under the specious guise of protectors of the Britons
+against the inroads of the Picts and Scots; but in reality to possess
+themselves of the country. This was a true conquest of race--Teutons
+overrunning Celts. They came first in reconnoitring bands; then in large
+numbers, not simply to garrison, as the Romans had done, but to occupy
+permanently. From the less attractive seats of Friesland and the basin of
+the Weser, they came to establish themselves in a charming country,
+already reclaimed from barbarism, to enslave or destroy the inhabitants,
+and to introduce their language, religion, and social institutions. They
+came as a confederated people of German race--Saxons, Angles, Jutes, and
+Frisians;[2] but, as far as the results of their conquest are concerned,
+there was entire unity among them.
+
+The Celts, for a brief period protected by them from their fierce northern
+neighbors, were soon enslaved and oppressed: those who resisted were
+driven slowly to the Welsh mountains, or into Cornwall, or across the
+Channel into French Brittany. Great numbers were destroyed. They left few
+traces of their institutions and their language. Thus the Saxon was
+established in its strength, and has since remained the strongest element
+of English ethnography.
+
+
+IV. DANISH INVASIONS.--But Saxon Britain was also to suffer from
+continental incursions. The Scandinavians--inhabitants of Norway, Sweden,
+and Denmark--impelled by the same spirit of piratical adventure which had
+actuated the Saxons, began to leave their homes for foreign conquest.
+"Impatient of a bleak climate and narrow limits, they started from the
+banquet, grasped their arms, sounded their horn, ascended their ships, and
+explored every coast that promised either spoil or settlement."[3] To
+England they came as Danes; to France, as Northmen or Normans. They took
+advantage of the Saxon wars with the British, of Saxon national feuds, and
+of that enervation which luxurious living had induced in the Saxon kings
+of the octarchy, and succeeded in occupying a large portion of the north
+and east of England; and they have exerted in language, in physical type,
+and in manners a far greater influence than has been usually conceded.
+Indeed, the Danish chapter in English history has not yet been fairly
+written. They were men of a singularly bold and adventurous spirit, as is
+evinced by their voyages to Iceland, Greenland, and thence to the Atlantic
+coast of North America, as early as the tenth and eleventh centuries. It
+is more directly to our purpose to observe their character as it is
+displayed in their conquest of the Frankish kingdom of Neustria, in their
+facile reception and ready assimilation of the Roman language and arts
+which they found in Gaul, and in their forcible occupancy, under William
+the Conqueror, of Saxon England, in 1066.
+
+
+V. THE NORMAN CONQUEST.--The vigor of the Normans had been trained, but
+not weakened by their culture in Normandy. They maintained their supremacy
+in arms against the efforts of the kings of France. They had long
+cultivated intimate relations with England, and their dukes had long
+hankered for its possession. William, the natural son of Duke
+Robert--known to history and musical romance as Robert le Diable--was a
+man of strong mind, tenacious purpose, and powerful hand. He had obtained,
+by promise of Edward the Confessor, the reversion of the crown upon the
+death of that monarch; and when the issue came, he availed himself of
+that reversion and the Pope's sanction, and also of the disputed
+succession between Harold, the son of Godwin, and the true Saxon heir,
+Edgar Atheling, to make good his claim by force of arms.
+
+Under him the Normans were united, while divisions existed in the Saxon
+ranks. Tostig, the brother of Harold, and Harald Hardrada, the King of
+Norway, combined against Harold, and, just before the landing of Duke
+William at Pevensey, on the coast of Sussex, Harold was obliged to march
+rapidly northward to Stanford bridge, to defeat Tostig and the Norwegians,
+and then to return with a tired army of uncertain _morale_, to encounter
+the invading Normans. Thus it appears that William conquered the land,
+which would have been invincible had the leaders and the people been
+united in its defence.
+
+As the Saxons, Danes, and Normans were of the same great Teutonic family,
+however modified by the different circumstances of movement and residence,
+there was no new ethnic element introduced; and, paradoxical as it may
+seem, the fusion of these peoples was of great benefit, in the end, to
+England. Though the Saxons at first suffered from Norman oppression, the
+kingdom was brought into large inter-European relations, and a far better
+literary culture was introduced, more varied in subject, more developed in
+point of language, and more artistic.
+
+Thus much, in a brief historical summary, is necessary as an introduction
+to our subject. From all these contests and conquests there were wrought
+in the language of the country important changes, which are to be studied
+in the standard works of its literature.
+
+
+CHANGES IN LANGUAGE.--The changes and transformations of language may be
+thus briefly stated:--In the Celtic period, before the arrival of the
+Romans, the people spoke different dialects of the Celtic and Gadhelic
+languages, all cognate and radically similar.
+
+These were not much affected by the occupancy of the Romans for about four
+hundred and fifty years, although, doubtless, Latin words, expressive of
+things and notions of which the British had no previous knowledge, were
+adopted by them, and many of the Celtic inhabitants who submitted to these
+conquerors learned and used the Latin language.
+
+When the Romans departed, and the Saxons came in numbers, in the fifth and
+sixth centuries, the Saxon language, which is the foundation of English,
+became the current speech of the realm; adopting few Celtic words, but
+retaining a considerable number of the Celtic names of places, as it also
+did of Latin terminations in names.
+
+Before the coming of the Normans, their language, called the _Langue
+d'oil_, or Norman French, had been very much favored by educated
+Englishmen; and when William conquered England, he tried to supplant the
+Saxon entirely. In this he was not successful; but the two languages were
+interfused and amalgamated, so that in the middle of the twelfth century,
+there had been thus created the _English language_, formed but still
+formative. The Anglo-Saxon was the foundation, or basis; while the Norman
+French is observed to be the principal modifying element.
+
+Since the Norman conquest, numerous other elements have entered, most of
+them quietly, without the concomitant of political revolution or foreign
+invasion.
+
+Thus the Latin, being used by the Church, and being the language of
+literary and scientific comity throughout the world, was constantly adding
+words and modes of expression to the English. The introduction of Greek
+into Western Europe, at the fall of Constantinople, supplied Greek words,
+and induced a habit of coining English words from the Greek. The
+establishment of the Hanoverian succession, after the fall of the Stuarts,
+brought in the practice and study of German, and somewhat of its
+phraseology; and English conquests in the East have not failed to
+introduce Indian words, and, what is far better, to open the way for a
+fuller study of comparative philology and linguistics.
+
+In a later chapter we shall reconsider the periods referred to, in an
+examination of the literary works which they contain, works produced by
+historical causes, and illustrative of historical events.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+LITERATURE A TEACHER OF HISTORY. CELTIC REMAINS.
+
+
+   The Uses of Literature. Italy, France, England. Purpose of the Work.
+   Celtic Literary Remains. Druids and Druidism. Roman Writers. Psalter of
+   Cashel. Welsh Triads and Mabinogion. Gildas and St. Colm.
+
+
+
+THE USES OF LITERATURE.
+
+
+Before examining these periods in order to find the literature produced in
+them, it will be well to consider briefly what are the practical uses of
+literature, and to set forth, as a theme, that particular utility which it
+is the object of these pages to inculcate and apply.
+
+The uses of literature are manifold. Its study gives wholesome food to the
+mind, making it strong and systematic. It cultivates and delights the
+imagination and the taste of men. It refines society by elevating the
+thoughts and aspirations above what is sensual and sordid, and by checking
+the grosser passions; it makes up, in part, that "multiplication of
+agreeable consciousness" which Dr. Johnson calls happiness. Its
+adaptations in religion, in statesmanship, in legislative and judicial
+inquiry, are productive of noble and beneficent results. History shows us,
+that while it has given to the individual man, in all ages, contemplative
+habits, and high moral tone, it has thus also been a powerful instrument
+in producing the brilliant civilization of mighty empires.
+
+
+A TEACHER OF HISTORY.--But apart from these its subjective benefits, it
+has its highest and most practical utility as a TEACHER OF HISTORY.
+Ballads, more powerful than laws, shouted forth from a nation's heart,
+have been in part the achievers, and afterward the victorious hymns, of
+its new-born freedom, and have been also used in after ages to reinspire
+the people with the spirit of their ancestors. Immortal epics not only
+present magnificent displays of heroism for imitation, but, like the Iliad
+and Odyssey, still teach the theogony, national policy, and social history
+of a people, after the Bema has long been silent, the temples in ruin, and
+the groves prostrate under the axe of repeated conquests.
+
+Satires have at once exhibited and scourged social faults and national
+follies, and remained to after times as most essential materials for
+history.
+
+Indeed, it was a quaint but just assertion of Hare, in his "Guesses at
+Truth," that in Greek history there is nothing truer than Herodotus except
+Homer.
+
+
+ITALY AND FRANCE.--Passing by the classic periods, which afford abundant
+illustration of the position, it would be easy to exhibit the clear and
+direct historic teachings in purely literary works, by a reference to the
+literature of Italy and France. The history of the age of the Guelphs and
+Ghibellines is clearly revealed in the vision of Dante: the times of Louis
+XIV. are amply illustrated by the pulpit of Massillon, Bourdaloue, and
+Bridaine, and by the drama of Corneille, Racine, and Moliere.
+
+
+ENGLISH LITERATURE THE BEST ILLUSTRATION.--But in seeking for an
+illustration of the position that literature is eminently a teacher and
+interpreter of history, we are fortunate in finding none more striking
+than that presented by English literature itself. All the great events of
+English history find complete correspondent delineation in English
+literature, so that, were the purely historical record lost, we should
+have in the works of poetry, fiction, and the drama, correct portraitures
+of the character, habits, manners and customs, political sentiments, and
+modes and forms of religious belief among the English people; in a word,
+the philosophy of English history.
+
+In the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Dryden, and Addison, are to
+be found the men and women, kings, nobles, and commons, descriptions of
+English nature, hints of the progress of science and advancement in art;
+the conduct of government, the force of prevailing fashions--in a word,
+the moving life of the time, and not its dry historic record.
+
+"Authors," says the elder D'Israeli, "are the creators or creatures of
+opinion: the great form the epoch; the many reflect the age."
+Chameleon-like, most of them take the political, social, and religious
+hues of the period in which they live, while a few illustrate it perhaps
+quite as forcibly by violent opposition and invective.
+
+We shall see that in Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_ and in Gower's _Vox
+Clamantis_ are portrayed the political ferments and theological
+controversies of the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. Spenser decks
+the history of his age in gilded mantle and flowing plumes, in his tribute
+to Gloriana, The Faery Queen, who is none other than Elizabeth herself.
+Literature partakes of the fierce polemic and religious enthusiasm which
+mark the troublous times of the Civil War; it becomes tawdry, tinselled,
+and licentious at the Restoration, and develops into numerous classes and
+more serious instruction, under the constitutional reigns of the house of
+Hanover, in which the kings were bad, but the nation prosperous because
+the rights of the people were guaranteed.
+
+Many of the finest works of English literature are _purely and directly
+historical_; what has been said is intended to refer more particularly to
+those that are not--the unconscious, undesigned teachers of history, such
+as fiction, poetry, and the drama.
+
+
+PURPOSE OF THE WORK.--Such, then, is the purpose of this volume--to
+indicate the teachings of history in the principal productions of English
+literature. Only the standard authors will be considered, and the student
+will not be overburdened with statistics, which it must be a part of his
+task to collect for himself. And now let us return to the early literature
+embodied in those languages which have preceded the English on British
+soil; or which, by their combination, have formed the English language.
+For, the English language may be properly compared to a stream, which,
+rising in a feeble source, receives in its seaward flow many tributaries,
+large and small, until it becomes a lordly river. The works of English
+literature may be considered as the ships and boats which it bears upon
+its bosom: near its source the craft are small and frail; as it becomes
+more navigable, statelier vessels are launched upon it, until, in its
+majestic and lakelike extensions, rich navies ride, freighted with wealth
+and power--the heavy ordnance of defence and attack, the products of
+Eastern looms, the precious metals and jewels from distant mines--the best
+exponents of the strength and prosperity of the nation through which flows
+the river of speech, bearing the treasures of mind.
+
+
+CELTIC LITERARY REMAINS. THE DRUIDS.--Let us take up the consideration of
+literature in Britain in the order of the conquests mentioned in the first
+chapter.
+
+We recur to Britain while inhabited by the Celts, both before and after
+the Roman occupation. The extent of influence exercised by the Latin
+language upon the Celtic dialects cannot be determined; it seems to have
+been slight, and, on the other hand, it may be safely assumed that the
+Celtic did not contribute much to the world-absorbing Latin.
+
+The chief feature, and a very powerful one, of the Celtic polity, was
+_Druidism_. At its head was a priesthood, not in the present meaning of
+the word, but in the more extended acceptation which it received in the
+middle ages, when it embraced the whole class of men of letters. Although
+we have very few literary remains, the system, wisdom, and works of the
+Druids form one of the strong foundation-stones of English literature and
+of English national customs, and should be studied on that account. The
+_Druid_ proper was governor, judge, philosopher, expounder, and
+executioner. The _ovaidd_, or _ovates_, were the priests, chiefly
+concerned in the study of theology and the practice of religion. The
+_bards_ were heroic poets of rare lyric power; they kept the national
+traditions in trust, and claimed the second sight and the power of
+prophecy. Much has been said of their human sacrifices in colossal images
+of wicker-work--the "_immani magnitudine simulacra_" of Caesar--which were
+filled with human victims, and which crackled and disappeared in towering
+flame and columns of smoke, amid the loud chantings of the bards. The most
+that can be said in palliation of this custom is, that almost always such
+a scene presented the judicial execution of criminals, invested with the
+solemnities of religion.
+
+In their theology, _Esus_, the God Force--the Eternal Father--has for his
+agents the personification of spiritual light, of immortality, of nature,
+and of heroism; _Camul_ was the war-god; _Tarann_ the thunder-god; _Heol_,
+the king of the sun, who inflames the soldier's heart, and gives vitality
+to the corn and the grape.[4]
+
+But Druidism, which left its monuments like Stonehenge, and its strong
+traces in English life, now especially found in Wales and other
+mountainous parts of the kingdom, has not left any written record.
+
+
+ROMAN WRITERS.--Of the Roman occupancy we have Roman and Greek accounts,
+many of them by those who took part in the doings of the time. Among the
+principal writers are _Julius Caesar_, _Tacitus_, _Diodorus Siculus_,
+_Strabo_, and _Suetonius_.
+
+
+PSALTER OF CASHEL.--Of the later Celtic efforts, almost all are in Latin:
+the oldest Irish work extant is called the _Psalter of Cashel_, which is a
+compilation of the songs of the early bards, and of metrical legends, made
+in the ninth century by _Cormac Mac Culinan_, who claimed to be King of
+Munster and Bishop of Cashel.
+
+
+THE WELSH TRIADS.--The next of the important Celtic remains is called _The
+Welsh Triads_, an early but progressive work of the Cymbric Celts. Some of
+the triads are of very early date, and others of a much later period. The
+work is said to have been compiled in its present form by _Caradoc of
+Nantgarvan_ and _Jevan Brecha_, in the thirteenth century. It contains a
+record of "remarkable men and things which have been in the island of
+Britain, and of the events which befell the race of the Cymri from the age
+of ages," i.e. from the beginning. It has also numerous moral proverbs. It
+is arranged in _triads_, or sets of three.
+
+As an example, we have one triad giving "The three of the race of the
+island of Britain: _Hu Gadarn_, (who first brought the race into Britain;)
+_Prydain_, (who first established regal government,) and _Dynwal Moelmud_,
+(who made a system of laws.)" Another triad presents "The three benevolent
+tribes of Britain: the _Cymri_, (who came with Hu Gadarn from
+Constantinople;) the _Lolegrwys_, (who came from the Loire,) and the
+_Britons_"
+
+Then are mentioned the tribes that came with consent and under protection,
+viz., the _Caledonians_, the _Gwyddelian race_, and the men of _Galedin_,
+who came from the continent "when their country was drowned;" the last
+inhabited the Isle of Wight. Another mentions the three usurping tribes;
+the _Coranied_, the _Gwydel-Fichti_, (from Denmark,) and the _Saxons_.
+Although the _compilation_ is so modern, most of the triads date from the
+sixth century.
+
+
+THE MABINOGION.--Next in order of importance of the Celtic remains must be
+mentioned the Mabinogion, or _Tales for Youth_, a series of romantic
+tales, illustrative of early British life, some of which have been
+translated from the Celtic into English. Among these the most elaborate is
+the _Tale of Peredur_, a regular Romance of Arthur, entirely Welsh in
+costume and character.
+
+
+BRITISH BARDS.--A controversy has been fiercely carried on respecting the
+authenticity of poems ascribed to _Aneurin_, _Taliesin_, _Llywarch Hen_,
+and _Merdhin_, or _Merlin_, four famous British bards of the fifth and
+sixth centuries, who give us the original stories respecting Arthur,
+representing him not as a "miraculous character," as the later histories
+do, but as a courageous warrior worthy of respect but not of wonder. The
+burden of the evidence, carefully collected and sifted by Sharon
+Turner,[5] seems to be in favor of the authenticity of these poems.
+
+These works are fragmentary and legendary: they have given few elements to
+the English language, but they show us the condition and culture of the
+British mind in that period, and the nature of the people upon whom the
+Saxons imposed their yoke. "The general spirit [of the early British
+poetry] is much more Druidical than Christian,"[6] and in its mysterious
+and legendary nature, while it has been not without value as a historical
+representation of that early period, it has offered rare material for
+romantic poetry from that day to the present time. It is on this account
+especially that these works should be studied.
+
+
+GILDAS.--Among the writers who must be considered as belonging to the
+Celtic race, although they wrote in Latin, the most prominent is _Gildas_.
+He was the son of Caw, (Alcluyd, a British king,) who was also the father
+of the famous bard Aneurin. Many have supposed Gildas and Aneurin to be
+the same person, so vague are the accounts of both. If not, they were
+brothers. Gildas was a British bard, who, when converted to Christianity,
+became a Christian priest, and a missionary among his own people. He was
+born at Dumbarton in the middle of the sixth century, and was surnamed
+_the Wise_. His great work, the History of the Britons, is directly
+historical: his account extends from the first invasion of Britain down to
+his own time.
+
+A true Celt, he is a violent enemy of the Roman conquerors first, and then
+of the Saxon invaders. He speaks of the latter as "the nefarious Saxons,
+of detestable name, hated alike by God and man; ... a band of devils
+breaking forth from the den of the barbarian lioness."
+
+The history of Gildas, although not of much statistical value, sounds a
+clear Celtic note against all invaders, and displays in many parts
+characteristic outlines of the British people.
+
+
+ST. COLUMBANUS.--St. Colm, or Columbanus, who was born in 521, was the
+founder and abbot of a monastery in Iona, one of the Hebrides, which is
+also called Icolmkill--the Isle of Colm's Cell. The Socrates of that
+retreat, he found his Plato in the person of a successor, St. Adamnan,
+whose "Vita Sancti Columbae" is an early work of curious historical
+importance. St. Adamnan became abbot in 679.
+
+A backward glance at the sparse and fragmentary annals of the Celtic
+people, will satisfy us that they have but slight claims to an original
+share in English literature. Some were in the Celtic dialects, others in
+Latin. They have given themes, indeed, to later scholars, but have left
+little trace in form and language. The common Celtic words retained in
+English are exceedingly few, although their number has not been decided.
+They form, in some sense, a portion of the foundation on which the
+structure of our literature has been erected, without being in any manner
+a part of the building itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE AND HISTORY.
+
+
+   The Lineage of the Anglo-Saxon. Earliest Saxon Poem. Metrical
+   Arrangement. Periphrasis and Alliteration. Beowulf. Caedmon. Other
+   Saxon Fragments. The Appearance of Bede.
+
+
+
+THE LINEAGE OF THE ANGLO-SAXON.
+
+
+The true origin of English literature is Saxon. Anglo-Saxon is the mother
+tongue of the English language, or, to state its genealogy more
+distinctly, and to show its family relations at a glance, take the
+following divisions and subdivisions of the
+
+                          TEUTONIC CLASS.
+                                |
+           .--------------------+-------------------.
+           |                    |                   |
+   High German branch.  Low German branch.  Scandinavian branch.
+                                |
+                        Dead    |  Languages.
+      .----------+--------------+-------------+------------.
+      |          |              |             |            |
+   Gothic.   Old Dutch.    Anglo-Saxon.  Old Frisian.  Old Saxon.
+                                |
+                             English.
+
+Without attempting an analysis of English to find the exact proportion of
+Saxon words, it must be observed that Saxon is the root-language of
+English; it might with propriety be called the oldest English; it has been
+manipulated, modified, and developed in its contact with other
+languages--remaining, however, _radically_ the same--to become our present
+spoken language.
+
+At this period of our inquiry, we have to do with the Saxon itself,
+premising, however, that it has many elements from the Dutch, and that its
+Scandinavian relations are found in many Danish words. The progress and
+modifications of the language in that formative process which made it the
+English, will be mentioned as we proceed in our inquiries.
+
+In speaking of the Anglo-Saxon literature, we include a consideration also
+of those works written in Latin which are products of the times, and bear
+a part in the progress of the people and their literature. They are
+exponents of the Saxon mind, frequently of more value than the vernacular
+writings.
+
+
+EARLIEST SAXON POEM.--The earliest literary monument in the Saxon language
+is the poem called Beowulf, the author and antiquity of which are alike
+unknown. It is at once a romantic legend and an instructive portraiture of
+the earliest Saxon period--"an Anglo-Saxon poetical romance," says Sharon
+Turner, "true in costume and manners, but with an invented story." Before
+proceeding to a consideration of this poem, let us look for a moment at
+some of the characteristics of Saxon poetry. As to its subject-matter, it
+is not much of a love-song, that sentiment not being one of its chief
+inspirations. The Saxon imagination was inflamed chiefly by the religious
+and the heroic in war. As to its handling, it abounded in metaphor and
+periphrasis, suggestive images, and parables instead of direct narrative.
+
+
+METRICAL ARRANGEMENT.--As to metrical arrangement, Saxon poetry differed
+from our modern English as well as from the classical models, in that
+their poets followed no laws of metre, but arranged their vernacular
+verses without any distinct rules, but simply to please the ear. "To such
+a selection and arrangement of words as produced this effect, they added
+the habit of frequently omitting the usual particles, and of conveying
+their meaning in short and contracted phrases. The only artifices they
+used were those of inversion and transition."[7] It is difficult to give
+examples to those unacquainted with the language, but the following
+extract may serve to indicate our meaning: it is taken from Beowulf:
+
+    Crist waer a cennijd
+    Cyninga wuldor
+    On midne winter:
+    Maere theoden!
+    Ece almihtig!
+    On thij eahteothan daeg
+    Hael end gehaten
+    Heofon ricet theard.
+
+    Christ was born
+    King of glory
+    In mid-winter:
+    Illustrious King!
+    Eternal, Almighty!
+    On the eighth day
+    Saviour was called,
+    Of Heaven's kingdom ruler.
+
+
+PERIPHRASIS.--Their periphrasis, or finding figurative names for persons
+and things, is common to the Norse poetry. Thus Caedmon, in speaking of
+the ark, calls it the _sea-house, the palace of the ocean, the wooden
+fortress_, and by many other periphrastic names.
+
+
+ALLITERATION.--The Saxons were fond of alliteration, both in prose and
+verse. They used it without special rules, but simply to satisfy their
+taste for harmony in having many words beginning with the same letter; and
+thus sometimes making an arbitrary connection between the sentences or
+clauses in a discourse, e.g.:
+
+    Firum foldan;
+    Frea almihtig;
+
+    The ground for men
+    Almighty ruler.
+
+The nearest approach to a rule was that three words in close connection
+should begin with the same letter. The habit of ellipsis and transposition
+is illustrated by the following sentence in Alfred's prose: "So doth the
+moon with his pale light, that the bright stars he obscures in the
+heavens;" which he thus renders in poetry:
+
+    With pale light
+    Bright stars
+    Moon lesseneth.
+
+With this brief explanation, which is only intended to be suggestive to
+the student, we return to Beowulf.
+
+
+THE PLOT OF BEOWULF.--The poem contains six thousand lines, in which are
+told the wonderful adventures of the valiant viking Beowulf, who is
+supposed to have fallen in Jutland in the year 340. The Danish king
+Hrothgar, in whose great hall banquet, song, and dance are ever going on,
+is subjected to the stated visits of a giant, Grendel, a descendant of
+Cain, who destroys the Danish knights and people, and against whom no
+protection can be found.
+
+Beowulf, the hero of the epic, appears. He is a great chieftain, the
+_heorth-geneat_ (hearth-companion, or vassal) of a king named Higelac. He
+assembles his companions, goes over the road of the swans (the sea) to
+Denmark, or Norway, states his purpose to Hrothgar, and advances to meet
+Grendel. After an indecisive battle with the giant, and a fierce struggle
+with the giant's mother, who attacks him in the guise of a sea-wolf, he
+kills her, and then destroys Grendel. Upon the death of Hrothgar he
+receives his reward in being made King of the Danes.
+
+With this occurrence the original poem ends: it is the oldest epic poem in
+any modern language. At a later day, new cantos were added, which,
+following the fortunes of the hero, record at length that he was killed by
+a dragon. A digest and running commentary of the poem may be found in
+Turner's Anglo-Saxons; and no one can read it without discerning the
+history shining clearly out of the mists of fable. The primitive manners,
+modes of life, forms of expression, are all historically delineated. In it
+the intimate relations between the _king_ and his people are portrayed.
+The Saxon _cyning_ is compounded of _cyn_, people, and _ing_, a son or
+descendant; and this etymology gives the true conditions of their rule:
+they were popular leaders--_elected_ in the witenagemot on the death of
+their predecessors.[8] We observe, too, the spirit of adventure--a rude
+knight-errantry--which characterized these northern sea-kings
+
+    that with such profit and for deceitful glory
+    labor on the wide sea explore its bays
+    amid the contests of the ocean in the deep waters
+    there they for riches till they sleep with their elders.
+
+We may also notice the childish wonder of a rude, primitive, but brave
+people, who magnified a neighboring monarch of great skill and strength,
+or perhaps a malarious fen, into a giant, and who were pleased with a poem
+which caters to that heroic mythus which no civilization can root out of
+the human breast, and which gives at once charm and popularity to every
+epic.
+
+
+CAEDMON.--Next in order, we find the paraphrase of Scripture by _Caedmon_,
+a monk of Whitby, who died about the year 680. The period in which he
+lived is especially marked by the spread of Christianity in Britain, and
+by a religious zeal mingled with the popular superstitions. The belief was
+universal that holy men had the power to work miracles. The Bible in its
+entire canon was known to few even among the ecclesiastics: treasure-house
+as it was to the more studious clerics, it was almost a sealed book to the
+common people. It would naturally be expected, then, that among the
+earliest literary efforts would be found translations and paraphrases of
+the most interesting portions of the Scripture narrative. It was in
+accordance with the spirit of the age that these productions should be
+attended with something of the marvellous, to give greater effect to the
+doctrine, and be couched in poetic language, the especial delight of
+people in the earlier ages of their history. Thus the writings of Caedmon
+are explained: he was a poor serving-brother in the monastery of Whitby,
+who was, or feigned to be, unable to improvise Scripture stories and
+legends of the saints as his brethren did, and had recourse to a vision
+before he exhibited his fluency.
+
+In a dream, in a stall of oxen of which he was the appointed night-guard,
+an angelic stranger asked him to sing. "I cannot sing," said Caedmon.
+"Sing the creation," said the mysterious visitant. Feeling himself thus
+miraculously aided, Caedmon paraphrased in his dream the Bible story of
+the creation, and not only remembered the verses when he awoke, but found
+himself possessed of the gift of song for all his days.
+
+Sharon Turner has observed that the paraphrase of Caedmon "exhibits much
+of a Miltonic spirit; and if it were clear that Milton had been familiar
+with Saxon, we should be induced to think that he owed something to
+Caedmon." And the elder D'Israeli has collated and compared similar
+passages in the two authors, in his "Amenities of Literature."
+
+Another remarkable Anglo-Saxon fragment is called _Judith_, and gives the
+story of Judith and Holofernes, rendered from the Apocrypha, but with
+circumstances, descriptions, and speeches invented by the unknown author.
+It should be observed, as of historical importance, that the manners and
+characters of that Anglo-Saxon period are applied to the time of Judith,
+and so we have really an Anglo-Saxon romance, marking the progress and
+improvement in their poetic art.
+
+Among the other remains of this time are the death of _Byrhtnoth_, _The
+Fight of Finsborough_, and the _Chronicle of King Lear and his Daughters_,
+the last of which is the foundation of an old play, upon which
+Shakspeare's tragedy of Lear is based.
+
+It should here be noticed that Saxon literature was greatly influenced by
+the conversion of the realm at the close of the sixth century from the
+pagan religion of Woden to Christianity. It displayed no longer the fierce
+genius of the Scalds, inculcating revenge and promising the rewards of
+Walhalla; in spirit it was changed by the doctrine of love, and in form it
+was softened and in some degree--but only for a time--injured by the
+influence of the Latin, the language of the Church. At this time, also,
+there was a large adoption of Latin words into the Saxon, especially in
+theology and ecclesiastical matters.
+
+
+THE ADVENT OF BEDE.--The greatest literary character of the Anglo-Saxon
+period, and the one who is of most value in teaching us the history of the
+times, both directly and indirectly, is the man who has been honored by
+his age as the _venerable Bede_ or _Beda_. He was born at Yarrow, in the
+year 673; and died, after a retired but active, pious, and useful life, in
+735. He wrote an Ecclesiastical history of the English, and dedicated it
+to the most glorious King Ceowulph of Northumberland, one of the monarchs
+of the Saxon Heptarchy. It is in matter and spirit a Saxon work in a Latin
+dress; and, although his work was written in Latin, he is placed among the
+Anglo-Saxon authors because it is as an Englishman that he appears to us
+in his subject, in the honest pride of race and country which he
+constantly manifests, and in the historical information which he has
+conveyed to us concerning the Saxons in England: of a part of the history
+which he relates he was an _eye-witness_; and besides, his work soon
+called forth several translations into Anglo-Saxon, among which that of
+Alfred the Great is the most noted, and would be taken for an original
+Saxon production.
+
+It is worthy of remark, that after the decline of the Saxon literature,
+Bede remained for centuries, both in the original Latin and in the Saxon
+translations, a sealed and buried book; but in the later days, students of
+English literature and history began to look back with eager pleasure to
+that formative period prior to the Norman conquest, when English polity
+and institutions were simple and few, and when their Saxon progenitors
+were masters in the land.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE VENERABLE BEDE AND THE SAXON CHRONICLE.
+
+
+   Biography. Ecclesiastical History. The Recorded Miracles. Bede's Latin.
+   Other Writers. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: its Value. Alfred the Great.
+   Effect of the Danish Invasions.
+
+
+
+BIOGRAPHY.
+
+
+Bede was a precocious youth, whose excellent parts commended him to Bishop
+Benedict. He made rapid progress in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; was a deacon
+at the unusual age of nineteen, and a priest at thirty. It seems probable
+that he always remained in his monastery, engaged in literary labor and
+offices of devotion until his death, which happened while he was dictating
+to his boy amanuensis, "Dear master," said the boy, "there is yet one
+sentence not written." He answered, "Write quickly." Soon after, the boy
+said, "The sentence is now written." He replied. "It is well; you have
+said the truth. Receive my head into your hands, for it is a great
+satisfaction to me to sit facing my holy place where I was wont to pray,
+that I may also sitting, call upon my Father." "And thus, on the pavement
+of his little cell, singing 'Glory be unto the Father, and unto the Son,
+and unto the Holy Ghost,' when he had named the Holy Ghost he breathed his
+last, and so departed to the heavenly kingdom."
+
+
+HIS ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.--His ecclesiastical history opens with a
+description of Britain, including what was known of Scotland and Ireland.
+With a short preface concerning the Church in the earliest times, he
+dwells particularly upon the period, from the arrival of St. Augustine, in
+597, to the year 731, a space of one hundred and thirty-four years, during
+nearly one-half of which the author lived. The principal written works
+from which he drew were the natural history of Pliny, the Hormesta of the
+Spanish priest _Paulus Orosius_, and the history of Gildas. His account of
+the coming of the Anglo-Saxons, "being the traditions of the Kentish
+people concerning Hengist and Horsa," has since proved to be fabulous, as
+the Saxons are now known to have been for a long period, during the Roman
+occupancy, making predatory incursions into Britain before the time of
+their reputed settlement.[9]
+
+For the materials of the principal portions of his history, Bede was
+indebted to correspondence with those parts of England which he did not
+visit, and to the lives of saints and contemporary documents, which
+recorded the numerous miracles and wonders with which his pages are
+filled.
+
+
+BEDE'S RECORDED MIRACLES.--The subject of these miracles has been
+considered at some length by Dr. Arnold,[10] in a very liberal spirit; but
+few readers will agree with him in concluding that with regard to some
+miracles, "there is no strong _a priori_ improbability in their
+occurrence, but rather the contrary." One of the most striking of the
+historical lessons contained in this work, is the credulity and
+superstition which mark the age; and we reason justly and conclusively
+from the denial of the most palpable and absurd, to the repudiation of
+the lesser demands on our credulity. It is sufficient for us that both
+were eagerly believed in his day, and thus complete a picture of the age
+which such a view would only serve to impair, if not destroy. The theology
+of the age is set forth with wonderful clearness, in the numerous
+questions propounded by Augustine to Gregory I., the Bishop of Rome, and
+in the judicious answers of that prelate; in which may also be found the
+true relation which the Church of Rome bore to her English mission.
+
+We have also the statement of the establishment of the archbishoprics of
+Canterbury and York, the bishopric of London, and others.
+
+The last chapter but one, the twenty-third, gives an important account "of
+the present state of the English nation, or of all Britain;" and the
+twenty-fourth contains a chronological recapitulation, from the beginning
+of the year 731, and a list of the author's works. Bede produced, besides
+his history, translations of many books in the Bible, several histories of
+abbots and saints, books of hymns and epigrams, a treatise on orthography,
+and one on poetry.
+
+To point the student to Bede's works, and to indicate their historic
+teachings, is all that can be here accomplished. A careful study of his
+Latin History, as the great literary monument of the Anglo-Saxon period,
+will disclose many important truths which lie beneath the surface, and
+thus escape the cursory reader. Wars and politics, of which the
+Anglo-Saxon chronicle is full, find comparatively little place in his
+pages. The Church was then peaceful, and not polemic; the monasteries were
+sanctuaries in which quiet, devotion, and order reigned. Another phase of
+the literature shows us how the Gentiles raged and the people were
+imagining a vain thing; but Bede, from his undisturbed cell, scarcely
+heard the howlings of the storm, as he wrote of that kingdom which
+promised peace and good-will.
+
+
+BEDE'S LATIN.--To the classical student, the language of Bede offers an
+interesting study. The Latin had already been corrupted, and a nice
+discrimination will show the causes of this corruption--the effects of the
+other living languages, the ignorance of the clergy, and the new subjects
+and ideas to which it was applied.
+
+Bede was in the main more correct than his age, and his vocabulary has few
+words of barbarian origin. He arose like a luminary, and when the light of
+his learning disappeared, but one other star appeared to irradiate the
+gloom which followed his setting; and that was in the person and the reign
+of Alfred.
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THIS AGE.--Among names which must pass with the mere
+mention, the following are, after Bede, the most illustrious in this time.
+_Aldhelm_, Abbot of Malmesbury, who died in the year 709, is noted for his
+scientific computations, and for his poetry: he is said to have translated
+the Psalms into Anglo-Saxon poetry.
+
+_Alcuin_, the pride of two countries, England and France, was born in the
+year of Bede's death: renowned as an Englishman for his great learning, he
+was invited by Charlemagne to his court, and aided that distinguished
+sovereign in the scholastic and literary efforts which render his reign so
+illustrious. Alcuin died in 804.
+
+The works of Alcuin are chiefly theological treatises, but he wrote a life
+of Charlemagne, which has unfortunately been lost, and which would have
+been invaluable to history in the dearth of memorials of that emperor and
+his age.
+
+_Alfric_, surnamed Grammaticus, (died 1006,) was an Archbishop of
+Canterbury, in the tenth century, who wrote eighty homilies, and was, in
+his opposition to Romish doctrine, one of the earliest English reformers.
+
+_John Scotus Erigena_, who flourished at the beginning of the ninth
+century, in the brightest age of Irish learning, settled in France, and is
+known as a subtle and learned scholastic philosopher. His principal work
+is a treatise "On the Division of Nature," Both names, _Scotus_ and
+_Erigena_, indicate his Irish origin; the original _Scoti_ being
+inhabitants of the North of Ireland.
+
+_Dunstan_, (925-988,) commonly called Saint Dunstan, was a powerful and
+dictatorial Archbishop of Canterbury, who used the superstitions of
+monarch and people to enable him to exercise a marvellous supremacy in the
+realm. He wrote commentaries on the Benedictine rule.
+
+These writers had but a remote and indirect bearing upon the progress of
+literature in England, and are mentioned rather as contemporary, than as
+distinct subjects of our study.
+
+
+THE ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE.--We now reach the valuable and purely
+historical compilation known as the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, which is a
+chronological arrangement of events in English history, from the birth of
+Christ to the year 1154, in the reign of Henry the Second. It is the most
+valuable epitome of English history during that long period.
+
+It is written in Anglo-Saxon, and was begun soon after the time of Alfred,
+at least as a distinct work. In it we may trace the changes in the
+language from year to year, and from century to century, as it passed from
+unmixed Saxon until, as the last records are by contemporary hands, it
+almost melted into modern English, which would hardly trouble an
+Englishman of the present day to read.
+
+The first part of the Chronicle is a table of events, many of them
+fabulous, which had been originally jotted down by Saxon monks, abbots,
+and bishops. To these partial records, King Alfred furnished additional
+information, as did also, in all probability, Alfric and Dunstan. These
+were collected into permanent form by Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury,
+who brought the annals up to the year 891; from that date they were
+continued in the monasteries. Of the Saxon Chronicle there are no less
+than seven accredited ancient copies, of which the shortest extends to the
+year 977, and the longest to 1154; the others extend to intermediate
+dates.
+
+
+ITS VALUE.--The value of the Chronicle as a statistic record of English
+history cannot be over-estimated; it moves before the student of English
+literature like a diorama, picturing the events in succession, not without
+glimpses of their attendant philosophy. We learn much of the nation's
+thoughts, troubles, mental, moral, and physical conditions, social laws,
+and manners. As illustrations we may refer to the romantic adventures of
+King Alfred; and to the conquest of Saxon England by William of
+Normandy--"all as God granted them," says the pious chronicler, "for the
+people's sins." And he afterward adds, "Bishop Odo and William the Earl
+built castles wide throughout the nation, and poor people distressed; and
+ever after it greatly grew in evil: may the end be good when God will."
+Although for the most part written in prose, the annals of several years
+are given in the alliterative Saxon verse.
+
+A good English translation of Bede's history, and one of the Chronicle,
+edited by Dr. Giles, have been issued together by Bohn in one volume of
+his Antiquarian library. To the student of English history and of English
+literature, the careful perusal of both, in conjunction, is an imperative
+necessity.
+
+
+ALFRED THE GREAT.--Among the best specimens of Saxon prose are the
+translations and paraphrases of King _Alfred_, justly called the Great and
+the Truth-teller, the noblest monarch of the Saxon period. The kingdoms of
+the heptarchy, or octarchy, had been united under the dominion of Egbert,
+the King of Wessex, in the year 827, and thus formed the kingdom of
+England. But this union of the kingdoms was in many respects nominal
+rather than really complete; as Alfred frequently subscribes himself _King
+of the West Saxons_. It was a confederation to gain strength against their
+enemies. On the one hand, the inhabitants of North, South, and West Wales
+were constantly rising against Wessex and Mercia; and on the other, until
+the accession of Alfred upon the death of his brother Ethelred, in 871,
+every year of the Chronicle is marked by fierce battles with the troops
+and fleets of the Danes on the eastern and southern coasts.
+
+It redounds greatly to the fame of Alfred that he could find time and
+inclination in his troubled and busy reign, so harassed with wars by land
+and sea, for the establishment of wise laws, the building or rebuilding of
+large cities, the pursuit of letters, and the interest of education. To
+give his subjects, grown-up nobles as well as children, the benefits of
+historical examples, he translated the work of Orosius, a compendious
+history of the world, a work of great repute; and to enlighten the
+ecclesiastics, he made versions of parts of Bede; of the Pastorale of
+Gregory the First; of the Soliloquies of St. Augustine, and of the work of
+Boethius, _De Consolatione Philosophiae_. Beside these principal works are
+other minor efforts. In all his writings, he says he "sometimes interprets
+word for word, and sometimes meaning for meaning." With Alfred went down
+the last gleams of Saxon literature. Troubles were to accumulate steadily
+and irresistibly upon the soil of England, and the sword took the place of
+the pen.
+
+
+THE DANES.--The Danes thronged into the realm in new incursions, until
+850,000 of them were settled in the North and East of England. The
+Danegelt or tribute, displaying at once the power of the invaders and the
+cowardice and effeminacy of the Saxon monarchs, rose to a large sum, and
+two millions[11] of Saxons were powerless to drive the invaders away. In
+the year 1016, after the weak and wicked reign of the besotted _Ethelred_,
+justly surnamed the _Unready_, who to his cowardice in paying tribute
+added the cruelty of a wholesale massacre on St. Brice's Eve--since called
+the Danish St. Bartholomew--the heroic Edmund Ironsides could not stay the
+storm, but was content to divide the kingdom with _Knud_ (Canute) the
+Great. Literary efforts were at an end. For twenty-two years the Danish
+kings sat upon the throne of all England; and when the Saxon line was
+restored in the person of Edward the Confessor, a monarch not calculated
+to restore order and impart strength, in addition to the internal sources
+of disaster, a new element of evil had sprung up in the power and cupidity
+of the Normans.
+
+Upon the death of Edward the Confessor, the claimants to the throne were
+_Harold_, the son of Godwin, and _William of Normandy_, both ignoring the
+claims of the Saxon heir apparent, Edgar Atheling. Harold, as has been
+already said, fell a victim to the dissensions in his own ranks, as well
+as to the courage and strength of William, and thus Saxon England fell
+under Norman rule.
+
+
+THE LITERARY PHILOSOPHY.--The literary philosophy of this period does not
+lie far beneath the surface of the historic record. Saxon literature was
+expiring by limitation. During the twelfth century, the Saxon language was
+completely transformed into English. The intercourse of many previous
+years had introduced a host of Norman French words; inflections had been
+lost; new ideas, facts, and objects had sprung up, requiring new names.
+The dying Saxon literature was overshadowed by the strength and growth of
+the Norman, and it had no royal patron and protector since Alfred. The
+superior art-culture and literary attainments of the South, had long been
+silently making their impression in England; and it had been the custom to
+send many of the English youth of noble families to France to be educated.
+
+Saxon chivalry[12] was rude and unattractive in comparison with the
+splendid armor, the gay tournaments, and the witching minstrelsy which
+signalized French chivalry; and thus the peaceful elements of conquest
+were as seductive as the force of arms was potent. A dynasty which had
+ruled for more than six hundred years was overthrown; a great chapter in
+English history was closed. A new order was established, and a new chapter
+in England's annals was begun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE NORMAN CONQUEST AND ITS EARLIEST LITERATURE.
+
+
+   Norman Rule. Its Oppression. Its Benefits. William of Malmesbury.
+   Geoffrey of Monmouth. Other Latin Chronicles. Anglo-Norman Poets.
+   Richard Wace. Other Poets.
+
+
+
+NORMAN RULE.
+
+
+With the conquest of England, and as one of the strongest elements of its
+permanency, the feudal system was brought into England; the territory was
+surveyed and apportioned to be held by military tenure; to guard against
+popular insurrections, the curfew rigorously housed the Saxons at night; a
+new legislature, called a parliament, or talking-ground, took the place of
+the witenagemot, or assembly of the wise: it was a conquest not only in
+name but in truth; everything was changed by the conqueror's right, and
+the Saxons were entirely subjected.
+
+
+ITS OPPRESSION.--In short, the Norman conquest, from the day of the battle
+of Hastings, brought the Saxon people under a galling yoke. The Norman was
+everywhere an oppressor. Besides his right as a conqueror, he felt a
+contempt for the rudeness of the Saxon. He was far more able to govern and
+to teach. He founded rich abbeys; schools like those of Oxford and
+Cambridge he expanded into universities like that of Paris. He filled all
+offices of profit and trust, and created many which the Saxons had not. In
+place of the Saxon English, which, however vigorous, was greatly wanting
+in what may be called the vocabulary of progress, the Norman French,
+drawing constantly upon the Latin, enriched by the enactments of
+Charlemagne and the tributes of Italy, even in its infancy a language of
+social comity in Western Europe, was spoken at court, introduced into the
+courts of law, taught in the schools, and threatened to submerge and drown
+out the vernacular.[13] All inducements to composition in English were
+wanting; delicious songs of Norman Trouveres chanted in the _Langue
+d'oil_, and stirring tales of Troubadours in the _Langue d'oc_, carried
+the taste captive away from the Saxon, as a regal banquet lures from the
+plain fare of the cottage board, more wholesome but less attractive.
+
+
+ITS BENEFITS.--Had this progress continued, had this grasp of power
+remained without hinderance or relaxation, the result would have been the
+destruction or amalgamation of the vigorous English, so as to form a
+romance language similar to the French, and only different in the amount
+of Northern and local words. But the Norman power, without losing its
+title, was to find a limit to its encroachments. This limit was fixed,
+_first_, by the innate hardihood and firmness of the Saxon character,
+which, though cast down and oppressed, retained its elasticity; which
+cherished its language in spite of Norman threats and sneers, and which
+never lost heart while waiting for better times; _secondly_, by the
+insular position of Great Britain, fortified by the winds and waves, which
+enabled her to assimilate and mould anew whatever came into her borders,
+to the discomfiture of further continental encroachments; constituting
+her, in the words of Shakspeare,
+
+    "... that pale, that white-faced shore,
+    Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides,
+    And coops from other lands her islanders;"
+
+and, _thirdly_, to the Crusades, which, attracting the nobles to
+adventures in Palestine, lifted the heel of Norman oppression off the
+Saxon neck, and gave that opportunity, which alone was needed, to make
+England in reality, if not in name--in thews, sinews, and mental strength,
+if not in regal state and aristocratic privilege--Saxon-England in all its
+future history. Other elements are still found, but the Saxon greatly
+predominates.
+
+The historian of that day might well bemoan the fate of the realm, as in
+the Saxon Chronicle already quoted. To the philosopher of to-day, this
+Norman conquest and its results were of incalculable value to England, by
+bringing her into relations with the continent, by enduing her with a
+weight and influence in the affairs of Europe which she could never
+otherwise have attained, and by giving a new birth to a noble literature
+which has had no superior in any period of the world's history.
+
+As our subject does not require, and our space will not warrant the
+consideration of the rise and progress of French literature, before its
+introduction with the Normans into England, we shall begin with the first
+fruits after its transplantation into British soil. But before doing so,
+it becomes necessary to mention certain Latin chronicles which furnished
+food for these Anglo-Norman poets and legendists.
+
+
+WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY.--_William of Malmesbury_, the first Latin historian
+of distinction, who is contemporary with the Norman conquest, wrote a work
+called the "Heroic Deeds of the English Kings," (_Gesta Regum Anglorum_,)
+which extends from the arrival of the Saxons to the year 1120; another,
+"The New History," (_Historia Novella_,) brings the history down to 1142.
+Notwithstanding the credulity of the age, and his own earnest recital of
+numerous miracles, these works are in the main truthful, and of real value
+to the historical student. In the contest between Matilda and Stephen for
+the succession of the English crown, William of Malmesbury is a strong
+partisan of the former, and his work thus stands side by side, for those
+who would have all the arguments, with the _Gesta Stephani_, by an unknown
+contemporary, which is written in the interest of Stephen.
+
+
+GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH.--More famous than the monk of Malmesbury, but by no
+means so truthful, stands _Geoffrey of Monmouth_, Archdeacon of Monmouth
+and Bishop of St. Asaph's, a writer to whom the rhyming chronicles and
+Anglo-Norman poets have owed so much. Walter, a Deacon of Oxford, it is
+said, had procured from Brittany a Welsh chronicle containing a history of
+the Britons from the time of one Brutus, a great-grandson of AEneas, down
+to the seventh century of our era. From this, partly in translation and
+partly in original creation, Geoffrey wrote his "History of the Britons."
+Catering to the popular prejudice, he revived, and in part created, the
+deeds of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table--fabulous heroes who
+have figured in the best English poetry from that day to the present,
+their best presentation having been made in the Idyls of the King,
+(Arthur,) by Tennyson.
+
+The popular philosophy of Geoffrey's work is found in the fact, that while
+in Bede and in the Saxon Chronicle the Britons had not been portrayed in
+such a manner as to flatter the national vanity, which seeks for remote
+antecedents of greatness; under the guise of the Chronicle of Brittany,
+Geoffrey undertook to do this. Polydore Virgil distinctly condemns him for
+relating "many fictitious things of King Arthur and the ancient Britons,
+invented by himself, and pretended to be translated by him into Latin,
+which he palms on the world with the sacred name of true history;" and
+this view is substantiated by the fact that the earlier writers speak of
+Arthur as a prince and a warrior, of no colossal fame--"well known, but
+not idolized.... That he was a courageous warrior is unquestionable; but
+that he was the miraculous Mars of the British history, from whom kings
+and nations shrunk in panic, is completely disproved by the temperate
+encomiums of his contemporary bards."[14]
+
+It is of great historical importance to observe the firm hold taken by
+this fabulous character upon the English people, as evinced by the fact
+that he has been a popular hero of the English epic ever since. Spenser
+adopted him as the presiding genius of his "Fairy Queen," and Milton
+projected a great epic on his times, before he decided to write the
+Paradise Lost.
+
+
+
+OTHER PRINCIPAL LATIN CHRONICLERS OF THE EARLY NORMAN PERIOD.
+
+
+Ingulphus, Abbot of Croyland, 1075-1109: History of Croyland. Authenticity
+disputed.
+
+William of Poictiers, 1070: Deeds of William the Conqueror, (Gesta
+Gullielmi Ducis Normannorum et Regis Anglorum.)
+
+Ordericus Vitalis, born about 1075: general ecclesiastical history.
+
+William of Jumieges: History of the Dukes of Normandy.
+
+Florence of Worcester, died 1118: (Chronicon ex Chronicis,) Chronicle from
+the Chronicles, from the Creation to 1118, (with two valuable additions to
+1141, and to 1295.)
+
+Matthew of Westminster, end of thirteenth century (probably a fictitious
+name): Flowers of the Histories, (Flores Historiarum.)
+
+Eadmer, died about 1124: history of his own time, (Historia Novorum, sive
+sui seculi.)
+
+Giraldus Cambrensis, born 1146, known as Girald Barry: numerous histories,
+including Topographia Hiberniae, and the Norman conquest of Ireland; also
+several theological works.
+
+Henry of Huntingdon, first half of the twelfth century: History of
+England.
+
+Alured of Rievaux, 1109-66: The Battle of the Standard.
+
+Roger de Hoveden, end of twelfth century: Annales, from the end of Bede's
+history to 1202.
+
+Matthew Paris, monk of St. Alban's, died 1259: Historia Major, from the
+Norman conquest to 1259, continued by William Rishanger to 1322.
+
+Ralph Higden, fourteenth century: Polychronicon, or Chronicle of Many
+Things; translated in the fifteenth century, by John de Trevisa; printed
+by Caxton in 1482, and by Wynken de Worde in 1485.
+
+
+THE ANGLO-NORMAN POETS AND CHRONICLERS.--Norman literature had already
+made itself a name before William conquered England. Short jingling tales
+in verse, in ballad style, were popular under the name of _fabliaux_, and
+fuller epics, tender, fanciful, and spirited, called Romans, or Romaunts,
+were sung to the lute, in courts and camps. Of these latter, Alexander the
+Great, Charlemagne, and Roland were the principal heroes.
+
+Strange as it may seem, this _langue d'oil_, in which they were composed,
+made more rapid progress in its poetical literature, in the period
+immediately after the conquest, in England than at home: it flourished by
+the transplantation. Its advent was with an act of heroism. Taillefer, the
+standard-bearer of William at Seulac, marched in advance of the army,
+struck the first blow, and met his death while chanting the song of
+Roland:
+
+    Of Charlemagne and Roland,
+    Of Oliver and his vassals,
+    Who died at Roncesvalles.
+
+    De Karlemaine e de Reliant,
+    Et d'Olivier et des vassals,
+    Ki moururent en Renchevals.
+
+Each stanza ended with the war-shout _Aoi_! and was responded to by the
+cry of the Normans, _Diex aide, God to aid_. And this battle-song was the
+bold manifesto of Norman poetry invading England. It found an echo
+wherever William triumphed on English soil, and played an important part
+in the formation of the English language and English literature. New
+scenes and new victories created new inspiration in the poets; monarchs
+like Henry I., called from his scholarship _Beauclerc_, practised and
+cherished the poetic art, and thus it happened that the Norman poets in
+England produced works of sweeter minstrelsy and greater historical value
+than the _fabliaux_, _Romans_, and _Chansons de gestes_ of their brethren
+on the continent. The conquest itself became a grand theme for their
+muse.
+
+
+RICHARD WACE.--First among the Anglo-Norman poets stands Richard Wace,
+called Maistre Wace, reading clerk, (clerc lisant,) born in the island of
+Jersey, about 1112, died in 1184. His works are especially to be noted for
+the direct and indirect history they contain. His first work, which
+appeared about 1138, is entitled _Le Brut d'Angleterre_--The English
+Brutus--and is in part a paraphrase of the Latin history of Geoffrey of
+Monmouth, who had presented Brutus of Troy as the first in the line of
+British kings. Wace has preserved the fiction of Geoffrey, and has catered
+to that characteristic of the English people which, not content with
+homespun myths, sought for genealogies from the remote classic times.
+Wace's _Brut_ is chiefly in octo-syllabic verse, and extends to fifteen
+thousand lines.
+
+But Wace was a courtier, as well as a poet. Not content with pleasing the
+fancy of the English people with a fabulous royal lineage, he proceeded to
+gratify the pride of their Norman masters by writing, in 1171, his "Roman
+de Rou, et des Ducs de Normandie," an epic poem on Rollo, the first Duke
+of Normandy--Rollo, called the Marcher, because he was so mighty of
+stature that no horse could bear his weight. This Rollo compromised with
+Charles the Simple of France by marrying his daughter, and accepting that
+tract of Neustria to which he gave the name of Normandy. He was the
+ancestor, at six removes, of William the Conqueror, and his mighty deeds
+were a pleasant and popular subject for the poet of that day, when a
+great-grandson of William, Henry II., was upon the throne of England. The
+Roman de Rou contains also the history of Rollo's successors: it is in two
+parts; the first extending to the beginning of the reign of the third
+duke, Richard the Fearless, and the second, containing the story of the
+conquest, comes down to the time of Henry II. himself. The second part he
+wrote rapidly, for fear that he would be forestalled by the king's poet
+_Benoit_. The first part was written in Alexandrines, but for the second
+he adopted the easier measure of the octo-syllabic verse, of which this
+part contains seventeen thousand lines. In this poem are discerned the
+craving of the popular mind, the power of the subject chosen, and the
+reflection of language and manners, which are displayed on every page.
+
+So popular, indeed, was the subject of the Brut, indigenous as it was
+considered to British soil, that Wace's poem, already taken from Geoffrey
+of Monmouth, as Geoffrey had taken it, or pretended to take it from the
+older chronicle, was soon again, as we shall see, to be versionized into
+English.
+
+
+
+OTHER NORMAN WRITERS OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY.
+
+
+
+_Philip de Than_, about 1130, one of the Trouveres: _Li livre de
+creatures_ is a poetical study of chronology, and his _Bestiarie_ is a
+sort of natural history of animals and minerals.
+
+_Benoit_: Chroniques des Ducs de Normandie, 1160, written in thirty
+thousand octo-syllabic verses, only worthy of a passing notice, because of
+the appointment of the poet by the king, (Henry II.,) in order to
+forestall the second part of Wace's Roman de Rou.
+
+Geoffrey, died 1146: A miracle play of St. Catherine.
+
+Geoffrey Gaimar, about 1150: Estorie des Engles, (History of the English.)
+
+Luc de la Barre, blinded for his bold satires by the king (Henry I.).
+
+Mestre Thomas, latter part of twelfth century: Roman du Roi Horn. Probably
+the original of the "Geste of Kyng Horn."
+
+Richard I., (Coeur de Lion,) died 1199, King of England: _Sirventes_ and
+songs. His antiphonal song with the minstrel Blondel is said to have given
+information of the place of his imprisonment, and procured his release;
+but this is probably only a romantic fiction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE MORNING TWILIGHT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
+
+
+   Semi-Saxon Literature. Layamon. The Ormulum. Robert of Gloucester.
+   Langland. Piers Plowman. Piers Plowman's Creed. Sir Jean Froissart. Sir
+   John Mandevil.
+
+
+
+SEMI-SAXON LITERATURE.
+
+
+Moore, in his beautiful poem, "The Light of the Harem," speaks of that
+luminous pulsation which precedes the real, progressive morning:
+
+             ... that earlier dawn
+    Whose glimpses are again withdrawn,
+    As if the morn had waked, and then
+    Shut close her lids of light again.
+
+The simile is not inapt, as applied to the first efforts of the early
+English, or Semi-Saxon literature, during the latter part of the twelfth
+and the whole of the thirteenth century. That deceptive dawn, or first
+glimpse of the coming day, is to be found in the work of _Layamon_. The
+old Saxon had revived, but had been modified and altered by contact with
+the Latin chronicles and the Anglo-Norman poetry, so as to become a
+distinct language--that of the people; and in this language men of genius
+and poetic taste were now to speak to the English nation.
+
+
+LAYAMON.--Layamon[15] was an English priest of Worcestershire, who made a
+version of Wace's _Brut_, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, so
+peculiar, however, in its language, as to puzzle the philologist to fix
+its exact date with even tolerable accuracy. But, notwithstanding the
+resemblance, according to Mr. Ellis, to the "simple and unmixed, though
+very barbarous Saxon," the character of the alphabet and the nature of the
+rhythm place it at the close of the twelfth century, and present it as
+perhaps the best type of the Semi-Saxon. The poem consists partly of the
+Saxon alliterative lines, and partly of verses which seem to have thrown
+off this trammel; so that a different decision as to its date would be
+reached according as we consider these diverse parts of its structure. It
+is not improbable that, like English poets of a later time, Layamon
+affected a certain archaism in language, as giving greater beauty and
+interest to his style. The subject of the _Brut_ was presented to him as
+already treated by three authors: first, the original Celtic poem, which
+has been lost; second, the Latin chronicle of Geoffrey; and, third, the
+French poem of Wace. Although Layamon's work is, in the main, a
+translation of that of Wace, he has modified it, and added much of his
+own. His poem contains more than thirty thousand lines.
+
+
+THE ORMULUM.--Next in value to the Brut of Layamon, is the Ormulum, a
+series of metrical homilies, in part paraphrases of the gospels for the
+day, with verbal additions and annotations. This was the work of a monk
+named _Orm_ or _Ormin_, who lived in the beginning of the thirteenth
+century, during the reign of King John and Henry III., and it resembles
+our present English much more nearly than the poem of Layamon. In his
+dedication of the work to his brother Walter, Orm says--and we give his
+words as an illustration of the language in which he wrote:
+
+    Ice hafe don swa summ thu bad
+    Annd forthedd te thin wille
+    Ice hafe wennd uintill Ennglissh
+    Goddspelless hallghe lare
+    Affterr thatt little witt tatt me
+    Min Drihhten hafethth lenedd
+
+    I have done so as thou bade,
+    And performed thee thine will;
+    I have turned into English
+    Gospel's holy lore,
+    After that little wit that me
+    My lord hath lent.
+
+The poem is written in Alexandrine verses, which may be divided into
+octosyllabic lines, alternating with those of six syllables, as in the
+extract given above. He is critical with regard to his orthography, as is
+evinced in the following instructions which he gives to his future readers
+and transcriber:
+
+    And whase willen shall this booke
+    Eft other sithe writen,
+    Him bidde ice that he't write right
+    Swa sum this booke him teacheth
+
+    And whoso shall wish this book
+    After other time to write,
+    Him bid I that he it write right,
+    So as this book him teacheth.
+
+The critics have observed that, whereas the language of Layamon shows that
+it was written in the southwest of England, that of Orm manifests an
+eastern or northeastern origin. To the historical student, Orm discloses
+the religious condition and needs of the people, and the teachings of the
+Church. His poem is also manifestly a landmark in the history of the
+English language.
+
+
+ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER.--Among the rhyming chroniclers of this period,
+Robert, a monk of Gloucester Abbey, is noted for his reproduction of the
+history of Geoffrey of Monmouth, already presented by Wace in French, and
+by Layamon in Saxon-English. But he is chiefly valuable in that he carries
+the chronicle forward to the end of the reign of Henry III. Written in
+West-country English, it not only contains a strong infusion of French,
+but distinctly states the prevailing influence of that language in his own
+day:
+
+    Vor bote a man couthe French, me tolth of him well lute
+    Ac lowe men holdeth to Englyss, and to her kunde speche zute.
+
+    For unless a man know French, one talketh of him little;
+    But _low_ men hold to English, and to their natural speech yet.
+
+The chronicle of Robert is written in Alexandrines, and, except for the
+French words incongruously interspersed, is almost as "barbarous" Saxon as
+the Brut of Layamon.
+
+
+LANGLAND--PIERS PLOWMAN.--The greatest of the immediate heralds of
+Chaucer, whether we regard it as a work of literary art, or as an historic
+reflector of the age, is "The Vision of Piers Plowman," by Robert
+Langland, which appeared between 1360 and 1370. It stands between the
+Semi-Saxon and the old English, in point of language, retaining the
+alliterative feature of the former; and, as a teacher of history, it
+displays very clearly the newly awakened spirit of religious inquiry, and
+the desire for religious reform among the English people: it certainly was
+among the means which aided in establishing a freedom of religious thought
+in England, while as yet the continent was bound in the fetters of a
+rigorous and oppressive authority.
+
+Peter, the ploughboy, intended as a representative of the common people,
+drops asleep on Malvern Hills, between Wales and England, and sees in his
+dream an array of virtues and vices pass before him--such as Mercy, Truth,
+Religion, Covetousness, Avarice, etc. The allegory is not unlike that of
+Bunyan. By using these as the personages, in the manner of the early
+dramas called the Moralities, he is enabled to attack and severely scourge
+the evil lives and practices of the clergy, and the abuses which had
+sprung up in the Church, and to foretell the punishment, which afterward
+fell upon the monasteries in the time of Henry VIII., one hundred and
+fifty years later:
+
+    And then shall the Abbot of Abingdon, and all his issue forever,
+    _Have a knock of a king, and incurable the wound_.
+
+His attack is not against the Church itself, but against the clergy. It
+is to be remarked, in studying history through the medium of literature,
+that the works of a certain period, themselves the result of history,
+often illustrate the coming age, by being prophetic, or rather, as
+antecedents by suggesting consequents. Thus, this Vision of Piers Plowman
+indicates the existence of a popular spirit which had been slowly but
+steadily increasing--which sympathized with Henry II. and the
+priest-trammelling "Constitutions of Clarendon," even while it was ready
+to go on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas a Becket, the illustrious
+victim of the quarrel between Henry and his clergy. And it points with no
+uncertain finger to a future of greater light and popular development, for
+this bold spirit of reform was strongly allied to political rights. The
+clergy claimed both spiritualities and temporalities from the Pope, and,
+being governed by ecclesiastical laws, were not like other English
+subjects amenable to the civil code. The king's power was thus endangered;
+a proud and encroaching spirit was fostered, and the clergy became
+dissolute in their lives. In the words of Piers Plowman:
+
+    I found these freres, | For profit of hem selve;
+    All the four orders,  | Closed the gospel,
+    Preaching the people  | As hem good liked.
+
+
+And again:
+
+    Ac now is Religion       | And a loud buyer,
+    A rider, a roamer about, | A pricker on a palfrey,
+    A leader of love days    | From manor to manor.
+
+
+PIERS PLOWMAN'S CREED.--The name of Piers Plowman and the conceit of his
+Vision became at once very popular. He stood as a representative of the
+peasant class rising in importance and in assertion of religious rights.
+
+An unknown follower of Wiclif wrote a poem called "Piers Plowman's Creed,"
+which conveys religious truth in a formula of belief. The language and the
+alliterative feature are similar to those of the Vision; and the
+invective is against the clergy, and especially against the monks and
+friars.
+
+
+FROISSART.--Sire Jean Froissart was born about 1337. He is placed here for
+the observance of chronological order: he was not an English writer, but
+must receive special mention because his "Chronicles," although written in
+French, treat of the English wars in France, and present splendid pictures
+of English chivalry and heroism. He lived, too, for some time in England,
+where he figured at court as the secretary of Philippa, queen of Edward
+III. Although not always to be relied on as an historian, his work is
+unique and charming, and is very truthful in its delineation of the men
+and manners of that age: it was written for courtly characters, and not
+for the common people. The title of his work may be translated "Chronicles
+of France, England, Scotland, Spain, Brittany, Gascony, Flanders, and
+surrounding places."
+
+
+SIR JOHN MANDEVIL, (1300-1371.)--We also place in this general catalogue a
+work which has, ever since its appearance, been considered one of the
+curiosities of English literature. It is a narrative of the travels of
+Mandevil in the East. He was born in 1300; became a doctor of medicine,
+and journeyed in those regions of the earth for thirty-four years. A
+portion of the time he was in service with a Mohammedan army; at other
+times he lived in Egypt, and in China, and, returning to England an old
+man, he brought such a budget of wonders--true and false--stories of
+immense birds like the roc, which figure in Arabian mythology and romance,
+and which could carry elephants through the air--of men with tails, which
+were probably orang-outangs or gorillas.
+
+Some of his tales, which were then entirely discredited, have been
+ascertained by modern travellers to be true. His work was written by him
+first in Latin, and then in French--Latin for the savans, and French for
+the court--and afterward, such was the power and demand of the new
+English tongue, that he presented his marvels to the world in an English
+version. This was first printed by Wynken de Worde, in 1499.
+
+
+
+Other Writers of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, Who Preceded
+Chaucer.
+
+
+Robert Manning, a canon of Bourne--called also Robert de Brunne:
+Translated a portion of Wace's _Brut_, and also a chronicle of Piers de
+Langtoft bringing the history down to the death of Edward I. (1307.) He is
+also supposed to be the author of a translation of the "Manuel des Peches,"
+(Handling of Sins,) the original of which is ascribed to Bishop Grostete
+of Lincoln.
+
+_The Ancren Riwle_, or _Anchoresses' Rule_, about 1200, by an unknown
+writer, sets forth the duties of a monastic life for three ladies
+(anchoresses) and their household in Dorsetshire.
+
+Roger Bacon, (1214-1292,) a friar of Ilchester: He extended the area of
+knowledge by his scientific experiments, but wrote his Opus Magus, or
+_greater work_, in comparison with the Opus Minus, and numerous other
+treatises in Latin. If he was not a writer in English, his name should be
+mentioned as a great genius, whose scientific knowledge was far in advance
+of his age, and who had prophetic glimpses of the future conquests of
+science.
+
+Robert Grostete, Bishop of Lincoln, died 1253, was probably the author of
+the _Manuel des Peches_, and also wrote a treatise on the sphere.
+
+Sir Michael Scott: He lived in the latter half of the thirteenth century;
+was a student of the "occult sciences," and also skilled in theology and
+medicine. He is referred to by Walter Scott as the "wondrous wizard,
+Michael Scott."
+
+Thomas of Ercildoun--called the Rhymer--supposed by Sir Walter Scott, but
+erroneously, as is now believed, to be the author of "Sir Tristram."
+
+_The King of Tars_ is the work of an unknown author of this period.
+
+
+In thus disposing of the authors before Chaucer, no attempt has been made
+at a nice subdivision and classification of the character of the works, or
+the nature of the periods, further than to trace the onward movement of
+the language, in its embryo state, in its birth, and in its rude but
+healthy infancy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAUCER, AND THE EARLY REFORMATION.
+
+
+   A New Era--Chaucer. Italian Influence. Chaucer as a Founder. Earlier
+   Poems. The Canterbury Tales. Characters. Satire. Presentations of
+   Woman. The Plan Proposed.
+
+
+
+THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA.
+
+
+And now it is evident, from what has been said, that we stand upon the eve
+of a great movement in history and literature. Up to this time everything
+had been more or less tentative, experimental, and disconnected, all
+tending indeed, but with little unity of action, toward an established
+order. It began to be acknowledged that though the clergy might write in
+Latin, and Frenchmen in French, the English should "show their fantasyes
+in such words as we learneden of our dame's tonge," and it was equally
+evident that that English must be cultivated and formed into a fitting
+vehicle for vigorous English thought. To do this, a master mind was
+required, and such a master mind appeared in the person of Chaucer. It is
+particularly fortunate for our historic theory that his works,
+constituting the origin of our homogeneous English literature, furnish
+forth its best and most striking demonstration.
+
+
+CHAUCER'S BIRTH.--Geoffrey Chaucer was born at London about the year 1328:
+as to the exact date, we waive all the discussion in which his biographers
+have engaged, and consider this fixed as the most probable time. His
+parentage is unknown, although Leland, the English antiquarian, declares
+him to have come of a noble family, and Pitts says he was the son of a
+knight. He died in the year 1400, and thus was an active and observant
+contemporary of events in the most remarkable century which had thus far
+rolled over Europe--the age of Edward III. and the Black Prince, of Crecy
+and Poitiers, of English bills and bows, stronger than French lances; the
+age of Wiclif, of reformation in religion, government, language, and
+social order. Whatever his family antecedents, he was a courtier, and a
+successful one; his wife was Philippa, a sister of Lady Katherine
+Swinford, first the mistress and then the wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of
+Lancaster.
+
+
+ITALIAN INFLUENCE.--From a literary point of view, the period of his birth
+was remarkable for the strong influence of Italian letters, which first
+having made its entrance into France, now, in natural course of progress,
+found its way into England. Dante had produced,
+
+      ... in the darkness prest,
+    From his own soul by worldly weights, ...
+
+the greatest poem then known to modern Europe, and the most imaginative
+ever written. Thus the Italian sky was blazing with splendor, while the
+West was still in the morning twilight. The Divina Commedia was written
+half a century before the Canterbury Tales.
+
+Boccaccio was then writing his _Filostrato_, which was to be Chaucer's
+model in the Troilus and Creseide, and his _Decameron_, which suggested
+the plan of the Canterbury Tales. His _Teseide_ is also said to be the
+original of the Knight's Tale. Petrarch, "the worthy clerke" from whom
+Chaucer is said to have learned a story or two in Italy for his great
+work, was born in 1304, and was also a star of the first magnitude in that
+Italian galaxy.
+
+Indeed, it is here worthy of a passing remark, that from that early time
+to a later period, many of the great products of English poetry have been
+watered by silver rills of imaginative genius from a remote Italian
+source. Chaucer's indebtedness has just been noticed. Spenser borrowed his
+versification and not a little of his poetic handling in the Faery Queen
+from Ariosto. Milton owes to Dante some of his conceptions of heaven and
+hell in his Paradise Lost, while his Lycidas, Arcades, Allegro and
+Penseroso, may be called Italian poems done into English.
+
+In the time of Chaucer, this Italian influence marks the extended
+relations of English letters; and, serving to remove the trammels of the
+French, it gave to the now vigorous and growing English that opportunity
+of development for which it had so long waited. Out of the serfdom and
+obscurity to which it had been condemned by the Normans, it had sprung
+forth in reality, as in name, the English language. Books, few at the
+best, long used in Latin or French, were now demanded by English mind, and
+being produced in answer to the demand.
+
+
+THE FOUNDER OF THE LITERATURE.--But there was still wanted a man who could
+use the elements and influences of the time--a great poet--a maker--a
+creator of literature. The language needed a forming, controlling, fixing
+hand. The English mind needed a leader and master, English imagination a
+guide, English literature a father.
+
+The person who answered to this call, and who was equal to all these
+demands, was Chaucer. But he was something more. He claimed only to be a
+poet, while he was to figure in after times as historian, philosopher, and
+artist.
+
+The scope of this work does not permit an examination of Chaucer's
+writings in detail, but the position we have taken will be best
+illustrated by his greatest work, the Canterbury Tales. Of the others, a
+few preliminary words only need be said. Like most writers in an early
+literary period, Chaucer began with translations, which were extended into
+paraphrases or versions, and thus his "'prentice hand" gained the
+practice and skill with which to attempt original poems.
+
+
+MINOR POEMS.--His earliest attempt, doubtless, was the _Romaunt of the
+Rose_, an allegorical poem in French, by William de Lorris, continued,
+after his death in 1260, by Jean de Meun, who figured as a poet in the
+court of Charles le Bel, of France. This poem, esteemed by the French as
+the finest of their old romances, was rendered by Chaucer, with
+considerable alterations and improvements, into octosyllabic verse. The
+Romaunt portrays the trials which a lover meets and the obstacles he
+overcomes in pursuit of his mistress, under the allegory of a rose in an
+inaccessible garden. It has been variously construed--by theologians as
+the yearning of man for the celestial city; by chemists as the search for
+the philosopher's stone; by jurists as that for equity, and by medical men
+as the attempt to produce a panacea for all human ailments.
+
+Next in order was his _Troilus and Creseide_, a mediaeval tale, already
+attempted by Boccaccio in his Filostrate, but borrowed by Chaucer,
+according to his own account, from _Lollius_, a mysterious name without an
+owner. The story is similar to that dramatized by Shakspeare in his
+tragedy of the same title. This is in decasyllabic verse, arranged in
+stanzas of seven lines each.
+
+The _House of Fame_, another of his principal poems, is a curious
+description--probably his first original effort--of the Temple of Fame, an
+immense cage, sixty miles long, and its inhabitants the great writers of
+classic times, and is chiefly valuable as showing the estimation in which
+the classic writers were held in that day. This is also in octosyllabic
+verses, and is further remarkable for the opulence of its imagery and its
+variety of description. The poet is carried in the claws of a great eagle
+into this house, and sees its distinguished occupants standing upon
+columns of different kinds of metal, according to their merits. The poem
+ends with the third book, very abruptly, as Chaucer awakes from his
+vision.
+
+"The Legend of Good Women" is a record of the loves and misfortunes of
+celebrated women, and is supposed to have been written to make amends for
+the author's other unjust portraitures of female character.
+
+
+THE CANTERBURY TALES.--In order to give system to our historic inquiries,
+we shall now present an outline of the Canterbury Tales, in order that we
+may show--
+
+   I. The indications of a general desire in that period for a reformation
+   in religion.
+
+   II. The social condition of the English people.
+
+   III. The important changes in government.
+
+   IV. The condition and progress of the English language.
+
+The Canterbury Tales were begun in 1386, when Chaucer was fifty-eight
+years old, and in a period of comparative quiet, after the minority of
+Richard II. was over, and before his troubles had begun. They form a
+beautiful gallery of cabinet pictures of English society in all its
+grades, except the very highest and the lowest; and, in this respect, they
+supplement in exact lineaments and the freshest coloring those compendiums
+of English history which only present to us, on the one hand, the persons
+and deeds of kings and their nobles, and, on the other, the general laws
+which so long oppressed the lower orders of the people, and the action of
+which is illustrated by disorders among them. But in Chaucer we find the
+true philosophy of English society, the principle of the guilds, or
+fraternities, to which his pilgrims belong--the character and avocation of
+the knight, squire, yeoman, franklin, bailiff, sompnour, reeve, etc.,
+names, many of them, now obsolete. Who can find these in our compendiums?
+they must be dug--and dry work it is--out of profounder histories, or
+found, with greater pleasure, in poems like that of Chaucer.
+
+
+CHARACTERS.--Let us consider, then, a few of his principal characters
+which most truly represent the age and nation.
+
+The Tabard inn at Southwark, then a suburb of "London borough without the
+walls," was a great rendezvous for pilgrims who were journeying to the
+shrine of St. Thomas a Becket, at Canterbury--that Saxon archbishop who
+had been murdered by the minions of Henry II. Southwark was on the high
+street, the old Roman highway from London to the southeast. A gathering of
+pilgrims here is no uncommon occurrence; and thus numbers and variety make
+a combination of penitence and pleasure. The host of the Tabard--doubtless
+a true portraiture of the landlord of that day--counts noses, that he may
+distribute the pewter plates. A substantial supper smokes upon the
+old-fashioned Saxon-English board--so substantial that the pilgrims are
+evidently about to lay in a good stock, in anticipation of poor fare, the
+fatigue of travel, and perhaps a fast or two not set down in the calendar.
+As soon as they attack the viands, ale and strong wines, hippocras,
+pigment, and claret, are served in bright pewter and wood. There were
+Saxon drinks for the commoner pilgrims; the claret was for the knight.
+Every one drinks at his will, and the miller, as we shall see, takes a
+little more than his head can decently carry.
+
+First in the place of honor is the knight, accompanied by his son, the
+young squire, and his trusty yeoman. Then, in order of social rank, a
+prioress, a nun and three priests, a friar, a merchant, a poor scholar or
+clerk of Oxford, a sergeant of the law, a frankelein, a haberdasher, a
+weaver, a tapster, a dyer, a cook, a shipman, a doctor of physic, a wife
+of Bath, a poor parson, a ploughman, a miller, a manciple or college
+steward, a reeve or bailiff, a sompnour or summoner to the ecclesiastical
+courts, a pardoner or seller of papal indulgences (one hundred and fifty
+years before Luther)--an essentially English company of many social
+grades, bound to the most popular shrine, that of a Saxon archbishop,
+himself the son of a London citizen, murdered two hundred years before
+with the connivance of an English king. No one can read this list without
+thinking that if Chaucer be true and accurate in his descriptions of these
+persons, and make them talk as they did talk, his delineations are of
+inestimable value historically. He has been faithfully true. Like all
+great masters of the epic art, he doubtless drew them from the life; each,
+given in the outlines of the prologue, is a speaking portrait: even the
+horses they ride are as true to nature as those in the pictures of Rosa
+Bonheur.
+
+And besides these historic delineations which mark the age and country,
+notwithstanding the loss of local and personal satire with which, to the
+reader of his day, the poem must have sparkled, and which time has
+destroyed for us, the features of our common humanity are so well
+portrayed, that to the latest generations will be there displayed the
+"forth-showing instances" of the _Idola Tribus_ of Bacon, the besetting
+sins, frailties, and oddities of the human race.
+
+
+SATIRE.--His touches of satire and irony are as light as the hits of an
+accomplished master of the small-sword; mere hits, but significant of deep
+thrusts, at the scandals, abuses, and oppressions of the age. Like
+Dickens, he employed his fiction in the way of reform, and helped to
+effect it.
+
+Let us illustrate. While sitting at the table, Chaucer makes his sketches
+for the Prologue. A few of these will serve here as specimens of his
+powers. Take the _Doctour of Physike_ who
+
+    Knew the cause of every maladie,
+    Were it of cold or hote or wet or drie;
+
+who also knew
+
+      ... the old Esculapius,
+    And Dioscorides and eke Rufus,
+    Old Hippocras, Rasis, and Avicen,
+
+and many other classic authorities in medicine.
+
+    Of his diete mesurable was he,
+    And it was of no superfluite;
+
+nor was it a gross slander to say of the many,
+
+    His studie was but litel on the Bible.
+
+It was a suggestive satire which led him to hint that he was
+
+          ... but esy of dispense;
+    He kepte that he wan in pestilence;
+    For gold in physike is a cordial;
+    Therefore he loved gold in special.
+
+Chaucer deals tenderly with the lawyers; yet, granting his sergeant of the
+law discretion and wisdom, a knowledge of cases even "from the time of
+King Will," and fees and perquisites quite proportional, he adds,
+
+    Nowher so besy a man as he ther n' as,
+    And yet he seemed besier than he was.
+
+
+HIS PRESENTATIONS OF WOMAN.--Woman seems to find hard judgment in this
+work. Madame Eglantine, the prioress, with her nasal chanting, her
+English-French, "of Stratford-atte-Bow," her legion of smalle houndes, and
+her affected manner, is not a flattering type of woman's character, and
+yet no doubt she is a faithful portrait of many a prioress of that day.
+
+And the wife of Bath is still more repulsive. She tells us, in the
+prologue to her story, that she has buried five husbands, and, buxom
+still, is looking for the sixth. She is a jolly _compagnon de voyage_, had
+been thrice to Jerusalem, and is now seeking assoil for some little sins
+at Canterbury. And the host's wife, as he describes her, is not by any
+means a pleasant helpmeet for an honest man. The host is out of her
+hearing, or he would not be so ready to tell her character:
+
+    I have a wif, tho' that she poore be;
+    But of her tongue a blabbing shrew is she,
+    And yet she hath a heap of vices mo.
+
+She is always getting into trouble with the neighbors; and when he will
+not fight in her quarrel, she cries,
+
+            ... False coward, wreak thy wif;
+    By corpus domini, I will have thy knife,
+    And thou shalt have my distaff and go spin.
+
+The best names she has for him are milksop, coward, and ape; and so we
+say, with him,
+
+    Come, let us pass away from this mattere.
+
+
+THE PLAN PROPOSED.--With these suggestions of the nature of the company
+assembled "for to don their pilgrimage," we come to the framework of the
+story. While sitting at the table, the host proposes
+
+    That each of you, to shorten with your way,
+    In this viage shall tellen tales twey.
+
+Each pilgrim should tell two stories; one on the way to Canterbury, and
+one returning. As, including Chaucer and the host, there are thirty-one in
+the company, this would make sixty-two stories. The one who told the best
+story should have, on the return of the company to the Tabard inn, a
+supper at the expense of the rest.
+
+The host's idea was unanimously accepted; and in the morning, as they ride
+forth, they begin to put it into execution. Although lots are drawn for
+the order in which the stories shall be told, it is easily arranged by the
+courteous host, who recognizes the difference in station among the
+pilgrims, that the knight shall inaugurate the scheme, which he does by
+telling that beautiful story of _Palamon and Arcite_, the plot of which is
+taken from _Le Teseide_ of Boccacio. It is received with cheers by the
+company, and with great delight by the host, who cries out,
+
+    So mote I gon--this goth aright,
+    Unbockled is the mail.
+
+The next in order is called for, but the miller, who has replenished his
+midnight potations in the morning, and is now rolling upon his horse,
+swears that "he can a noble tale," and, not heeding the rebuke of the
+host,
+
+    Thou art a fool, thy wit is overcome,
+
+he shouts out a vulgar story, in all respects in direct contrast to that
+of the knight. As a literary device, this rude introduction of the miller
+breaks the stiffness and monotony of a succession in the order of rank;
+and, as a feature of the history, it seems to tell us something of
+democratic progress. The miller's story ridicules a carpenter, and the
+reeve, who is a carpenter, immediately repays him by telling a tale in
+which he puts a miller in a ludicrous position.
+
+With such a start, the pilgrims proceed to tell their tales; but not all.
+There is neither record of their reaching Canterbury, nor returning. Nor
+is the completion of the number at all essential: for all practical
+purposes, we have all that can be asked; and had the work been completed,
+it would have added little to the historical stores which it now
+indirectly, and perhaps unconsciously, offers. The number of the tales
+(including two in prose) is twenty-four, and great additional value is
+given to them by the short prologue introducing each of them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAUCER, (CONTINUED.)--REFORMS IN RELIGION AND SOCIETY.
+
+
+   Historical Facts. Reform in Religion. The Clergy, Regular and Secular.
+   The Friar and the Sompnour. The Pardonere. The Poure Persone. John
+   Wiclif. The Translation of the Bible. The Ashes of Wiclif.
+
+
+
+HISTORICAL FACTS.
+
+
+Leaving the pilgrims' cavalcade for a more philosophical consideration of
+the historical teachings of the subject, it may be clearly shown that the
+work of Chaucer informs us of a wholesome reform in religion, or, in the
+words of George Ellis,[16] "he was not only respected as the father of
+English poetry, but revered as a champion of the Reformation."
+
+Let us recur briefly to the history. With William the Conqueror a great
+change had been introduced into England: under him and his immediate
+successors--his son William Rufus, his nephew Henry I., the usurper
+Stephen, and Henry II.,--the efforts of the "English kings of Norman race"
+were directed to the establishment of their power on a strong foundation;
+but they began, little by little, to see that the only foundation was that
+of the unconquerable English people; so that popular rights soon began to
+be considered, and the accession of Henry II., the first of the
+Plantagenets, was specially grateful to the English, because he was the
+first since the Conquest to represent the Saxon line, being the grandson
+of Henry I., and son of _Matilda_, niece of Edgar Atheling. In the mean
+time, as has been seen, the English language had been formed, the chief
+element of which was Saxon. This was a strong instrument of political
+rights, for community of language tended to an amalgamation of the Norman
+and Saxon peoples. With regard to the Church in England, the insulation
+from Rome had impaired the influence of the Papacy. The misdeeds and
+arrogance of the clergy had arrayed both people and monarch against their
+claims, as several of the satirical poems already mentioned have shown. As
+a privileged class, who used their immunities to do evil and corrupt the
+realm, the clergy became odious to the _nobles_, whose power they shared
+and sometimes impaired, and to the _people_, who could now read their
+faults and despise their comminations, and who were unwilling to pay
+hard-earned wages to support them in idleness and vice. It was not the
+doctrine, but the practice which they condemned. With the accession of the
+house of Plantagenet, the people were made to feel that the Norman
+monarchy was a curse, without alloy. Richard I. was a knight-errant and a
+crusader, who cared little for the realm; John was an adulterer, traitor,
+and coward, who roused the people's anger by first quarrelling with the
+Pope, and then basely giving him the kingdom to receive it again as a
+papal fief. The nation, headed by the warlike barons, had forced the great
+charter of popular rights from John, and had caused it to be confirmed and
+supplemented during the long reign of his son, the weak Henry III.
+
+Edward I. was engaged in cruel wars, both in Wales and Scotland, which
+wasted the people's money without any corresponding advantage.
+
+Edward II. was deposed and murdered by his queen and her paramour
+Mortimer; and, however great their crime, he was certainly unworthy and
+unable to control a fierce and turbulent people, already clamorous for
+their rights. These well-known facts are here stated to show the
+unsettled condition of things during the period when the English were
+being formed into a nation, the language established, and the earliest
+literary efforts made. Materials for a better organization were at hand in
+great abundance; only proper master-builders were needed. We have seen
+that everything now betokened the coming of a new era, in State, Church,
+and literature.
+
+The monarch who came to the throne in 1327, one year before the birth of
+Chaucer, was worthy to be the usher of this new era to England: a man of
+might, of judgment, and of forecast; the first truly _English_ monarch in
+sympathy and purpose who had occupied the throne since the Conquest:
+liberal beyond all former precedent in religion, he sheltered Wiclif in
+his bold invectives, and paved the way for the later encroachments upon
+the papal supremacy. With the aid of his accomplished son, Edward the
+Black Prince, he rendered England illustrious by his foreign wars, and
+removed what remained of the animosity between Saxon and Norman.
+
+
+REFORM IN RELIGION.--We are so accustomed to refer the Reformation to the
+time of Luther in Germany, as the grand religious turning-point in modern
+history, that we are apt to underrate, if not to forget, the religious
+movement in this most important era of English history. Chaucer and Wiclif
+wrote nearly half a century before John Huss was burned by Sigismond: it
+was a century after that that Luther burned the Pope's decretals at
+Wittenberg, and still later that Henry VIII. threw off the papal dominion
+in England. But great crises in a nation's history never arrive without
+premonition;--there are no moral earthquakes without premonitory throes,
+and sometimes these are more decisive and destructive than that which
+gives electric publicity. Such distinct signs appeared in the age of
+Chaucer, and the later history of the Church in England cannot be
+distinctly understood without a careful study of this period.
+
+It is well known that Chaucer was an adherent of John of Gaunt; that he
+and his great protector--perhaps with no very pious intents--favored the
+doctrines of Wiclif; that in the politico-religious disturbances in 1382,
+incident to the minority of Richard II., he was obliged to flee the
+country. But if we wish to find the most striking religious history of the
+age, we must seek it in the portraitures of religious characters and
+events in his Canterbury Tales. In order to a proper intelligence of
+these, let us look for a moment at the ecclesiastical condition of England
+at that time. Connected with much in doctrine and ritual worthy to be
+retained, and, indeed, still retained in the articles and liturgy of the
+Anglican Church, there was much, the growth of ignorance and neglect, to
+be reformed. The Church of England had never had a real affinity with
+Rome. The gorgeous and sensual ceremonies which, in the indolent airs of
+the Mediterranean, were imposing and attractive, palled upon the taste of
+the more phlegmatic Englishmen. Institutions organized at Rome did not
+flourish in that higher latitude, and abuses were currently discussed even
+before any plan was considered for reforming them.
+
+
+THE CLERGY.--The great monastic orders of St. Benedict, scattered
+throughout Europe, were, in the early and turbulent days, a most important
+aid and protection to Christianity. But by degrees, and as they were no
+longer needed, they had become corrupt, because they had become idle. The
+Cluniacs and Cistercians, branches of the Benedictines, are represented in
+Chaucer's poem by the monk and prioress, as types of bodies which needed
+reform.
+
+The Grandmontines, a smaller branch, were widely known for their foppery:
+the young monks painted their cheeks, and washed and covered their beards
+at night. The cloisters became luxurious, and sheltered, and, what is
+worse, sanctioned lewdness and debauchery.
+
+There was a great difference indeed between the _regular_ clergy, or
+those belonging to orders and monasteries, and the _secular_ clergy or
+parish priests, who were far better; and there was a jealous feud between
+them. There was a lamentable ignorance of the Scripture among the clergy,
+and gross darkness over the people. The paraphrases of Caedmon, the
+translations of Bede and Alfred, the rare manuscripts of the Latin Bible,
+were all that cast a faint ray upon this gloom. The people could not read
+Latin, even if they had books; and the Saxon versions were almost in a
+foreign language. Thus, distrusting their religious teachers, thoughtful
+men began to long for an English version of that Holy Book which contains
+all the words of eternal life. And thus, while the people were becoming
+more clamorous for instruction, and while Wiclif was meditating the great
+boon of a translated Bible, which, like a noonday sun, should irradiate
+the dark places and disclose the loathsome groups and filthy
+manifestations of cell and cloister, Chaucer was administering the
+wholesome medicine of satire and contempt. He displays the typical monk
+given up to every luxury, the costly black dress with fine fur edgings,
+the love-knot which fastens his hood, and his preference for pricking and
+hunting the hare, over poring into a stupid book in a cloister.
+
+
+THE FRIAR AND THE SOMPNOUR.--His satire extends also to the friar, who has
+not even that semblance of virtue which is the tribute of the hypocrite to
+our holy faith. He is not even the demure rascal conceived by Thomson in
+his Castle of Indolence:
+
+          ... the first amid the fry,
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    A little round, fat, oily man of God,
+    Who had a roguish twinkle in his eye,
+    When a tight maiden chanced to trippen by,
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Which when observed, he shrunk into his mew,
+    And straight would recollect his piety anew.
+
+But Chaucer's friar is a wanton and merry scoundrel, taking every
+license, kissing the wives and talking love-talk to the girls in his
+wanderings, as he begs for his Church and his order. His hood is stuffed
+with trinkets to give them; he is worthily known as the best beggar of his
+house; his eyes alight with wine, he strikes his little harp, trolls out
+funny songs and love-ditties. Anon, his frolic over, he preaches to the
+collected crowd violent denunciations of the parish priest, within the
+very limits of his parish. The very principles upon which these mendicant
+orders were established seem to be elements of evil. That they might be
+better than the monks, they had no cloisters and magnificent gardens, with
+little to do but enjoy them. Like our Lord, they were generally without a
+place to lay their heads; they had neither purse nor scrip. But instead of
+sanctifying, the itinerary was their great temptation and final ruin.
+Nothing can be conceived better calculated to harden the heart and to
+destroy the fierce sensibilities of our nature than to be a beggar and a
+wanderer. So that in our retrospective glance, we may pity while we
+condemn "the friar of orders gray." With a delicate irony in Chaucer's
+picture, is combined somewhat of a liking for this "worthy limitour."[17]
+
+In the same category of contempt for the existing ecclesiastical system,
+Chaucer places the sompnour, or summoner to the Church courts. Of his
+fire-red face, scattered beard, and the bilious knobs on his cheeks,
+"children were sore afraid." The friar, in his tale, represents him as in
+league with the devil, who carries him away. He is a drinker of strong
+wines, a conniver at evil for bribes: for a good sum he would teach "a
+felon"
+
+                     ... not to have none awe
+    In swiche a case of the archdeacon's curse.
+
+To him the Church system was nothing unless he could make profit of it.
+
+
+THE PARDONERE.--Nor is his picture of the pardoner, or vender of
+indulgences, more flattering. He sells--to the great contempt of the
+poet--a piece of the Virgin's veil, a bit of the sail of St. Peter's boat,
+holy pigges' bones, and with these relics he made more money in each
+parish in one day than the parson himself in two months.
+
+Thus taking advantage of his plot to ridicule these characters, and to
+make them satirize each other--as in the rival stories of the sompnour and
+friar--he turns with pleasure from these betrayers of religion, to show us
+that there was a leaven of pure piety and devotion left.
+
+
+THE POOR PARSON.--With what eager interest does he portray the lovely
+character of the _poor parson_, the true shepherd of his little flock, in
+the midst of false friars and luxurious monks!--poor himself, but
+
+    Riche was he of holy thought and work,
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    That Cristes gospel truely wolde preche,
+    His parishers devoutly wolde teche.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Wide was his parish and houses fer asonder,
+    But he left nought for ne rain no thonder,
+    In sickness and in mischief to visite
+    The ferrest in his parish, moche and lite.
+    Upon his fete, and in his hand a staf,
+    This noble example to his shepe he yaf,
+    That first he wrought and afterward he taught.
+
+Chaucer's description of the poor parson, which loses much by being
+curtailed, has proved to be a model for all poets who have drawn the
+likeness of an earnest pastor from that day to ours, among whom are
+Herbert, Cowper, Goldsmith, and Wordsworth; but no imitation has equalled
+this beautiful model. When urged by the host,
+
+    Tell us a fable anon, for cocke's bones,
+
+he quotes St. Paul to Timothy as rebuking those who tell fables; and,
+disclaiming all power in poetry, preaches them such a stirring discourse
+upon penance, contrition, confession, and the seven deadly sins, with
+their remedies, as must have fallen like a thunderbolt upon this careless,
+motly crew; and has the additional value of giving us Chaucer's epitome of
+sound doctrine in that bigoted and ignorant age: and, eminently sound and
+holy as it is, it rebukes the lewdness of the other stories, and, in point
+of morality, neutralizes if it does not justify the lewd teachings of the
+work, or in other words, the immorality of the age. This is the parson's
+own view: his story is the last which is told, and he tells us, in the
+prologue to his sermon:
+
+    To knitte up all this feste, and make an ende;
+    And Jesu for his grace wit me sende
+    To showen you the way in this viage
+    Of thilke parfit glorious pilgrimage,
+    That hight Jerusalem celestial.
+
+In an addendum to this discourse, which brings the Canterbury Tales to an
+abrupt close, and which, if genuine, as the best critics think it, was
+added some time after, Chaucer takes shame to himself for his lewd
+stories, repudiates all his "translations and enditinges of worldly
+vanitees," and only finds pleasure in his translations of Boethius, his
+homilies and legends of the saints; and, with words of penitence, he hopes
+that he shall be saved "atte the laste day of dome."
+
+
+JOHN WICLIF.[18]--The subject of this early reformation so clearly set
+forth in the stories of Chaucer, cannot be fully illustrated without a
+special notice of Chaucer's great contemporary and co-worker, John Wiclif.
+
+What Chaucer hints, or places in the mouths of his characters, with
+apparently no very serious intent, Wiclif, himself a secular priest,
+proclaimed boldly and as of prime importance, first from his professor's
+chair at Oxford, and then from his forced retirement at Lutterworth, where
+he may well have been the model of Chaucer's poor parson.
+
+Wiclif was born in 1324, four years before Chaucer. The same abuses which
+called forth the satires of Langland and Chaucer upon monk and friar, and
+which, if unchecked, promised universal corruption, aroused the
+martyr-zeal of Wiclif; and similar reproofs are to be found in his work
+entitled "Objections to Friars," and in numerous treatises from his pen
+against many of the doctrines and practices of the Church.
+
+Noted for his learning and boldness, he was sent by Edward III. one of an
+embassy to Bruges, to negotiate with the Pope's envoys concerning
+benefices held in England by foreigners. There he met John of Gaunt, the
+Duke of Lancaster. This prince, whose immediate descendants were to play
+so prominent a part in later history, was the fourth son of Edward III. By
+the death of the Black Prince, in 1376, and of Lionel, Duke of Clarence,
+in 1368, he became the oldest remaining child of the king, and the father
+of the man who usurped the throne of England and reigned as Henry IV. The
+influence of Lancaster was equal to his station, and he extended his
+protection to Wiclif. This, combined with the support of Lord Percy, the
+Marshal of England, saved the reformer from the stake when he was tried
+before the Bishop, of London on a charge of heresy, in 1377. He was again
+brought before a synod of the clergy at Lambeth, in 1378, but such was the
+favor of the populace in his behalf, and such, too, the weakness of the
+papal party, on account of a schism which had resulted in the election of
+two popes, that, although his opinions were declared heretical, he was not
+proceeded against.
+
+After this, although almost sick to death, he rose from what his enemies
+had hoped would be his death-bed, to "again declare the evil deeds of the
+friars." In 1381, he lectured openly at Oxford against the doctrine of
+transubstantiation; and for this, after a presentment by the Church--and a
+partial recantation, or explaining away--even the liberal king thought
+proper to command that he should retire from the university. Thus, during
+his latter years, he lived in retirement at his little parish of
+Lutterworth, escaping the dangers of the troublous time, and dying--struck
+with paralysis at his chancel--in 1384, sixteen years before Chaucer.
+
+
+TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE.--The labors of Wiclif which produced the most
+important results, were not his violent lectures as a reformer, but the
+translation of the Bible into English, the very language of the common
+people, greatly to the wrath of the hierarchy and its political upholders.
+This, too, is his chief glory: as a reformer he went too fast and too far;
+he struck fiercely at the root of authority, imperilling what was good, in
+his attack upon what was evil. In pulling up the tares he endangered the
+wheat, and from him, as a progenitor, came the Lollards, a fanatical,
+violent, and revolutionary sect.
+
+But his English Bible, the parent of the later versions, cannot be too
+highly valued. For the first time, English readers could search the whole
+Scriptures, and judge for themselves of doctrine and authority: there they
+could learn how far the traditions and commandments of men had encrusted
+and corrupted the pure word of truth. Thus the greatest impulsion was
+given to a reformation in doctrine; and thus, too, the exclusiveness and
+arrogance of the clergy received the first of many sledge-hammer blows
+which were to result in their confusion and discomfiture.
+
+"If," says Froude,[19] "the Black Prince had lived, or if Richard II. had
+inherited the temper of the Plantagenets, the ecclesiastical system would
+have been spared the misfortune of a longer reprieve."
+
+
+THE ASHES OF WICLIF.--The vengeance which Wiclif escaped during his life
+was wreaked upon his bones. In 1428, the Council of Constance ordered that
+if his bones could be distinguished from those of other, faithful people,
+they should "be taken out of the ground and thrown far off from Christian
+burial." On this errand the Bishop of Lincoln came with his officials to
+Lutterworth, and, finding them, burned them, and threw the ashes into the
+little stream called the Swift. Fuller, in his Church History, adds: "Thus
+this brook has conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into
+the narrow seas, they into the main ocean; and thus the ashes of Wiclif
+are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world
+over;" or, in the more carefully selected words of an English laureate of
+modern days,[20]
+
+                   ... this deed accurst,
+    An emblem yields to friends and enemies,
+    How the bold teacher's doctrine, _sanctified
+    By truth_, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAUCER (CONTINUED.)--PROGRESS OF SOCIETY, AND OF LANGUAGES.
+
+
+   Social Life. Government. Chaucer's English. His Death. Historical
+   Facts. John Gower. Chaucer and Gower. Gower's Language. Other Writers.
+
+
+
+SOCIAL LIFE.
+
+
+A few words must suffice to suggest to the student what may be learned, as
+to the condition of society in England, from the Canterbury Tales.
+
+All the portraits are representatives of classes. But an inquiry into the
+social life of the period will be more systematic, if we look first at the
+nature and condition of chivalry, as it still existed, although on the eve
+of departure, in England. This is found in the portraits of certain of
+Chaucer's pilgrims--the knight, the squire, and the yeoman; and in the
+special prologues to the various tales. The _knight_, as the
+representative of European chivalry, comes to us in name at least from the
+German forests with the irrepressible Teutons. _Chivalry_ in its rude
+form, however, was destined to pass through a refining and modifying
+process, and to obtain its name in France. Its Norman characteristic is
+found in the young _ecuyer_ or squire, of Chaucer, who aspires to equal
+his father in station and renown; while the English type of the
+man-at-arms (_l'homme d'armes_) is found in their attendant yeoman, the
+_tiers etat_ of English chivalry, whose bills and bows served Edward III.
+at Cressy and Poictiers, and, a little later, made Henry V. of England
+king of France in prospect, at Agincourt. Chivalry, in its palmy days,
+was an institution of great merit and power; but its humanizing purpose
+now accomplished, it was beginning to decline.
+
+What a speaking picture has Chaucer drawn of the knight, brave as a lion,
+prudent in counsel, but gentle as a woman. His deeds of valor had been
+achieved, not at Cressy and Calais, but--what both chieftain and poet
+esteemed far nobler warfare--in battle with the infidel, at Algeciras, in
+Poland, in Prussia, and Russia. Thrice had he fought with sharp lances in
+the lists, and thrice had he slain his foe; yet he was
+
+    Of his port as meke as is a mayde;
+    He never yet no vilainie ne sayde
+    In all his life unto ne manere wight,
+    He was a very parfit gentil knight.
+
+The entire paradox of chivalry is here presented by the poet. For, though
+Chaucer's knight, just returned from the wars, is going to show his
+devotion to God and the saints by his pilgrimage to the hallowed shrine at
+Canterbury, when he is called upon for his story, his fancy flies to the
+old romantic mythology. Mars is his god of war, and Venus his mother of
+loves, and, by an anachronism quite common in that day, Palamon and Arcite
+are mediaeval knights trained in the school of chivalry, and aflame, in
+knightly style, with the light of love and ladies' eyes. These
+incongruities marked the age.
+
+Such was the flickering brightness of chivalry in Chaucer's time, even
+then growing dimmer and more fitful, and soon to "pale its ineffectual
+fire" in the light of a growing civilization. Its better principles, which
+were those of truth, virtue, and holiness, were to remain; but its forms,
+ceremonies, and magnificence were to disappear.
+
+It is significant of social progress, and of the levelling influence of
+Christianity, that common people should do their pilgrimage with community
+of interest as well as danger, and in easy, tale-telling conference with
+those of higher station. The franklin, with white beard and red face, has
+been lord of the sessions and knight of the shire. The merchant, with
+forked beard and Flaundrish beaver hat, discourses learnedly of taxes and
+ship-money, and was doubtless drawn from an existing original, the type of
+a class. Several of the personages belong to the guilds which were so
+famous in London, and
+
+    Were alle yclothed in o livere
+    Of a solempne and grete fraternite.
+
+
+GOVERNMENT.--Closely connected with this social progress, was the progress
+in constitutional government, the fruit of the charters of John and Henry
+III. After the assassination of Edward II. by his queen and her paramour,
+there opened upon England a new historic era, when the bold and energetic
+Edward III. ascended the throne--an era reflected in the poem of Chaucer.
+The king, with Wiclif's aid, checked the encroachments of the Church. He
+increased the representation of the people in parliament, and--perhaps the
+greatest reform of all--he divided that body into two houses, the peers
+and the commons, giving great consequence to the latter in the conduct of
+the government, and introducing that striking feature of English
+legislation, that no ministry can withstand an opposition majority in the
+lower house; and another quite as important, that no tax should be imposed
+without its consent. The philosophy of these great facts is to be found in
+the democratic spirit so manifest among the pilgrims; a spirit tempered
+with loyalty, but ready, where their liberties were encroached upon, to
+act with legislative vigor, as well as individual boldness.
+
+Not so directly, but still forcibly, does Chaucer present the results of
+Edward's wars in France, in the status of the knight, squire, and yeoman,
+and of the English sailor, and in the changes introduced into the language
+and customs of the English thereby.
+
+
+CHAUCER'S ENGLISH.--But we are to observe, finally, that Chaucer is the
+type of progress in the language, giving it himself the momentum which
+carried it forward with only technical modifications to the days of
+Spenser and the Virgin Queen. The _House of Fame_ and other minor poems
+are written in the octosyllabic verse of the Trouveres, but the
+_Canterbury Tales_ give us the first vigorous English handling of the
+decasyllabic couplet, or iambic pentameter, which was to become so
+polished an instrument afterward in the hands of Dryden and Pope. The
+English of all the poems is simple and vernacular.
+
+It is known that Dante had at first intended to compose the Divina
+Commedia in Latin. "But when," he said to the sympathizing Frate Ilario,
+"I recalled the condition of the present age, and knew that those generous
+men for whom, in better days, these things were written, had abandoned
+(_ahi dolore_) the liberal arts into vulgar hands, I threw aside the
+delicate lyre which armed my flank, and attuned another more befitting the
+ears of moderns." It seems strange that he should have thus regretted what
+to us seems a noble and original opportunity of double creation--poem and
+language. What Dante thus bewailed was his real warrant for immortality.
+Had he written his great work in Latin, it would have been consigned, with
+the Italian latinity of the middle ages, to oblivion; while his Tuscan
+still delights the ear of princes and lazzaroni. Professorships of the
+Divina Commedia are instituted in Italian universities, and men are
+considered accomplished when they know it by heart.
+
+What Dante had done, not without murmuring, Chaucer did more cheerfully in
+England. Claimed by both universities as a collegian, perhaps without
+truth, he certainly was an educated man, and must have been sorely tempted
+by Latin hexameters; but he knew his mission, and felt his power. With a
+master hand he moulded the language. He is reproached for having
+introduced "a wagon-load of foreign words," i.e. Norman words, which,
+although frowned upon by some critics, were greatly needed, were eagerly
+adopted, and constituted him the "well of English undefiled," as he was
+called by Spenser. It is no part of our plan to consider Chaucer's
+language or diction, a special study which the reader can pursue for
+himself. Occleve, in his work "_De Regimine Principium"_ calls him "the
+honour of English tonge," "floure of eloquence," and "universal fadir in
+science," and, above all, "the firste findere of our faire language." To
+Lydgate he was the "Floure of Poetes throughout all Bretaine." Measured by
+our standard, he is not always musical, "and," in the language of Dryden,
+"many of his verses are lame for want of half a foot, and sometimes a
+whole one;" but he must be measured by the standards of his age, by the
+judgment of his contemporaries, and by a thorough intelligence of the
+language as he found it and as he left it. Edward III., a practical
+reformer in many things, gave additional importance to English, by
+restoring it in the courts of law, and administering justice to the people
+in their own tongue. When we read of the _English_ kings of this early
+period, it is curious to reflect that these monarchs, up to the time of
+Edward I., spoke French as their vernacular tongue, while English had only
+been the mixed, corrupted language of the lower classes, which was now
+brought thus by king and poet into honorable consideration.
+
+
+HIS DEATH.--Chaucer died on the 25th of October, 1400, in his little
+tenement in the garden of St. Mary's Chapel, Westminster, and left his
+works and his fame to an evil and unappreciative age. His monument was not
+erected until one hundred and fifty-six years afterward, by Nicholas
+Brigham. It stands in the "poets' corner" of Westminster Abbey, and has
+been the nucleus of that gathering-place of the sacred dust which once
+enclosed the great minds of England. The inscription, which justly styles
+him "Anglorum vates ter maximus," is not to be entirely depended upon as
+to the "annus Domini," or "tempora vitae," because of the turbulent and
+destructive reigns that had intervened--evil times for literary effort,
+and yet making material for literature and history, and producing that
+wonderful magician, the printing-press, and paper, by means of which the
+former things might be disseminated, and Chaucer brought nearer to us than
+to them.
+
+
+HISTORICAL FACTS.--The year before Chaucer died, Richard II. was starved
+in his dungeon. Henry, the son of John of Gaunt, represented the
+usurpation of Lancaster, and the realm was convulsed with the revolts of
+rival aristocracy; and, although Prince Hal, or Henry V., warred with
+entire success in France, and got the throne of that kingdom away from
+Charles VI., (the Insane,) he died leaving to his infant son, Henry VI.,
+an inheritance which could not be secured. The rival claimant of York,
+Edward IV., had a strong party in the kingdom: then came the wars of the
+Roses; the murders and treason of Richard III.; the sordid valor of Henry
+VII.; the conjugal affection of Henry VIII.; the great religious
+earthquake all over Europe, known as the Reformation; constituting all
+together an epoch too stirring and unsettled to permit literature to
+flourish; an epoch which gave birth to no great poet or mighty master, but
+which contained only the seeds of things which were to germinate and
+flourish in a kindlier age.
+
+In closing this notice of Chaucer, it should be remarked that no English
+poet has been more successful in the varied delineation of character, or
+in fresh and charming pictures of Nature. Witty and humorous, sententious
+and didactic, solemn and pathetic, he not only pleases the fancy, but
+touches the heart.
+
+
+JOHN GOWER.--Before entering upon the barren period from Chaucer to
+Spenser, however, there is one contemporary of Chaucer whom we must not
+omit to mention; for his works, although of little literary value, are
+historical signs of the times: this is _John Gower_, styled variously Sir
+John and Judge Gower, as he was very probably both a knight and a justice.
+He seems to owe most of his celebrity to his connection, however slight,
+with Chaucer; although there is no doubt of his having been held in good
+repute by the literary patrons and critics of his own age. His fame rests
+upon three works, or rather three parts of one scheme--_Speculum
+Meditantis_, _Vox Clamantis_, and _Confessio Amantis_. The first of these,
+_the mirror of one who meditates_, was in French verse, and was, in the
+main, a treatise upon virtue and repentance, with inculcations to conjugal
+fidelity much disregarded at that time. This work has been lost. The _Vox
+Clamantis_, or _voice of one crying in the wilderness_, is directly
+historical, being a chronicle, in Latin elegiacs, of the popular revolts
+of Wat Tyler in the time of Richard II., and a sermon on fatalism, which,
+while it calls for a reformation in the clergy, takes ground against
+Wiclif, his doctrines, and adherents. In the later books he discusses the
+military and the lawyers; and thus he is the voice of one crying, like the
+Baptist in the wilderness, against existing abuses and for the advent of a
+better order. The _Confessio Amantis_, now principally known because it
+contains a eulogium of Chaucer, which in his later editions he left out,
+is in English verse, and was composed at the instance of Richard II. The
+general argument of this Lover's Confession is a dialogue between the
+lover and a priest of Venus, who, in the guise of a confessor, applies the
+breviary of the Church to the confessions of love.[21] The poem is
+interspersed with introductory or recapitulatory Latin verses.
+
+
+CHAUCER AND GOWER.--That there was for a time a mutual admiration between
+Chaucer and Gower, is shown by their allusion to each other. In the
+penultimate stanza of the Troilus and Creseide, Chaucer calls him "O
+Morall Gower," an epithet repeated by Dunbar, Hawes, and other writers;
+while in the _Confessio Amantis_, Gower speaks of Chaucer as his disciple
+and poet, and alludes to his poems with great praise. That they were at
+any time alienated from each other has been asserted, but the best
+commentators agree in thinking without sufficient grounds.
+
+The historical teachings of Gower are easy to find. He states truths
+without parable. His moral satires are aimed at the Church corruptions of
+the day, and yet are conservative; and are taken, says Berthelet, in his
+dedication of the Confessio to Henry VIII., not only out of "poets,
+orators, historic writers, and philosophers, but out of the Holy
+Scripture"--the same Scripture so eloquently expounded by Chaucer, and
+translated by Wiclif. Again, Gower, with an eye to the present rather than
+to future fame, wrote in three languages--a tribute to the Church in his
+Latin, to the court in his French, and to the progressive spirit of the
+age in his English. The latter alone is now read, and is the basis of his
+fame. Besides three poems, he left, among his manuscripts, fifty French
+sonnets, (cinquantes balades,) which were afterward printed by his
+descendant, Lord Gower, Duke of Sutherland.
+
+
+GOWER'S LANGUAGE.--Like Chaucer, Gower was a reformer in language, and was
+accused by the "severer etymologists of having corrupted the purity of the
+English by affecting to introduce so many foreign words and phrases;" but
+he has the tribute of Sir Philip Sidney (no mean praise) that Chaucer and
+himself were the leaders of a movement, which others have followed, "to
+beautifie our mother tongue," and thus the _Confessio Amantis_ ranks as
+one of the formers of our language, in a day when it required much moral
+courage to break away from the trammels of Latin and French, and at the
+same time to compel them to surrender their choicest treasures to the
+English.
+
+Gower was born in 1325 or 1326, and outlived Chaucer. It has been
+generally believed that Chaucer was his poetical pupil. The only evidence
+is found in the following vague expression of Gower in the Confessio
+Amantis:
+
+    And greet well Chaucer when ye meet
+    As _my disciple_ and my poete.
+    For in the flower of his youth,
+    In sondry wise as he well couth,
+    Of ditties and of songes glade
+    The which he for my sake made.
+
+It may have been but a patronizing phrase, warranted by Gower's superior
+rank and station; for to the modern critic the one is the uprising sun,
+and the other the pale star scarcely discerned in the sky. Gower died in
+1408, eight years after his more illustrious colleague.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE PERIOD OF CHAUCER.
+
+
+John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, a Scottish poet, born about 1320:
+wrote a poem concerning the deeds of King Robert I. in achieving the
+independence of Scotland. It is called _Broite_ or _Brute_, and in it, in
+imitation of the English, he traces the Scottish royal lineage to Brutus.
+Although by no means equal to Chaucer, he is far superior to any other
+English poet of the time, and his language is more intelligible at the
+present day than that of Chaucer or Gower. Sir Walter Scott has borrowed
+from Barbour's poem in his "Lord of the Isles."
+
+Blind Harry--name unknown: wrote the adventures of Sir William Wallace,
+about 1460.
+
+James I. of Scotland, assassinated at Perth, in 1437. He wrote "The Kings
+Quhair," (Quire or Book,) describing the progress of his attachment to the
+daughter of the Earl of Somerset, while a prisoner in England, during the
+reign of Henry IV.
+
+Thomas Occleve, flourished about 1420. His principal work is in Latin; De
+Regimine Principum, (concerning the government of princes.)
+
+John Lydgate, flourished about 1430: wrote _Masks_ and _Mummeries_, and
+nine books of tragedies translated from Boccaccio.
+
+Robert Henryson, flourished about 1430: Robin and Makyne, a pastoral; and
+a continuation of Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide, entitled "The Testament
+of Fair Creseide."
+
+William Dunbar, died about 1520: the greatest of Scottish poets, called
+"The Chaucer of Scotland." He wrote "The Thistle and the Rose," "The
+Dance," and "The Golden Targe."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE BARREN PERIOD BETWEEN CHAUCER AND SPENSER.
+
+
+   Greek Literature. Invention of Printing. Caxton. Contemporary History.
+   Skelton. Wyatt. Surrey. Sir Thomas More. Utopia, and other Works. Other
+   Writers.
+
+
+
+THE STUDY OF GREEK LITERATURE.
+
+
+Having thus mentioned the writers whom we regard as belonging to the
+period of Chaucer, although some of them, like Henryson and Dunbar,
+flourished at the close of the fifteenth century, we reach those of that
+literary epoch which may be regarded as the transition state between
+Chaucer and the age of Elizabeth: an epoch which, while it produced no
+great literary work, and is irradiated by no great name, was, however, a
+time of preparation for the splendid advent of Spenser and Shakspeare.
+
+Incident to the dangers which had so long beset the Eastern or Byzantine
+Empire, which culminated in the fall of Constantinople--and to the gradual
+but steady progress of Western Europe in arts and letters, which made it a
+welcome refuge for the imperilled learning of the East--Greek letters came
+like a fertilizing flood across the Continent into England. The philosophy
+of Plato, the power of the Athenian drama, and the learning of the
+Stagyrite, were a new impulse to literature. Before the close of the
+fifteenth century, Greek was taught at Oxford, and men marvelled as they
+read that "musical and prolific language, that gives a soul to the objects
+of sense, and a body to the abstractions of philosophy," a knowledge of
+which had been before entirely lost in the West. Thus was perfected what
+is known as the revival of letters, when classical learning came to enrich
+and modify the national literatures, if it did temporarily retard the
+vernacular progress. The Humanists carried the day against the
+Obscurantists; and, as scholarship had before consisted in a thorough
+knowledge of Latin, it now also included a knowledge of Greek, which
+presented noble works of poetry, eloquence, and philosophy, and gave us a
+new idiom for the terminologies of science.
+
+
+INVENTION OF PRINTING.--Nor was this all. This great wealth of learning
+would have still remained a dead letter to the multitude, and, in the
+main, a useless treasure even to scholars, had it not been for a simple
+yet marvellous invention of the same period. In Germany, some obscure
+mechanics, at Harlem, at Mayence, and at Strasbourg, were at work upon a
+machine which, if perfected, should at once extend letters a hundred-fold,
+and by that process revolutionize literature. The writers before, few as
+they were, had been almost as numerous as the readers; hereafter the
+readers were to increase in a geometrical proportion, and each great
+writer should address millions. Movable types, first of wood and then of
+metal, were made, the latter as early as 1441. Schoeffer, Guttenberg, and
+Faust brought them to such perfection that books were soon printed and
+issued in large numbers. But so slowly did the art travel, partly on
+account of want of communication, and partly because it was believed to
+partake of necromancy, and partly, too, from the phlegmatic character of
+the English people, that thirty years elapsed before it was brought into
+England. The art of printing came in response to the demand of an age of
+progress: it was needed before; it was called for by the increasing number
+of readers, and when it came it multiplied that number largely.
+
+
+WILLIAM CAXTON.--That it did at last come to England was due to William
+Caxton, a native of Kent, and by vocation a mercer, who imported costly
+continental fabrics into England, and with them some of the new books now
+being printed in Holland. That he was a man of some eminence is shown by
+his having been engaged by Edward IV. on a mission to the Duke of
+Burgundy, with power to negotiate a treaty of commerce; that he was a
+person of skill and courtesy is evinced by his being retained in the
+service of Margaret, Duchess of York, when she married Charles, Duke of
+Burgundy. While in her train, he studied printing on the Continent, and is
+said to have printed some books there. At length, when he was more than
+sixty years old, he returned to England; and, in 1474, he printed what is
+supposed to be the first book printed in England, "The Game and Playe of
+the Chesse." Thus it was a century after Chaucer wrote the Canterbury
+Tales that printing was introduced into England. Caxton died in 1491, but
+his workmen continued to print, and among them Wynken de Worde stands
+conspicuous. Among the earlier works printed by Caxton were the Canterbury
+Tales, the Book of Fame, and the Troilus and Creseide of Chaucer.
+
+
+CONTEMPORARY HISTORY.--It will be remembered that this was the stormy
+period of the Wars of the Roses. The long and troubled reign of Henry VI.
+closed in sorrow in 1471. The titular crown of France had been easily
+taken from him by Charles VII. and Joan of Arc; and although Richard of
+York, the great-grandson of Edward III., had failed in his attempts upon
+the English throne, yet _his_ son Edward, afterward the Fourth, was
+successful. Then came the patricide of Clarence, the accession and
+cruelties of Richard III., the battle of Bosworth, and, at length, the
+union of the two houses in the persons of Henry VII. (Henry Tudor of
+Lancaster) and Elizabeth of York. Thus the strife of the succession was
+settled, and the realm had rest to reorganize and start anew in its
+historic career.
+
+The weakening of the aristocracy by war and by execution gave to the
+crown a power before unknown, and made it a fearful coigne of vantage for
+Henry VIII., whose accession was in 1509. People and parliament were alike
+subservient, and gave their consent to the unjust edicts and arbitrary
+cruelties of this terrible tyrant.
+
+In his reign the old English quarrel between Church and State--which
+during the civil war had lain dormant--again rose, and was brought to a
+final issue. It is not unusual to hear that the English Reformation grew
+out of the ambition of a libidinous monarch. This is a coincidence rather
+than a cause. His lust and his marriages would have occurred had there
+been no question of Pope or Church; conversely, had there been a continent
+king upon the throne, the great political and religious events would have
+happened in almost the same order and manner. That "knock of a king" and
+"incurable wound" prophesied by Piers Plowman were to come. Henry only
+seized the opportunity afforded by his ungodly passions as the best
+pretext, where there were many, for setting the Pope at defiance; and the
+spirit of reformation so early displayed, and awhile dormant from
+circumstances, and now strengthened by the voice of Luther, burst forth in
+England. There was little demur to the suppression of the monasteries; the
+tomb of St. Thomas a Becket was desecrated amidst the insulting mummeries
+of the multitude; and if Henry still burned Lutherans--because he could
+not forget that he had in earlier days denounced Luther--if he still
+maintained the six bloody articles[22]--his reforming spirit is shown in
+the execution of Fisher and More, by the anathema which he drew upon
+himself from the Pope, and by Henry's retaliation upon the friends and
+kinsmen of Cardinal Pole, the papal legate.
+
+Having thus briefly glanced at the history, we return to the literary
+products, all of which reflect more or less of the historic age, and by
+their paucity and poverty indicate the existence of the causes so
+unfavorable to literary effort. This statement will be partially
+understood when we mention, as the principal names of this period,
+Skelton, Wyatt, Surrey, and Sir Thomas More, men whose works are scarcely
+known to the ordinary reader, and which are yet the best of the time.
+
+
+SKELTON.--John Skelton, poet, priest, and buffoon, was born about the year
+1460, and educated at what he calls "Alma parens, O Cantabrigensis." Tutor
+to Prince Henry, afterward Henry VIII., he could boast, "The honour of
+England I lernyd to spelle." That he was highly esteemed in his day we
+gather from the eulogium of Erasmus, then for a short time professor of
+Greek at Oxford: "Unum Brittanicarum literarum lumen et decus." By another
+contemporary he is called the "inventive Skelton." As a priest he was not
+very holy; for, in a day when the marriage of the clergy was worse than
+their incontinence, he contracted a secret marriage. He enjoyed for a time
+the patronage of Wolsey, but afterward joined his enemies and attacked him
+violently. He was _laureated_: this does not mean, as at present, that he
+was poet laureate of England, but that he received a degree of which that
+was the title.
+
+His works are direct delineations of the age. Among these are "monodies"
+upon _Kynge Edwarde the forthe_, and the _Earle of Northumberlande_. He
+corrects for Caxton "The boke of the Eneydos composed by Vyrgyle." He
+enters heartily into numerous literary quarrels; is a reformer to the
+extent of exposing ecclesiastical abuses in his _Colin Clout_; and
+scourges the friars and bishops alike; and in this work, and his "Why come
+ye not to Courte?" he makes a special target of Wolsey, and the pomp and
+luxury of his household. He calls him "Mad Amelek, like to Mamelek"
+(Mameluke), and speaks
+
+    Of his wretched original
+    And his greasy genealogy.
+    He came from the sank (blood) royal
+    That was cast out of a butcher's stall.
+
+This was the sorest point upon which he could touch the great cardinal and
+prime minister of Henry VIII.
+
+Historically considered, one work of Skelton is especially valuable, for
+it places him among the first of English dramatists. The first effort of
+the modern drama was the _miracle play_; then came the _morality_; after
+that the _interlude_, which was soon merged into regular tragedy and
+comedy. Skelton's "Magnyfycence," which he calls "a goodly interlude and a
+merie," is, in reality, a morality play as well as an interlude, and marks
+the opening of the modern drama in England.
+
+The peculiar verse of Skelton, styled _skeltonical_, is a sort of English
+anacreontic. One example has been given; take, as another, the following
+lampoon of Philip of Spain and the armada:
+
+    A skeltonicall salutation
+    Or condigne gratulation
+    And just vexation
+    Of the Spanish nation,
+    That in bravado
+    Spent many a crusado
+    In setting forth an armado
+    England to invado.
+
+    Who but Philippus,
+    That seeketh to nip us,
+    To rob us and strip us,
+    And then for to whip us,
+    Would ever have meant
+    Or had intent
+    Or hither sent
+    Such strips of charge, etc., etc.
+
+It varies from five to six syllables, with several consecutive rhymes.
+
+His "Merie Tales" are a series of short and generally broad stories,
+suited to the vulgar taste: no one can read them without being struck with
+the truly historic character of the subjects and the handling, and without
+moralizing upon the age which they describe. Skelton, a contemporary of
+the French Rabelais, seems to us a weak English portrait of that great
+author; like him a priest, a buffoon, a satirist, and a lampooner, but
+unlike him in that he has given us no English _Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_
+to illustrate his age.
+
+
+WYATT.--The next writer who claims our attention is Sir Thomas Wyatt, the
+son of Sir Henry Wyatt. He was born in 1503, and educated at Cambridge.
+Early a courtier, he was imperilled by his attachment to Anne Boleyn,
+conceded, if not quite Platonic, yet to have never led him to criminality.
+Several of his poems were inspired by her charms. The one best known
+begins--
+
+    What word is that that changeth not,
+    Though it be turned and made in twain?
+    It is mine ANNA, God it wot, etc.
+
+That unfortunate queen--to possess whose charms Henry VIII. had repudiated
+Catherine of Arragon, and who was soon to be brought to the block after
+trial on the gravest charges--which we do not think substantiated--was,
+however, frivolous and imprudent, and liked such impassioned
+attentions--indeed, may be said to have suffered for them.
+
+Wyatt was styled by Camden "splendide doctus," but his learning, however
+honorable to him, was not of much benefit to the world; for his works are
+few, and most of them amatory--"songs and sonnets"--full of love and
+lovers: as a makeweight, in _foro conscientiae_, he paraphrased the
+penitential Psalms. An excellent comment this on the age of Henry VIII.,
+when the monarch possessed with lust attempted the reformation of the
+Church. That Wyatt looked with favor upon the Reformation is indicated by
+one of his remarks to the king: "Heavens! that a man cannot repent him of
+his sins without the Pope's leave!" Imprisoned several times during the
+reign of Henry, after that monarch's death he favored the accession of
+Lady Jane Grey, and, with other of her adherents, was executed for high
+treason on the 11th of April, 1554. We have spoken of the spirit of the
+age. Its criticism was no better than its literature; for Wyatt, whom few
+read but the literary historian, was then considered
+
+    A hand that taught what might be said in rhyme,
+    That reft Chaucer the glory of his wit.
+
+The glory of Chaucer's wit remains, while Wyatt is chiefly known because
+he was executed.
+
+
+SURREY.--A twin star, but with a brighter lustre, was Henry Howard, Earl
+of Surrey, a writer whose works are remarkable for purity of thought and
+refinement of language. Surrey was a gay and wild young
+fellow--distinguished in the tournament which celebrated Henry's marriage
+with Anne of Cleves; now in prison for eating meat in Lent, and breaking
+windows at night; again we find him the English marshal when Henry invaded
+France in 1544. He led a restless life, was imperious and hot-tempered to
+the king, and at length quartered the king's arms with his own, thus
+assuming royal rights and imperilling the king's dignity. On this charge,
+which was, however, only a pretext, he was arrested and executed for high
+treason in 1547, before he was thirty years old.
+
+Surrey is the greatest poetical name of Henry the Eighth's reign, not so
+much for the substance of his poems as for their peculiar handling. He is
+claimed as the introducer of blank verse--the iambic pentameter without
+rhyme, occasionally broken for musical effect by a change in the place of
+the caesural pause. His translation of the Fourth Book of the AEneid,
+imitated perhaps from the Italian version of the Cardinal de Medici, is
+said to be the first specimen of blank verse in English. How slow its
+progress was is proved by Johnson's remarks upon the versification of
+Milton.[23] Thus in his blank verse Surrey was the forerunner of Milton,
+and in his rhymed pentameter couplet one of the heralds of Dryden and
+Pope.
+
+
+SIR THOMAS MORE.--In a bird's-eye view of literature, the division into
+poetry and prose is really a distinction without a difference. They are
+the same body in different clothing, at labor and at festivity--in the
+working suit and in the court costume. With this remark we usher upon the
+literary scene Thomas More, in many respects one of the most remarkable
+men of his age--scholar, jurist, statesman, gentleman, and Christian; and,
+withal, a martyr to his principles of justice and faith. In a better age,
+he would have retained the highest honors: it is not to his discredit that
+in that reign he was brought to the block.
+
+He was born in 1480. A very precocious youth, a distinguished career was
+predicted for him. He was greatly favored by Henry VIII., who constantly
+visited him at Chelsea, hanging upon his neck, and professing an intensity
+of friendship which, it is said, More always distrusted. He was the friend
+and companion of Erasmus during the residence of that distinguished man in
+England. More was gifted as an orator, and rose to the distinction of
+speaker of the House of Commons; was presented with the great seal upon
+the dismissal of Wolsey, and by his learning, his affability, and his
+kindness, became the most popular, as he seemed to be the most prosperous
+man in England. But, the test of Henry's friendship and of More's
+principles came when the king desired his concurrence in the divorce of
+Catherine of Arragon. He resigned the great seal rather than sign the
+marriage articles of Anne Boleyn, and would not take the oath as to the
+lawfulness of that marriage. Henry's kindness turned to fury, and More was
+a doomed man. A devout Romanist, he would not violate his conscience by
+submitting to the act of supremacy which made Henry the head of the
+Church, and so he was tried for high treason, and executed on the 6th of
+July, 1535. There are few scenes more pathetic than his last interview
+with his daughter Margaret, in the Tower, and no death more calmly and
+beautifully grand than his. He kissed the executioner and forgave him.
+"Thou art," said he, "to do me the greatest benefit that I can receive:
+pluck up thy spirit man, and be not afraid to do thine office."
+
+
+UTOPIA.--His great work, and that which best illustrates the history of
+the age, is his Utopia, ([Greek: ou topos], not a place.) Upon an island
+discovered by a companion of Vespuccius, he established an imaginary
+commonwealth, in which everybody was good and everybody happy. Purely
+fanciful as is his Utopia, and impossible of realization as he knew it to
+be while men are what they are, and not what they ought to be, it is
+manifestly a satire on that age, for his republic shunned English errors,
+and practised social virtues which were not the rule in England.
+
+Although More wrote against Luther, and opposed Henry's Church
+innovations, we are struck with his Utopian claim for great freedom of
+inquiry on all subjects, even religion; and the bold assertion that no man
+should be punished for his religion, because "a man cannot make himself
+believe anything he pleases," as Henry's six bloody articles so fearfully
+asserted he must. The Utopia was written in Latin, but soon translated
+into English. We use the adjective _utopian_ as meaning wildly fanciful
+and impossible: its true meaning is of high excellence, to be striven
+for--in a word, human perfection.
+
+
+OTHER WORKS.--More also wrote, in most excellent English prose, a history
+of the princes, Edward V. and his brother Richard of York, who were
+murdered in the Tower; and a history of their murderer and uncle, Richard
+III. This Richard--and we need not doubt his accuracy of statement, for he
+was born five years before Richard fell at Bosworth--is the short,
+deformed youth, with his left shoulder higher than the right; crafty,
+stony-hearted, and cruel, so strikingly presented by Shakspeare, who takes
+More as his authority. "Not letting (sparing) to kiss whom he thought to
+kill ... friend and foe was indifferent where his advantage grew; he
+spared no man's death whose life withstood his purpose. He slew, with his
+own hands, King Henry VI., being a prisoner in the Tower."
+
+With the honorable name of More we leave this unproductive period, in
+which there was no great growth of any kind, but which was the
+planting-time, when seeds were sown that were soon to germinate and bloom
+and astonish the world. The times remind us of the dark saying in the
+Bible, "Out of the eater came forth meat; out of the strong came
+sweetness."
+
+The art of printing had so increased the number of books, that public
+libraries began to be collected, and, what is better, to be used. The
+universities enlarged their borders, new colleges were added to Cambridge
+and Oxford; new foundations laid. The note of preparation betokened a
+great advent; the scene was fully prepared, and the actors would not be
+wanting.
+
+Upon the death of Henry VIII., in 1547, Edward VI., his son by Jane
+Seymour, ascended the throne, and during his minority a protector was
+appointed in the person of his mother's brother, the Earl of Hertford,
+afterward Duke of Somerset. Edward was a sickly youth of ten years old,
+but his reign is noted for the progress of reform in the Church, and
+especially for the issue of the _Book of Common Prayer_, which must be
+considered of literary importance, as, although with decided
+modifications, and an interruption in its use during the brief reign of
+Mary, it has been the ritual of worship in the Anglican Church ever since.
+It superseded the Latin services--of which it was mainly a translation
+rearranged and modified--finally and completely, and containing, as it
+does, the whole body of doctrine, it was the first clear manifesto of the
+creeds and usages of that Church, and a strong bond of union among its
+members.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE PERIOD.
+
+
+_Thomas Tusser_, 1527-1580: published, in 1557, "A Hundreth Good Points of
+Husbandrie," afterward enlarged and called, "Five Hundred Points of Good
+Husbandrie, united to as many of Good Huswiferie;" especially valuable as
+a picture of rural life and labor in that age.
+
+Alexander Barklay, died 1552: translated into English poetry the _Ship of
+Fools_, by Sebastian Brandt, of Basle.
+
+Reginald Pecock, Bishop of St. Asaph and of Chichester: published, in
+1449, "The Repressor of Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy." He attacked the
+Lollards, but was suspected of heresy himself, and deprived of his
+bishopric.
+
+John Fisher, 1459-1535: was made Bishop of Rochester in 1504; opposed the
+Reformation, and refused to approve of Henry's divorce from Catherine of
+Arragon; was executed by the king. The Pope sent him a cardinal's hat
+while he was lying under sentence. Henry said he would not leave him a
+head to put it on. Wrote principally sermons and theological treatises.
+
+Hugh Latimer, 1472-1555: was made Bishop of Worcester in 1535. An ardent
+supporter of the Reformation, who, by a rude, homely eloquence, influenced
+many people. He was burned at the stake at the age of eighty-three, in
+company with Ridley, Bishop of London, by Queen Mary. His memorable words
+to his fellow-martyr are: "We shall this day light a candle in England
+which, I trust, shall never be put out."
+
+John Leland, or Laylonde, died 1552: an eminent antiquary, who, by order
+of Henry VIII., examined, _con amore_, the records of libraries,
+cathedrals, priories, abbeys, colleges, etc., and has left a vast amount
+of curious antiquarian learning behind him. He became insane by reason of
+the pressure of his labors.
+
+George Cavendish, died 1557: wrote "The Negotiations of Woolsey, the Great
+Cardinal of England," etc., which was republished as the "Life and Death
+of Thomas Woolsey." From this, it is said, Shakspeare drew in writing his
+"Henry VIII."
+
+Roger Ascham, 1515-1568: specially famous as the successful instructor of
+Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey, whom he was able to imbue with a taste for
+classical learning. He wrote a treatise on the use of the bow, called
+_Toxophilus_, and _The Schoolmaster_, which contains many excellent and
+judicious suggestions, worthy to be carried out in modern education. It
+was highly praised by Dr. Johnson. It was written for the use of the
+children of Sackville, Lord Buckhurst.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+SPENSER AND THE ELIZABETHAN AGE.
+
+
+   The Great Change. Edward VI. and Mary. Sidney. The Arcadia. Defence of
+   Poesy. Astrophel and Stella. Gabriel Harvey. Edmund Spenser--Shepherd's
+   Calendar. His Great Work.
+
+
+
+THE GREAT CHANGE.
+
+
+With what joy does the traveller in the desert, after a day of scorching
+glow and a night of breathless heat, descry the distant trees which mark
+the longed-for well-spring in the emerald oasis, which seems to beckon
+with its branching palms to the converging caravans, to come and slake
+their fever-thirst, and escape from the threatening sirocco!
+
+The pilgrim arrives at the caravansery: not the long, low stone house,
+unfurnished and bare, which former experience had led him to expect; but a
+splendid palace. He dismounts; maidens purer and more beautiful than
+fabled houris, accompanied by slaves bearing rare dishes and goblets of
+crusted gold, offer him refreshments: perfumed baths, couches of down,
+soft and soothing music are about him in delicious combination. Surely he
+is dreaming; or if this be real, were not the burning sun and the sand of
+the desert, the panting camel and the dying horse of an hour ago but a
+dream?
+
+Such is not an overwrought illustration of English literature in the long,
+barren reach from Chaucer to Spenser, as compared with the freshness,
+beauty, and grandeur of the geniuses which adorned Elizabeth's court, and
+tended to make her reign as illustrious in history as the age of Pericles,
+of Augustus, or of Louis XIV. Chief among these were Spenser and
+Shakspeare. As the latter has been truly characterized as not for an age,
+but for all time, the former may be more justly considered as the highest
+exponent and representative of that period. The Faerie Queene, considered
+only as a grand heroic poem, is unrivalled in its pictures of beautiful
+women, brave men, daring deeds, and Oriental splendor; but in its
+allegorical character, it is far more instructive, since it enumerates and
+illustrates the cardinal virtues which should make up the moral character
+of a gentleman: add to this, that it is teeming with history, and in its
+manifold completeness we have, if not an oasis in the desert, more truly
+the rich verge of the fertile country which bounds that desert, and which
+opens a more beautiful road to the literary traveller as he comes down the
+great highway: wearied and worn with the factions and barrenness of the
+fifteenth century, he fairly revels with delight in the fertility and
+variety of the Elizabethan age.
+
+
+EDWARD AND MARY.--In pursuance of our plan, a few preliminary words will
+present the historic features of that age. In the year 1547, Henry VIII.,
+the royal Bluebeard, sank, full of crimes and beset with deathbed horrors,
+into a dishonorable grave.[24] A poor, weak youth, his son, Edward VI.,
+seemed sent by special providence on a short mission of six years, to
+foster the reformed faith, and to give the land a brief rest after the
+disorders and crimes of his father's reign.
+
+After Edward came Queen Mary, in 1553--the bloody Mary, who violently
+overturned the Protestant system, and avenged her mother against her
+father by restoring the Papal sway and making heresy the unpardonable
+sin. It may seem strange, in one breath to denounce Henry and to defend
+his daughter Mary; but severe justice, untempered with sympathy, has been
+meted out to her. We acknowledge all her recorded actions, but let it be
+remembered that she was the child of a basely repudiated mother, Catherine
+of Arragon, who, as the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, was a
+Catholic of the Catholics. Mary had been declared illegitimate; she was
+laboring under an incurable disease, affecting her mind as well as her
+body; she was the wife of Philip II. of Spain, a monster of iniquity,
+whose sole virtue--if we may so speak--was his devotion to his Church. She
+inherited her bigotry from her mother, and strengthened it by her
+marriage; and she thought that in persecuting heretics she was doing God
+service, which would only be a perfect service when she should have burned
+out the bay-tree growth of heresy and restored the ancient faith.
+
+Such were her character and condition as displayed to the English world;
+but we know, in addition, that she bore her sufferings with great
+fortitude; that, an unloved wife, she was a pattern of conjugal affection
+and fidelity; that she was a dupe in the hands of designing men and a
+fierce propaganda; and we may infer that, under different circumstances
+and with better guidance, the real elements of her character would have
+made her a good monarch and presented a far more pleasing historical
+portrait.
+
+Justice demands that we should say thus much, for even with these
+qualifications, the picture of her reign is very dark and painful. After a
+sad and bloody rule of five years--a reign of worse than Roman
+proscription, or later French terrors--she died without leaving a child.
+There was but one voice as to her successor. Delirious shouts of joy were
+heard throughout the land: "God save Queen Elizabeth!" "No more burnings
+at Smithfield, nor beheadings on Tower green! No more of Spanish Philip
+and his pernicious bigots! Toleration, freedom, light!" The people of
+England were ready for a golden age, and the golden age had come.
+
+
+ELIZABETH.--And who was Elizabeth? The daughter of the dishonored Anne
+Boleyn, who had been declared illegitimate, and set out of the succession;
+who had been kept in ward; often and long in peril of her life; destined,
+in all human foresight, to a life of sorrow, humiliation, and obscurity;
+her head had been long lying "'twixt axe and crown," with more probability
+of the former than the latter.
+
+Wonderful was the change. With her began a reign the like of which the
+world had never seen; a great and brilliant crisis in English history, in
+which the old order passed away and the new was inaugurated. It was like a
+new historic fulfilment of the prophecy of Virgil:
+
+    Magnus ... saeclorum nascitur ordo;
+    Jam redit et _Virgo_, redeunt Saturnia regna.
+
+Her accession and its consequences were like the scenes in some fairy
+tale. She was indeed a Faerie Queene, as she was designated in Spenser's
+magnificent allegory. Around her clustered a new chivalry, whose gentle
+deeds were wrought not only with the sword, but with the pen. Stout heart,
+stalwart arm, and soaring imagination, all wore her colors and were amply
+rewarded by her smiles; and whatever her personal faults--and they were
+many--as a monarch, she was not unworthy of their allegiance.
+
+
+SIDNEY.--Before proceeding to a consideration of Spenser's great poem, it
+is necessary to mention two names intimately associated with him and with
+his fame, and of special interest in the literary catalogue of Queen
+Elizabeth's court, brilliant and numerous as that catalogue was.
+
+Among the most striking characters of this period was Sir Philip Sidney,
+whose brief history is full of romance and attraction; not so much for
+what he did as for what he personally was, and gave promise of being.
+Whenever we seek for an historical illustration of the _gentleman_, the
+figure of Sidney rises in company with that of Bayard, and claims
+distinction. He was born at Pennshurst in Kent, on the 29th of November,
+1554. He was the nephew of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the chief
+favorite of the queen. Precocious in grace, dignity, and learning, Sidney
+was educated both at Oxford and Cambridge, and in his earliest manhood he
+was a _prud' homme_, handsome, elegant, learned, and chivalrous; a
+statesman, a diplomatist, a soldier, and a poet; "not only of excellent
+wit, but extremely beautiful of face. Delicately chiselled Anglo-Norman
+features, smooth, fair cheek, a faint moustache, blue eyes, and a mass of
+amber-colored hair," distinguished him among the handsome men of a court
+where handsome men were in great request.
+
+He spent some time at the court of Charles IX. of France--which, however,
+he left suddenly, shocked and disgusted by the massacre of St.
+Bartholomew's Eve--and extended his travels into Germany. The queen held
+him in the highest esteem--although he was disliked by the Cecils, the
+constant rivals of the Dudleys; and when he was elected to the crown of
+Poland, the queen refused him permission to accept, because she would not
+lose "the brightest jewel of her crown--her Philip," as she called him to
+distinguish him from her sister Mary's Philip, Philip II. of Spain. A few
+words will finish his personal story. He went, by the queen's permission,
+with his uncle Leicester to the Low Countries, then struggling, with
+Elizabeth's assistance, against Philip of Spain. There he was made
+governor of Flushing--the key to the navigation of the North Seas--with
+the rank of general of horse. In a skirmish near Zutphen (South Fen) he
+served as a volunteer; and, as he was going into action fully armed,
+seeing his old friend Sir William Pelham without cuishes upon his thighs,
+prompted by mistaken but chivalrous generosity, he took off his own, and
+had his thigh broken by a musket-ball. This was on the 2d of October,
+1586, N.S. He lingered for twenty days, and then died at Arnheim, mourned
+by all. The story of his passing the untasted water to the wounded
+soldier, will never become trite: "This man's necessity is greater than
+mine," was an immortal speech which men like to quote.[25]
+
+
+SIDNEY'S WORKS.--But it is as a literary character that we must consider
+Sidney; and it is worthy of special notice that his works could not have
+been produced in any other age. The principal one is the _Arcadia_. The
+name, which was adopted from Sannazzaro, would indicate a pastoral--and
+this was eminently the age of English pastoral--but it is in reality not
+such. It presents indeed sylvan scenes, but they are in the life of a
+knight. It is written in prose, interspersed with short poems, and was
+inspired by and dedicated to his literary sister Mary, the Countess of
+Pembroke. It was called indeed the _Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia_. There
+are many scenes of great beauty and vigor; there is much which represents
+the manners, of the age, but few persons can now peruse it with pleasure,
+because of the peculiar affectations of style, and its overload of
+ornament. There grew naturally in the atmosphere of the court of a regnant
+queen, an affected, flattering, and inflated language, known to us as
+_Euphuism_. Of this John Lilly has been called the father, but we really
+only owe to him the name, which is taken from his two works, _Euphues,
+Anatomy of Wit_, and _Euphues and his England_. The speech of the Euphuist
+is hardly caricatured in Sir Walter Scott's delineation of Sir Piercie
+Shafton in "The Monastery." The gallant men of that day affected this form
+of address to fair ladies, and fair ladies liked to be greeted in such
+language. Sidney's works have a relish of this diction, and are imbued
+with the spirit which produced it.
+
+
+DEFENCE OF POESIE.--The second work to be mentioned is his "Defence of
+Poesie." Amid the gayety and splendor of that reign, there was a sombre
+element. The Puritans took gloomy views of life: they accounted
+amusements, dress, and splendor as things of the world; and would even
+sweep away poetry as idle, and even wicked. Sir Philip came to its defence
+with the spirit of a courtier and a poet, and the work in which he upholds
+it is his best, far better in style and sense than his Arcadia. It is one
+of the curiosities of literature, in itself, and in its representation of
+such a social condition as could require a defence of poetry. His
+_Astrophel and Stella_ is a collection of amatory poems, disclosing his
+passion for Lady Rich, the sister of the Earl of Essex. Although something
+must be allowed to the license of the age, in language at least, yet still
+the _Astrophel and Stella_ cannot be commended for its morality. The
+sentiments are far from Platonic, and have been severely censured by the
+best critics. Among the young gallants of Euphuistic habitudes, Sidney was
+known as _Astrophel_; and Spenser wrote a poem mourning the death of
+Astrophel: _Stella_, of course, was the star of his worship.
+
+
+GABRIEL HARVEY.--Among the friends of both Sidney and Spenser, was one who
+had the pleasure of making them acquainted--Gabriel Harvey. He was born,
+it is believed, in 1545, and lived until 1630. Much may be gathered of the
+literary character and tendencies of the age by a perusal of the "three
+proper and wittie familiar letters" which passed between Spenser and
+himself, and the "four letters and certain sonnets," containing valuable
+notices of contemporary poets. He also prefixed a poem entitled
+_Hobbinol_, to the Faery Queene. But Harvey most deserves our notice
+because he was the champion of the hexameter verse in English, and imbued
+even Spenser with an enthusiasm for it.
+
+Each language has its own poetic and rhythmic capacities. Actual
+experiment and public taste have declared their verdict against hexameter
+verse in English. The genius of the Northern languages refuses this old
+heroic measure, which the Latins borrowed from the Greeks, and all the
+scholarship and finish of Longfellow has not been able to establish it in
+English. Harvey was a pedant so thoroughly tinctured with classical
+learning, that he would trammel his own language by ancient rules, instead
+of letting it grow into the assertion of its own rules.
+
+
+EDMUND SPENSER--THE SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR.--Having noticed these lesser
+lights of the age of Spenser, we return to a brief consideration of that
+poet, who, of all others, is the highest exponent and representative of
+literature in the age of Queen Elizabeth, and whose works are full of
+contemporary history.
+
+Spenser was born in the year of the accession of Queen Mary, 1553, at
+London, and of what he calls "a house of ancient fame." He was educated at
+Cambridge, where he early displayed poetic taste and power, and he went,
+after leaving college, to reside as a tutor in the North of England. A
+love affair with "a skittish female," who jilted him, was the cause of his
+writing the _Shepherd's Calendar_; which he soon after took with him in
+manuscript to London, as the first fruits of a genius that promised far
+nobler things.
+
+Harvey introduced him to Sidney, and a tender friendship sprang up between
+them: he spent much of his time with Sidney at Pennshurst, and dedicated
+to him the _Shepherd's Calendar_. He calls it "an olde name for a newe
+worke." The plan of it is as follows: There are twelve parts,
+corresponding to twelve months: these he calls _aeglogues_, or
+goat-herde's songs, (not _eclogues_ or [Greek: eklogai]--well-chosen
+words.) It is a rambling work in varied melody, interspersed and relieved
+by songs and lays.
+
+
+HIS ARCHAISMS.--In view of its historical character, there are several
+points to be observed. It is of philological importance to notice that in
+the preliminary epistle, he explains and defends his use of archaisms--for
+the language of none of his poems is the current English of the day, but
+always that of a former period--saying that he uses old English words
+"restored as to their rightful heritage;" and it is also evident that he
+makes new ones, in accordance with just principles of philology. This fact
+is pointed out, lest the cursory reader should look for the current
+English of the age of Elizabeth in Spenser's poems.
+
+How much, or rather how little he thought of the poets of the day, may be
+gathered from his saying that he "scorns and spews the rakebelly rout of
+ragged rymers." It further displays the boldness of his English, that he
+is obliged to add "a Glosse or Scholion," for the use of the reader.
+
+Another historical point worthy of observation is his early adulation of
+Elizabeth, evincing at once his own courtiership and her popularity. In
+"February" (Story of the Oak and Briar) he speaks of "colours meete to
+clothe a mayden queene." The whole of "April" is in her honor:
+
+    Of fair Eliza be your silver song,
+      That blessed wight,
+    The floure of virgins, may she flourish long,
+      In princely plight.
+
+In "September" "he discourseth at large upon the loose living of Popish
+prelates," an historical trait of the new but cautious reformation of the
+Marian Church, under Elizabeth. Whether a courtier like Spenser could
+expect the world to believe in the motto with which he concludes the
+epilogue, "Merce non mercede," is doubtful, but the words are significant;
+and it is not to his discredit that he strove for both.
+
+
+HIS GREATEST WORK.--We now approach _The Faerie Queene_, the greatest of
+Spenser's works, the most remarkable poem of that age, and one of the
+greatest landmarks in English literature and English history. It was not
+published in full until nearly all the great events of Elizabeth's reign
+had transpired, and it is replete with the history of nearly half a
+century in the most wonderful period of English history. To courtly
+readers of that day the history was only pleasantly illustrative--to the
+present age it is invaluable for itself: the poem illustrates the history.
+
+He received, through the friendship of Sidney, the patronage of his uncle,
+Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester--a powerful nobleman, because, besides
+his family name, and the removal of the late attainder, which had been in
+itself a distinction, he was known to be the lover of the queen; for
+whatever may be thought of her conduct, we know that in recommending him
+as a husband to the widowed Queen of Scots, she said she would have
+married him herself had she designed to marry at all; or, it may be said,
+she would have married him had she dared, for that act would have ruined
+her.
+
+Spenser was a loyal and enthusiastic subject, a poet, and a scholar. From
+these characteristics sprang the Faerie Queene. After submitting the first
+book to the criticism of his friend and his patron, he dedicated the work
+to "The most high, mighty, and magnificent empress, renowned for piety,
+virtue, and all gracious government, Elizabeth, by the grace of God Queen
+of England, France, and Ireland, and of Virginia."[26]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE HISTORY IN THE FAERIE QUEENE.
+
+
+   The Faerie Queene. The Plan Proposed. Illustrations of the History. The
+   Knight and the Lady. The Wood of Error and the Hermitage. The Crusades.
+   Britomartis and Sir Artegal. Elizabeth. Mary Queen of Scots. Other
+   Works. Spenser's Fate. Other Writers.
+
+
+
+THE FAERIE QUEENE.
+
+
+The Faerie Queene is an allegory, in many parts capable of more than one
+interpretation. Some of the characters stand for two, and several of them
+even for three distinct historical personages.
+
+The general plan and scope of the poem may be found in the poet's letter
+to his friend, Sir Walter Raleigh. It is designed to enumerate and
+illustrate the moral virtues which should characterize a noble or gentle
+person--to present "the image of a brave knight perfected in the twelve
+private morall vertues, as Aristotle hath devised." It appears that the
+author designed twelve books, but he did not accomplish his purpose. The
+poem, which he left unfinished, contains but six books or legends, each of
+which relates the adventures of a knight who is the patron and
+representative of a special virtue.
+
+   _Book_ I. gives the adventures of St. George, the Red-Cross Knight, by
+   whom is intended the virtue of Holiness.
+
+   _Book_ II., those of Sir Guyon, or Temperance.
+
+   _Book_ III., Britomartis, a lady-knight, or Chastity.
+
+   _Book_ IV., Cambel and Triamond, or Friendship.
+
+   _Book_ V., Sir Artegal, or Justice.
+
+   _Book_ VI., Sir Calydore, or Courtesy.
+
+The perfect hero of the entire poem is King Arthur, chosen "as most fitte,
+for the excellency of his person, being made famous by many men's former
+workes, and also furthest from the daunger of envy and suspition of
+present time."
+
+It was manifestly thus, too, that the poet solved a difficult and delicate
+problem: he pleased the queen by adopting this mythic hero, for who else
+was worthy of her august hand?
+
+And in the person of the faerie queene herself Spenser informs us: "I mean
+_glory_ in my general intention, but in my particular, I conceive the most
+excellent and glorious person of our sovereign, the _Queene_."
+
+Did we depend upon the poem for an explanation of Spenser's design, we
+should be left in the dark, for he intended to leave the origin and
+connection of the adventures for the twelfth book, which was never
+written; but he has given us his plan in the same preliminary letter to
+Raleigh.
+
+
+THE PLAN PROPOSED.--"The beginning of my history," he says, "should be in
+the twelfth booke, which is the last; where I devise that the Faerie
+Queene kept her Annual Feaste XII days; uppon which XII severall days the
+occasions of the XII severall adventures hapned, which being undertaken by
+XII severall knights, are in these XII books handled and discoursed."
+
+First, a tall, clownish youth falls before the queen and desires a boon,
+which she might not refuse, viz. the achievement of any adventure which
+might present itself. Then appears a fair lady, habited in mourning, and
+riding on an ass, while behind her comes a dwarf, leading a caparisoned
+war-horse, upon which was the complete armor of a knight. The lady falls
+before the queen and complains that her father and mother, an ancient king
+and queen, had, for many years, been shut up by a dragon in a brazen
+castle, and begs that one of the knights may be allowed to deliver them.
+
+The young clown entreats that he may take this adventure, and
+notwithstanding the wonder and misgiving of all, the armor is found to fit
+him well, and when he had put it on, "he seemed the goodliest man in all
+the company, and was well liked by the lady, and eftsoones taking on him
+knighthood, and mounting on that strounge courser, he went forth with her
+on that adventure; where beginneth the First Booke."
+
+In a similar manner, other petitions are urged, and other adventures
+undertaken.
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE HISTORY.--The history in this poem lies directly upon
+the surface. Elizabeth was the Faery Queen herself--faery in her real
+person, springing Cinderella-like from durance and danger to the most
+powerful throne in Europe. Hers was a reign of faery character, popular
+and august at home, after centuries of misrule and civil war; abroad
+English influence and power were exerted in a magical manner. It is she
+who holds a court such as no Englishman had ever seen; who had the power
+to transform common men into valiant warriors, elegant courtiers, and
+great statesmen; to send forth her knights upon glorious
+adventures--Sidney to die at Zutphen, Raleigh to North and South America,
+Frobisher--with a wave of her hand as he passes down the Thames--to try
+the northwest passage to India; Effingham, Drake, and Hawkins to drive off
+to the tender mercy of northern storms the Invincible Armada, and then to
+point out to the coming generations the distant fields of English
+enterprise.
+
+"Chivalry was dying; the abbey and the castle were soon together to
+crumble into ruins; and all the forms, desires, beliefs, convictions of
+the old world were passing away, never to return;"[27] but this virgin
+queen was the founder of a new chivalry, whose deeds were not less
+valiant, and far more useful to civilization.
+
+It is not our purpose, for it would be impossible, to interpret all the
+history contained in this wonderful poem: a few of the more striking
+presentations will be indicated, and thus suggest to the student how he
+may continue the investigation for himself.
+
+
+THE KNIGHT AND THE LADY.--In the First Book we are at once struck with the
+fine portraiture of the Red Crosse Knight, the Patron of Holinesse, which
+we find in the opening lines:
+
+    A gentle knight was pricking on the plain,
+    Ycladd in mighty arms and silver shield.
+
+As we read we discover, without effort, that he is the St. George of
+England, or the impersonation of England herself, whose red-cross banner
+distinguishes her among the nations of the earth. It is a description of
+Christian England with which the poet thus opens his work:
+
+    And on his brest a bloodie cross he bore,
+      The dear remembrance of his dying Lord,
+    For whose sweet sake that glorious badge he wore,
+      And dead, as living ever, Him adored.
+    Upon his shield the like was also scored,
+    For sovereign hope which in his help he had.
+
+Then follows his adventure--that of St. George and the Dragon. By slaying
+this monster, he will give comfort and aid to a peerless lady, the
+daughter of a glorious king; this fair lady, _Una_, who has come a long
+distance, and to whom, as a champion, the Faery Queene has presented the
+red-cross knight. Thus is presented the historic truth that the reformed
+and suffering Church looked to Queen Elizabeth for succor and support, for
+the Lady Una is one of several portraitures of the Church in this poem.
+
+As we proceed in the poem, the history becomes more apparent. The Lady
+Una, riding upon a lowly ass, shrouded by a veil, covered with a black
+stole, "as one that inly mourned," and leading "a milk-white lamb," is the
+Church. The ass is the symbol of her Master's lowliness, who made even his
+triumphant entry into Jerusalem upon "a colt the foal of an ass;" the
+lamb, the emblem of the innocence and of the helplessness of the "little
+flock;" the black stole is meant to represent the Church's trials and
+sorrows in her former history as well as in that naughty age. The dragon
+is the old serpent, her constant and bitter foe, who, often discomfited,
+returns again and again to the attack in hope of her overthrow.
+
+
+THE WOOD OF ERROR.--The adventures of the knight and the lady take them
+first into the Wood of Error, a noble and alluring grove, within which,
+however, lurks a loathsome serpent. The knight rushes upon this female
+monster with great boldness, but
+
+    ... Wrapping up her wreathed body round,
+      She leaped upon his shield and her huge train
+    All suddenly about his body wound,
+      That hand and foot he strove to stir in vain.
+      God help the man so wrapt in Error's endless chain.
+
+The Lady Una cries out:
+
+    ... Now, now, sir knight, shew what ye bee,
+      _Add faith unto thy force_, and be not faint.
+    Strangle her, else she sure will strangle thee.
+
+He follows her advice, makes one desperate effort, Error is slain, and the
+pilgrimage resumed.
+
+Thus it is taught that the Church has waged successful battle with Error
+in all its forms--paganism, Arianism, Socinianism, infidelity; and in all
+ages of her history, whether crouching in the lofty groves of the Druids,
+or in the more insidious forms of later Christian heresy.
+
+
+THE HERMITAGE.--On leaving the Wood of Error, the knight and Lady Una
+encounter a venerable hermit, and are led into his hermitage. This is
+_Archimago_, a vile magician thus disguised, and in his retreat foul
+spirits personate both knight and lady, and present these false doubles to
+each. Each sees what seems to be the other's fall from virtue, and,
+horrified by the sight, the real persons leave the hermitage by separate
+ways, and wander, in inextricable mazes lost, until fortune and faery
+bring them together again and disclose the truth.
+
+Here Spenser, who was a zealous Protestant, designs to present the
+monastic system, the disfavor into which the monasteries had fallen, and
+the black arts secretly studied among better arts in the cloisters,
+especially in the period just succeeding the Norman conquest.
+
+
+THE CRUSADES.--As another specimen of the historic interpretation, we may
+trace the adventures of England in the Crusades, as presented in the
+encounter of St. George with _Sansfoy_, (without faith,) or the Infidel.
+
+From the hermitage of Archimago,
+
+    The true St. George had wandered far away,
+      Still flying from his thoughts and jealous fear,
+    Will was his guide, and grief led him astray;
+    At last him chanced to meet upon the way
+      A faithless Saracen all armed to point,
+    In whose great shield was writ with letters gay
+      SANSFOY: full large of limb, and every joint
+      He was, and cared not for God or man a point.
+
+Well might the poet speak of Mohammedanism as large of limb, for it had
+stretched itself like a Colossus to India, and through Northern Africa
+into Spain, where it threatened Christendom, beyond the Pyrenees. It was
+then that the unity of the Church, the concurrence of Europe in one form
+of Christianity, made available the enthusiasm which succeeded in stemming
+the torrent of Islam, and setting bounds to its conquests.
+
+It is not our purpose to pursue the adventures of the Church, but to
+indicate the meaning of the allegory and the general interpretation; it
+will give greater zest to the student to make the investigation for
+himself, with the all-sufficient aids of modern criticism.
+
+Assailed in turn by error in doctrine, superstition, hypocrisy,
+enchantments, lawlessness, pride, and despair, the red-cross knight
+overcomes them all, and is led at last by the Lady Una into the House of
+Holiness, a happy and glorious house. There, anew equipped with the shield
+of Faith, the helmet of Salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, he goes
+forth to greater conquests; the dragon is slain, the Lady Una triumphant,
+the Church delivered, and Holiness to the Lord established as the law of
+his all-subduing kingdom on earth.
+
+
+BRITOMARTIS.--In the third book the further adventures of the red-cross
+knight are related, but a heroine divides our attention with him.
+_Britomartis_, or Chastity, finds him attacked by six lawless knights, who
+try to compel him to give up his lady and serve another. Here Britomartis
+represents Elizabeth, and the historic fact is the conflict of English
+Protestantism carried on upon land and sea, in the Netherlands, in France,
+and against the Invincible Armada of Philip. The new mistress offered him
+in the place of Una is the Papal Church, and the six knights are the
+nations fighting for the claims of Rome.
+
+The valiant deeds of Britomartis represent also the power of chastity, to
+which Scott alludes when he says,
+
+    She charmed at once and tamed the heart,
+    Incomparable Britomarte.[28]
+
+And here the poet pays his most acceptable tribute to the Virgin Queen.
+She is in love with Sir Artegal--abstract justice. She has encountered him
+in fierce battle, and he has conquered her. It was the fond boast of
+Elizabeth that she lived for her people, and for their sake refused to
+marry. The following portraiture will be at once recognized:
+
+    And round about her face her yellow hair
+      Having, thro' stirring, loosed its wonted band,
+    Like to a golden border did appear,
+      Framed in goldsmith's forge with cunning hand;
+      Yet goldsmith's cunning could not understand
+    To frame such subtle wire, so shiny clear,
+      For it did glisten like the glowing sand,
+    The which Pactolus with his waters sheer,
+    Throws forth upon the rivage, round about him near.
+
+This encomium upon Elizabeth's hair recalls the description of another
+courtier, that it was like the last rays of the declining sun. Ill-natured
+persons called it red.
+
+
+SIR ARTEGAL, OR JUSTICE.--As has been already said, Artegal, or Justice,
+makes conquest of Britomartis or Elizabeth. It is no earthly love that
+follows, but the declaration of the queen that in her continued maidenhood
+justice to her people shall be her only spouse. Such, whatever the honest
+historian may think, was the poet's conceit of what would best please his
+royal mistress.
+
+It has been already stated that by Gloriana, the Faerie Queene, the poet
+intended the person of Elizabeth in her regnant grandeur: Britomartis
+represents her chastity. Not content with these impersonations, Spenser
+introduces a third: it is Belphoebe, the abstraction of virginity; a
+character for which, however, he designs a dual interpretation. Belphoebe
+is also another representation of the Church; in describing her he rises
+to great splendor of language:
+
+    ... her birth was of the morning dew,
+    And her conception of the glorious prime.
+
+We recur, as we read, to the grandeur of the Psalmist's words, as he
+speaks of the coming of her Lord: "In the day of thy power shall the
+people offer thee free-will offerings with a holy worship; the dew of thy
+birth is of the womb of the morning."
+
+
+ELIZABETH.--In the fifth book a great number of the statistics of
+contemporary history are found. A cruel sultan, urged on by an abandoned
+sultana, is Philip with the Spanish Church. Mercilla, a queen pursued by
+the sultan and his wife, is another name for Elizabeth, for he tells us
+she was
+
+    ... a maiden queen of high renown;
+    For her great bounty knowen over all.
+
+Artegal, assuming the armor of a pagan knight, represents justice in the
+person of Solyman the Magnificent, making war against Philip of Spain. In
+the ninth canto of the sixth book, the court of Elizabeth is portrayed; in
+the tenth and eleventh, the war in Flanders--so brilliantly described in
+Mr. Motley's history. The Lady Belge is the United Netherlands; Gerioneo,
+the oppressor, is the Duke of Alva; the Inquisition appears as a horrid
+but nameless monster, and minor personages occur to complete the historic
+pictures.
+
+The adventure of Sir Artegal in succor of the Lady Irena, (Erin,)
+represents the proceedings of Elizabeth in Ireland, in enforcing the
+Reformation, abrogating the establishments of her sister Mary, and thus
+inducing Tyrone's rebellion, with the consequent humiliation of Essex.
+
+
+MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.--With one more interpretation we close. In the fifth
+book, Spenser is the apologist of Elizabeth for her conduct to her cousin,
+Mary Queen of Scots, and he has been very delicate in his distinctions. It
+is not her high abstraction of justice, Sir Artegal, who does the
+murderous deed, but his man _Talus_, retributive justice, who, like a
+limehound, finds her hidden under a heap of gold, and drags her forth by
+her fair locks, in such rueful plight that even Artegal pities her:
+
+    Yet for no pity would he change the course
+      Of justice which in Talus hand did lie,
+    Who rudely haled her forth without remorse,
+      Still holding up her suppliant hands on high,
+      And kneeling at his feet submissively;
+    But he her suppliant hands, those _hands of gold_,
+      And eke her feet, those feet of _silver try_,
+    Which sought unrighteousness and justice sold,
+    Chopped off and nailed on high that all might them behold.
+
+She was a royal lady, a regnant queen: her hands held a golden sceptre,
+and her feet pressed a silver footstool. She was thrown down the castle
+wall, and drowned "in the dirty mud."
+
+"But the stream washed away her guilty blood." Did it wash away
+Elizabeth's bloody guilt? No. For this act she stands in history like Lady
+Macbeth, ever rubbing her hands, but "the damned spot" will not out at her
+bidding. Granted all that is charged against Mary, never was woman so
+meanly, basely, cruelly treated as she.
+
+What has been said is only in partial illustration of the plan and manner
+of Spenser's great poem: the student is invited and encouraged to make an
+analysis of the other portions himself. To the careless reader the poem is
+harmonious, the pictures beautiful, and the imagery gorgeous; to the
+careful student it is equally charming, and also discloses historic
+pictures of great value.
+
+It is so attractive that the critic lingers unconsciously upon it.
+Spenser's tributes to the character of woman are original, beautiful, and
+just, and the fame of his great work, originally popular and designed for
+a contemporary purpose only, has steadily increased. Next to Milton, he is
+the most learned of the British poets. Warton calls him the _serious
+Spenser_. Thomson says he formed himself upon Spenser. He took the ottava
+rima, or eight-lined stanza of the Italian poets, and by adding an
+Alexandrine line, formed it into what has since been called the Spenserian
+stanza, which has been imitated by many great poets since, and by Byron,
+the greatest of them, in his Childe Harold. Of his language it has already
+been said that he designedly uses the archaic, or that of Chaucer; or, as
+Pope has said,
+
+   Spenser himself affects the obsolete.
+
+The plan of the poem, neglecting the unities of an epic, is like that of a
+general history, rambling and desultory, or like the transformations of a
+fairy tale, as it is: his descriptions are gorgeous, his verse exceedingly
+melodious, and his management of it very graceful. The Gerusalemme
+Liberata of Tasso appeared while he was writing the Faery Queene, and he
+imitated portions of that great epic in his own, but his imitations are
+finer than the original.
+
+
+HIS OTHER WORKS.--His other works need not detain us: Hymns in honor of
+Love and Beauty, Prothalamion, and Epithalamion, Mother Hubbard's Tale,
+Amoretti or Sonnets, The Tears of the Muses or Brittain's Ida, are little
+read at the present day. His Astrophel is a tender "pastoral elegie" upon
+the death of the most noble and valorous knight, Sir Philip Sidney; and is
+better known for its subject than for itself. This was a favorite theme of
+the friendly and sensitive poet; he has also written several elegies and
+aeglogues in honor of Sidney.
+
+
+SPENSER'S FATE.--The fate of Spenser is a commentary upon courtiership,
+even in the reign of Elizabeth, the Faery Queene. Her requital of his
+adoration was an annual pension of fifty pounds, and the ruined castle and
+unprofitable estate of Kilcolman in Ireland, among a half-savage
+population, in a period of insurrections and massacres, with the
+requirement that he should reside upon his grant. An occasional visit from
+Raleigh, then a captain in the army, a rambler along the banks of the
+picturesque Mulla, and the composition and arrangement of the great poem
+with the suggestions of his friend, were at once his labors and his only
+recreations. He sighed after the court, and considered himself as hardly
+used by the queen.
+
+At length an insurrection broke out, and his home was set on fire: he fled
+from his flaming castle, and in the confusion his infant child was left
+behind and burned to death. A few months after, he died in London, on
+January 16, 1598-9, broken-hearted and poor, at an humble tavern, in King
+Street. Buried at the expense of the Earl of Essex, Ann Countess of Dorset
+bore the expense of his monument in Westminster Abbey, in gratitude for
+his noble championship of woman. Upon that are inscribed these words:
+_Anglorum poetarum nostri seculi facile princeps_--truer words, great as
+is the praise, than are usually found in monumental inscriptions.
+
+Whatever our estimate of Spenser, he must be regarded as the truest
+literary exponent and representative of the age of Elizabeth, almost as
+much her biographer as Miss Strickland, and her historian as Hume: indeed,
+neither biographer nor historian could venture to draw the lineaments of
+her character without having recourse to Spenser and his literary
+contemporaries.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE AGE OF SPENSER.
+
+
+_Richard Hooker_, 1553-1598: educated at Oxford, he became Master of the
+Temple in London, a post which he left with pleasure to take a country
+parish. He wrote a famous work, entitled "A Treatise on the Laws of
+Ecclesiastical Polity," which is remarkable for its profound learning,
+powerful logic, and eloquence of style. In it he defends the position of
+the Church of England, against Popery on the one hand and Calvinism on the
+other.
+
+_Robert Burton_, 1576-1639: author of "The Anatomy of Melancholie," an
+amusing and instructive medley of quotations and classical anecdotes,
+showing a profound erudition. In this all the causes and effects of
+melancholy are set forth with varied illustrations. His _nom de plume_ was
+Democritus, Jr., and he is an advocate of the laughing philosophy.
+
+_Thomas Hobbes_, 1588-1679: tutor to Charles II., when Prince of Wales,
+and author of the _Leviathan_. This is a philosophical treatise, in which
+he advocates monarchical government, as based upon the fact that all men
+are selfish, and that human nature, being essentially corrupt, requires an
+iron control: he also wrote upon _Liberty and Necessity_, and on _Human
+Nature_.
+
+John Stow, 1525-1605: tailor and antiquary. Principally valuable for his
+"Annales," "Summary of English Chronicles," and "A Survey of London." The
+latter is the foundation of later topographical descriptions of the
+English metropolis.
+
+Raphael Hollinshed, or Holinshed, died about 1580: his _Chronicles of
+Englande, Scotlande, and Irelande_, were a treasure-house to Shakspeare,
+from which he drew materials for King Lear, Cymbeline, Macbeth, and other
+plays.
+
+Richard Hakluyt, died 1616: being greatly interested in voyages and
+travels, he wrote works upon the adventures of others. Among these are,
+"Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America," and "Four Voyages
+unto Florida," which have been very useful in the compilation of early
+American history.
+
+Samuel Purchas, 1577-1628: like Hakluyt, he was exceedingly industrious in
+collecting material, and wrote "Hakluyt's Posthumus, or Purchas, his
+Pilgrimes," a history of the world "in Sea Voyages and Land Travels."
+
+Sir Walter Raleigh, 1552-1618: a man famous for his personal strength and
+comeliness, vigor of mind, valor, adventures, and sufferings. A prominent
+actor in the stirring scenes of Elizabeth's reign, he was high in the
+favor of the queen. Accused of high treason on the accession of James I.,
+and imprisoned under sentence of death, an unsuccessful expedition to
+South America in search of El Dorado, which caused complaints from the
+Spanish king, led to his execution under the pending sentence. He wrote,
+chiefly in prison, a History of the World, in which he was aided by his
+literary friends, and which is highly commended. It extends to the end of
+the second Macedonian war. Raleigh was also a poet, and wrote several
+special treatises.
+
+William Camden, 1551-1623: author of Britannia, or a chorographic
+description of the most flourishing kingdoms of England, Scotland,
+Ireland, and the adjacent islands, from the earliest antiquity. This work,
+written in Latin, has been translated into English. He also wrote a sketch
+of the reign of Elizabeth.
+
+_George Buchanan_, 1506-1581: celebrated as a Latin writer, an historian,
+a poet, and an ecclesiastical polemic. He wrote a _History of Scotland_, a
+Latin version of the Psalms, and a satire called _Chamaeleon_. He was a
+man of profound learning and indomitable courage; and when told, just
+before his death, that the king was incensed at his treatise _De Jure
+Regni_, he answered that he was not concerned at that, for he was "going
+to a place where there were few kings."
+
+Thomas Sackville, Earl Dorset, Lord Buckhurst, 1536-1608: author, or
+rather originator of "The Mirror for Magistrates," showing by illustrious,
+unfortunate examples, the vanity and transitory character of human
+success. Of Sackville and his portion of the Mirror for Magistrates, Craik
+says they "must be considered as forming the connecting link between the
+Canterbury Tales and the Fairy Queen."
+
+_Samuel Daniel_, 1562-1619: an historian and a poet. His chief work is
+"The Historie of the Civile Warres between the Houses of York and
+Lancaster," "a production," says Drake, "which reflects great credit on
+the age in which it was written." This work is in poetical form; and,
+besides it, he wrote many poems and plays, and numerous sonnets.
+
+Michael Drayton, 1563-1631: a versatile writer, most favorably known
+through his _Polyolbion_, a poem in thirty books, containing a detailed
+description of the topography of England, in Alexandrine verses. His
+_Barons' Wars_ describe the civil commotions during the reign of Edward
+II.
+
+Sir John Davies, 1570-1626: author of _Nosce Teipsum_ and _The Orchestra_.
+The former is commended by Hallam; and another critic calls it "the best
+poem, except Spenser's Faery Queen, in Queen Elizabeth's, or even, in
+James VI.'s time."
+
+John Donne, 1573-1631: a famous preacher, Dean of St. Paul's: considered
+at the head of the metaphysical school of poets: author of
+_Pseudo-Martyr_, _Polydoron_, and numerous sermons. He wrote seven
+_satires_, which are valuable, but his style is harsh, and his ideas
+far-fetched.
+
+Joseph Hall, 1574-1656: an eminent divine, author of six books of
+_satires_, of which he called the first three _toothless_, and the others
+_biting_ satires. These are valuable as presenting truthful pictures of
+the manners and morals of the age and of the defects in contemporary
+literature.
+
+Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, 1554-1628: he wrote the Life of Sidney,
+and requested to have placed upon his tomb, "The friend of Sir Philip
+Sidney." He was also the author of numerous treatises: "Monarchy," "Humane
+Learning," "Wars," etc., and of two tragedies.
+
+George Chapman, 1557-1634: author of a translation of Homer, in verses of
+fourteen syllables. It retains much of the spirit of the original, and is
+still considered one of the best among the numerous versions of the
+ancient poet. He also wrote _Caesar and Pompey, Byron's Tragedy_, and other
+plays.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE ENGLISH DRAMA.
+
+
+   Origin of the Drama. Miracle Plays. Moralities. First Comedy. Early
+   Tragedies. Christopher Marlowe. Other Dramatists. Playwrights and
+   Morals.
+
+
+
+ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH DRAMA.
+
+
+To the Elizabethan period also belongs the glory of having produced and
+fostered the English drama, itself so marked a teacher of history, not
+only in plays professedly historical, but also in the delineations of
+national character, the indications of national taste, and the satirical
+scourgings of the follies of the day. A few observations are necessary as
+to its feeble beginnings. The old Greek drama indeed existed as a model,
+especially in the tragedies of Euripides and the comedies of Aristophanes;
+but until the fall of Constantinople, these were a dead letter to Western
+Europe, and when the study of Greek was begun in England, they were only
+open to men of the highest education and culture; whereas the drama
+designed for the people was to cater in its earlier forms to the rude
+tastes and love of the marvellous which are characteristic of an
+unlettered people. And, besides, the Roman drama of Plautus and of Terence
+was not suited to the comprehension of the multitude, in its form and its
+preservation of the unities. To gratify the taste for shows and
+excitement, the people already had the high ritual of the Church, but they
+demanded something more: the Church itself acceded to this demand, and
+dramatized Scripture at once for their amusement and instruction. Thus the
+_mysteria_ or _miracle play_ originated, and served a double purpose.
+
+"As in ancient Greece, generations before the rise of the great dramas of
+Athens, itinerant companies wandered from village to village, carrying
+their stage furniture in their little carts, and acted in their booths and
+tents the grand stories of the mythology--so in England the mystery
+players haunted the wakes and fairs, and in barns or taverns, taprooms, or
+in the farm-house kitchen, played at saints and angels, and transacted on
+their petty stage the drama of the Christian faith."[29]
+
+
+THE MYSTERY, OR MIRACLE PLAY.--The subjects of these dramas were taken
+from such Old Testament narratives as the creation, the lives of the
+patriarchs, the deluge; or from the crucifixion, and from legends of the
+saints: the plays were long, sometimes occupying portions of several days
+consecutively, during seasons of religious festival. They were enacted in
+monasteries, cathedrals, churches, and church-yards. The _mise en scene_
+was on two stages or platforms, on the upper of which were represented the
+Persons of the Trinity, and on the lower the personages of earth; while a
+yawning cellar, with smoke arising from an unseen fire, represented the
+infernal regions. This device is similar in character to the plan of
+Dante's poem--Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.
+
+The earliest of these mysteries was performed somewhere about the year
+1300, and they held sway until 1600, being, however, slowly supplanted by
+the _moralities_, which we shall presently consider. Many of these
+_mysteries_ still remain in English, and notices of them may be found in
+_Collier's History of Dramatic Poetry_.
+
+A miracle play was performed to celebrate the birth of Philip II. of
+Spain. They are still performed in Andalusia, and one written within a few
+years for such representation, was enacted at Seville, with great pomp of
+scenic effect, in the Holy Week of 1870. Similar scenes are also
+witnessed by curious foreigners at the present day in the Ober-Ammergau of
+Bavaria. These enable the traveller of to-day to realize the former
+history.
+
+To introduce a comic element, the devil was made to appear with horns,
+hoof, and tail, to figure with grotesque malignity throughout the play,
+and to be reconsigned at the close to his dark abode by the divine power.
+
+
+MORALITIES.--As the people became enlightened, and especially as religious
+knowledge made progress, such childish shows were no longer able to
+satisfy them. The drama undertook a higher task of instruction in the form
+of what was called a _morality_, or _moral play_. Instead of old stories
+reproduced to please the childish fancy of the ignorant, genius invented
+scenes and incidents taken indeed from common life, but the characters
+were impersonal; they were the ideal virtues, _morality, hope, mercy,
+frugality_, and their correlative vices. The _mystery_ had endeavored to
+present similitudes; the _moralities_ were of the nature of allegory, and
+evinced a decided progress in popular intelligence.
+
+These for a time divided the interest with the mysteries, but eventually
+superseded them. The impersonality of the characters enabled the author to
+make hits at political circumstances and existent follies with impunity,
+as the multitude received advice and reproof addressed to them abstractly,
+without feeling a personal sting, and the government would not condescend
+to notice such abstractions. The moralities were enacted in court-yards or
+palaces, the characters generally being personated by students, or
+merchants from the guilds. A great improvement was also made in the length
+of the play, which was usually only an hour in performance. The public
+taste was so wedded to the devil of the mysteries, that he could not be
+given up in the moral plays: he kept his place; but a rival buffoon
+appeared in the person of _the vice_, who tried conclusions with the
+archfiend in serio-comic style until the close of the performance, when
+Satan always carried the vice away in triumph, as he should do.
+
+The moralities retained their place as legitimate drama throughout the
+sixteenth century, and indeed after the modern drama appeared. It is
+recorded that Queen Elizabeth, in 1601, then an old woman, witnessed one
+of these plays, entitled "The Contention between Liberality and
+Prodigality." This was written by Lodge and Greene, two of the regular
+dramatists, after Ben Jonson had written "Every Man in his Humour," and
+while Shakspeare was writing Hamlet. Thus the various progressive forms of
+the drama overlapped each other, the older retaining its place until the
+younger gained strength to assert its rights and supersede its rival.
+
+
+THE INTERLUDE.--While the moralities were slowly dying out, another form
+of the drama had appeared as a connecting link between them and the
+legitimate drama of Shakspeare. This was the _interlude_, a short play, in
+which the _dramatis personae_ were no longer allegorical characters, but
+persons in real life, usually, however, not all bearing names even
+assumed, but presented as a friar, a curate, a tapster, etc. The chief
+characteristic of the interlude was, however, its satire; it was a more
+outspoken reformer than the morality, scourged the evils of the age with
+greater boldness, and plunged into religious controversy with the zeal of
+opposing ecclesiastics. The first and principal writer of these interludes
+was John Heywood, a Roman Catholic, who wrote during the reign of Henry
+VIII., and, while a professed jester, was a great champion of his Church.
+
+As in all cases of progress, literary and scientific, the lines of
+demarcation cannot be very distinctly drawn, but as the morality had
+superseded the mystery, and the interlude the morality, so now they were
+all to give way before the regular drama. The people were becoming more
+educated; the greater spread of classical knowledge had caused the
+dramatists to study and assimilate the excellences of Latin and Greek
+models; the power of the drama to instruct and refine, as well as to
+amuse, was acknowledged, and thus its capability of improvement became
+manifest. The forms it then assumed were more permanent, and indeed have
+remained almost unchanged down to our own day.
+
+What is called the _first_ comedy in the language cannot be expected to
+show a very decided improvement over the last interludes or moralities,
+but it bears those distinctive marks which establish its right to the
+title.
+
+
+THE FIRST COMEDY.--This was _Ralph Roister Doister_, which appeared in the
+middle of the sixteenth century: (a printed copy of 1551 was discovered in
+1818.) Its author was Nicholas Udall, the master of Eton, a clergyman, but
+very severe as a pedagogue; an ultra Protestant, who is also accused of
+having stolen church plate, which may perhaps mean that he took away from
+the altar what he regarded as popish vessels and ornaments. He calls the
+play "a comedy and interlude," but claims that it is imitated from the
+Roman drama. It is regularly divided into acts and scenes, in the form of
+our modern plays. The plot is simple: Ralph, a gay Lothario, courts as gay
+a widow, and the by-play includes a designing servant and an intriguing
+lady's-maid: these are the stock elements of a hundred comedies since.
+
+Contemporary with this was _Gammer Gurton's Needle_, supposed to be
+written, but not conclusively, by John Still, Bishop of Bath and Wells,
+about 1560. The story turns upon the loss of a steel needle--a rare
+instrument in that day, as it was only introduced into England from Spain
+during the age of Elizabeth. This play is a coarser piece than Ralph
+Roister Doister; the buffoon raises the devil to aid him in finding the
+lost needle, which is at length found, by very palpable proof, to be
+sticking in the seat of Goodman Hodge's breeches.
+
+
+THE FIRST TRAGEDY.--Hand in hand with these first comedies came the
+earliest tragedy, _Gorboduc_, by Sackville and Norton, known under another
+name as _Ferrex and Porrex_; and it is curious to observe that this came
+in while the moralities still occupied the stage, and before the
+interludes had disappeared, as it was played before the queen at White
+Hall, in 1562. It is also to be noted that it introduced a chorus like
+that of the old Greek drama. Ferrex and Porrex are the sons of King
+Gorboduc: the former is killed by the latter, who in turn is slain by his
+own mother. Of Gorboduc, Lamb says, "The style of this old play is stiff
+and cumbersome, like the dresses of the times. There may be flesh and
+blood underneath, but we cannot get at it."
+
+With the awakened interest of the people, the drama now made steady
+progress. In 1568 the tragedy of _Tancred and Gismunda_, based upon one of
+the stories of Boccaccio, was enacted before Elizabeth.
+
+A license for establishing a regular theatre was got out by Burbage in
+1574. Peele and Greene wrote plays in the new manner: Marlowe, the
+greatest name in the English drama, except those of Shakspeare and Ben
+Jonson, gave to the world his _Tragical History of the Life and Death of
+Doctor Faustus_, which many do not hesitate to compare favorably with
+Goethe's great drama, and his _Rich Jew of Malta_, which contains the
+portraiture of Barabas, second only to the Shylock of Shakspeare. Of
+Marlowe a more special mention will be made.
+
+
+PLAYWRIGHTS AND MORALS.--It was to the great advantage of the English
+regular drama, that the men who wrote were almost in every case highly
+educated in the classics, and thus able to avail themselves of the best
+models. It is equally true that, owing to the religious condition of the
+times, when Puritanism launched forth its diatribes against all
+amusements, they were men in the opposition, and in most cases of
+irregular lives. Men of the world, they took their characters from among
+the persons with whom they associated; and so we find in their plays
+traces of the history of the age, in the appropriation of classical forms,
+in the references to religious and political parties, and in their
+delineation of the morals, manners, and follies of the period: if the
+drama of the present day owes to them its origin and nurture, it also
+retains as an inheritance many of the faults and deformities from which in
+a more refined period it is seeking to purge itself. It is worthy of
+notice, that as the drama owes everything to popular patronage, its moral
+tone reflects of necessity the moral character of the people who frequent
+it, and of the age which sustains it.
+
+
+CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE.--Among those who may be regarded as the immediate
+forerunners and ushers of Shakspeare, and who, although they prepared the
+way for his advent, have been obscured by his greater brilliance, the one
+most deserving of special mention is Marlowe.
+
+Christopher Marlowe was born at Canterbury, about the year 1564. He was a
+wild, irregular genius, of bad morals and loose life, but of fine
+imagination and excellent powers of expression. He wrote only tragedies.
+
+His _Tamburlaine the Great_ is based upon the history of that _Timour
+Leuk_, or _Timour the Lame_, the great Oriental conqueror of the
+fourteenth century:
+
+    So large of limb, his joints so strongly knit,
+    Such breadth of shoulders as might mainly bear
+    Old Atlas' burthen.
+
+The descriptions are overdrawn, and the style inflated, but the subject
+partakes of the heroic, and was popular still, though nearly two
+centuries had passed since the exploits of the historic hero.
+
+_The Rich Jew of Malta_ is of value, as presenting to us Barabas the Jew
+as he appeared to Christian suspicion and hatred in the fifteenth century.
+As he sits in his country-house with heaps of gold before him, and
+receives the visits of merchants who inform him of the safe arrival of his
+ships, it is manifest that he gave Shakspeare the first ideal of his
+Shylock, upon which the greater dramatist greatly improved.
+
+_The Tragicall Life and Death of Doctor John Faustus_ certainly helped
+Goethe in the conception and preparation of his modern drama, and contains
+many passages of rare power. Charles Lamb says: "The growing horrors of
+Faustus are awfully marked by the hours and half-hours which expire and
+bring him nearer and nearer to the enactment of his dire compact. It is
+indeed an agony and bloody sweat."
+
+_Edward II._ presents in the assassination scene wonderful power and
+pathos, and is regarded by Hazlitt as his best play.
+
+Marlowe is the author of the pleasant madrigal, called by Izaak Walton
+"that smooth song":
+
+    Come live with me and be my love.
+
+The playwright, who had led a wild life, came to his end in a tavern
+brawl: he had endeavored to use his dagger upon one of the waiters, who
+turned it upon him, and gave him a wound in the head of which he died, in
+1593.
+
+His talents were of a higher order than those of his contemporaries; he
+was next to Shakspeare in power, and was called by Phillips "a second
+Shakspeare."
+
+
+
+OTHER DRAMATIC WRITERS BEFORE SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+Thomas Lodge, 1556-1625: educated at Oxford. Wrote _The Wounds of
+Civil-War_, and other tragedies. Rosalynd, a novel, from which Shakspeare
+drew in his _As You Like It_. He translated _Josephus_ and _Seneca_.
+
+Thomas Kyd, died about 1600: _The Spanish Tragedy, or, Hieronymo is Mad
+Again_. This contains a few highly wrought scenes, which have been
+variously attributed to Ben Jonson and to Webster.
+
+Robert Tailor: wrote _The Hog hath Lost his Pearl_, a comedy, published in
+1614. This partakes of the character of the _morality_.
+
+John Marston: wrote _Antonio and Mellida_, 1602; _Antonio's Revenge_,
+1602; _Sophonisba, a Wonder of Women_, 1606; _The Insatiate Countess_,
+1603, and many other plays. Marston ranks high among the immediate
+predecessors of Shakspeare, for the number, variety, and vigorous handling
+of his plays.
+
+George Peele, born about 1553: educated at Oxford. Many of his pieces are
+broadly comic. The principal plays are: _The Arraignment of Paris_,
+_Edward I._ and _David and Bethsabe_. The latter is overwrought and full
+of sickish sentiment.
+
+Thomas Nash, 1558-1601: a satirist and polemic, who is best known for his
+controversy with Gabriel Harvey. Most of his plays were written in
+conjunction with others. He was imprisoned for writing _The Isle of Dogs_,
+which was played, but not published. He is very licentious in his
+language.
+
+John Lyly, born about 1553: wrote numerous smaller plays, but is chiefly
+known as the author of _Euphues, Anatomy of Wit_, and _Euphues and his
+England_.
+
+Robert Greene, died 1592: educated at Cambridge. Wrote _Alphonsus, King of
+Arragon_, _James IV._, _George-a-Greene_, _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_,
+and other plays. After leading a profligate life, he left behind him a
+pamphlet entitled, "A Groat's-worth of Wit, bought with a Million of
+Repentance:" this is full of contrition, and of advice to his
+fellow-actors and fellow-sinners. It is mainly remarkable for its abuse of
+Shakspeare, "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers;" "Tygre's
+heart wrapt in a player's hide;" "an absolute Johannes factotum, in his
+own conceyt the onely _shakescene_ in the country."
+
+Most of these dramatists wrote in copartnership with others, and many of
+the plays which bear their names singly, have parts composed by
+colleagues. Such was the custom of the age, and it is now very difficult
+to declare the distinct authorship of many of the plays.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+   The Power of Shakspeare. Meagre Early History. Doubts of his Identity.
+   What is known. Marries, and goes to London. "Venus" and "Lucrece."
+   Retirement and Death. Literary Habitudes. Variety of the Plays. Table
+   of Dates and Sources.
+
+
+
+THE POWER OF SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+We have now reached, in our search for the historic teachings in English
+literature, and in our consideration of the English drama, the greatest
+name of all, the writer whose works illustrate our position most strongly,
+and yet who, eminent type as he is of British culture in the age of
+Elizabeth, was truly and pithily declared by his friend and contemporary,
+Ben Jonson, to be "not for an age, but for all time." It is also
+singularly true that, even in such a work as this, Shakspeare really
+requires only brief notice at our hands, because he is so universally
+known and read: his characters are among our familiar acquaintance; his
+simple but thoughtful words are incorporated in our common conversation;
+he is our every-day companion. To eulogize him to the reading public is
+
+    To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
+    To lend a perfume to the violet ...
+
+The Bible and Shakspeare have been long conjoined as the two most
+necessary books in a family library; and Mrs. Cowden Clarke, the author of
+the Concordance to Shakspeare, has pointedly and truthfully said: "A poor
+lad, possessing no other book, might on this single one make himself a
+gentleman and a scholar: a poor girl, studying no other volume, might
+become a lady in heart and soul."
+
+
+MEAGRE EARLY HISTORY.--It is passing strange, considering the great value
+of his writings, and his present fame, that of his personal history so
+little is known. In the words of Steevens, one of his most successful
+commentators: "All that is known, with any degree of certainty, concerning
+Shakspeare, is--that he was born at Stratford upon Avon--married and had
+children there--went to London, where he commenced actor, and wrote poems
+and plays--returned to Stratford, made his will, died, and was buried."
+
+This want of knowledge is in part due to his obscure youth, during which
+no one could predict what he would afterward achieve, and therefore no one
+took notes of his life: to his own apparent ignorance and carelessness of
+his own merits, and to the low repute in which plays, and especially
+playwrights, were then held; although they were in reality making their
+age illustrious in history. The pilgrim to Stratford sees the little low
+house in which he is said to have been born, purchased by the nation, and
+now restored into a smart cottage: within are a few meagre relics of the
+poet's time; not far distant is the foundation--recently uncovered--of his
+more ambitious residence in New Place, and a mulberry-tree, which probably
+grew from a slip of that which he had planted with his own hand. Opposite
+is the old Falcon Inn, where he made his daily potations. Very near rises,
+above elms and lime-trees, the spire of the beautiful church on the bank
+of the Avon, beneath the chancel of which his remains repose, with those
+of his wife and daughter, overlooked by his bust, of which no one knows
+the maker or the history, except that it dates from his own time. His bust
+is of life-size, and was originally painted to imitate nature--eyes of
+hazel, hair and beard auburn, doublet scarlet, and sleeveless gown of
+black. Covered by a false taste with white paint to imitate marble, while
+it destroyed identity and age: it has since been recolored from
+traditional knowledge, but it is too rude to give us the expression of his
+face.
+
+The only other probable likeness is that from an old picture, an engraving
+of which, by Droeshout, is found in the first folio edition of his plays,
+published in 1623, seven years after his death: it was said by Ben Jonson
+to be a good likeness. We are very fortunate in having these,
+unsatisfactory as they are, for it is simple truth that beyond these
+places and things, there is little, if anything, to illustrate the
+personal history of Shakspeare. All that we can know of the man is found
+in his works.
+
+
+DOUBTS OF HIS IDENTITY.--This ignorance concerning him has given rise to
+numerous doubts as to his literary identity, and many efforts have been
+made to find other authors for his dramas. Among the most industrious in
+this deposing scheme, have been Miss Delia Bacon and Mr. Nathaniel Holmes,
+who concur in attributing his best plays to Francis Bacon. That Bacon did
+not acknowledge his own work, they say, is because he rated the dramatic
+art too far beneath his dignity to confess any complicity with it. In
+short, he and other great men of that day wrote immortal works which they
+were ashamed of, and were willing to father upon the common actor and
+stage-manager, one William Shakspeare!
+
+While it is not within the scope of this volume to enter into the
+controversy, it is a duty to state its existence, and to express the
+judgment that these efforts have been entirely unsuccessful, but have not
+been without value in that they have added a little to the meagre history
+by their researches, and have established the claims of Shakspeare on a
+firmer foundation than before.
+
+
+WHAT IS KNOWN.--William Shakspeare (spelt _Shackspeare_ in the body of his
+will, but signed _Shakspeare_) was the third of eight children, and the
+eldest son of John Shakspeare and Mary Arden: he was born at the beautiful
+rural town of Stratford, on the little river Avon, on the 23d of April,
+1564. His father, who was of yeoman rank, was probably a dealer in wool
+and leather. Aubrey, a gossiping chronicler of the next generation, says
+he was a butcher, and some biographers assert that he was a glover. He may
+have exercised all these crafts together, but it is more to our purpose to
+know that in his best estate he was a property holder and chief burgess of
+the town. Shakspeare's mother seems to have been of an older family.
+Neither of them could write. Shakspeare received his education at the free
+grammar-school, still a well-endowed institution in the town, where he
+learned the "small Latin and less Greek" accorded to him by Ben Jonson at
+a later day.
+
+There are guesses, rather than traditions, that he was, after the age of
+fifteen, a student in a law-office, that he was for a time at one of the
+universities, and also that he was a teacher in the grammar-school. These
+are weak inventions to account for the varied learning displayed in his
+dramas. His love of Nature and his power to delineate her charms were
+certainly fostered by the beautiful rural surroundings of Stratford;
+beyond this it is idle to seek to penetrate the obscure processes of his
+youth.
+
+
+MARRIES, AND GOES TO LONDON.--Finding himself one of a numerous and poor
+family, to the support of which his father's business was inadequate, he
+determined, to shift for himself, and to push his fortunes in the best way
+he could.
+
+Whether he regarded matrimony as one element of success we do not know,
+but the preliminary bond of marriage between himself and Anne Hathaway,
+was signed on the 28th of November, 1582, when he was eighteen years old.
+The woman was seven years older than himself; and it is a sad commentary
+on the morality of both, that his first child, Susanna, was baptized on
+the 25th of May, 1583.
+
+Strolling bands of players, in passing through England, were in the habit
+of stopping at Stratford, and setting upon wheels their rude stage with
+weather-stained curtains; and these, it should be observed, were the best
+dramatic companies of the time, such as the queen's company, and those in
+the service of noblemen like Leicester, Warwick, and others. If he did not
+see he must have heard of the great pageant in 1575, when Leicester
+entertained Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth, which is so charmingly
+described by Sir Walter Scott. Young Shakspeare became stage-struck, and
+probably joined one of these companies, with other idle young men of the
+neighborhood.
+
+Various legends, without sufficient foundation of truth, are related of
+him at this time, which indicate that he was of a frolicsome and
+mischievous turn: among these is a statement that he was arraigned for
+deer-poaching in the park of Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote. A satirical
+reference to Sir Thomas in one of his plays,[30] leads us to think that
+there is some truth in the story, although certain of his biographers have
+denied it.
+
+In February, 1584-5, he became the father of twins, Hamnet and Judith, and
+in 1586, leaving his wife and children at Stratford, he went up with a
+theatrical company to London, where for three years he led a hard and
+obscure life. He was at first a menial at the theatre; some say he held
+gentlemen's horses at the door, others that he was call-boy, prompter,
+scene-shifter, minor actor. At length he began to find his true vocation
+in altering and adapting plays for the stage. This earlier practice, in
+every capacity, was of great value to him when he began to write plays of
+his own. As an actor he never rose above mediocrity. It is said that he
+played such parts as the Ghost in Hamlet, and Adam in As You Like It; but
+off the stage he became known for a ready wit and convivial humor.
+
+His ready hand for any work caused him to prosper steadily, and so in
+1589 we find his name the twelfth on the list of sixteen shareholders in
+the Blackfriars Theatre, one of the first play-houses built in London.
+That he was steadily growing in public favor, as well as in private
+fortune, might be inferred from Spenser's mention of him in the "Tears of
+the Muses," published in 1591, if we were sure he was the person referred
+to. If he was, this is the first great commendation he had received:
+
+    The man whom nature's self had made,
+      To mock herself and truth to imitate,
+    With kindly counter under mimic shade,
+      Our pleasant Willie.
+
+There is, however, a doubt whether the reference is to him, as he had
+written very little as early as 1591.
+
+
+VENUS AND ADONIS.--In 1593 appeared his _Venus and Adonis_, which he now
+had the social position and interest to dedicate to the Earl of
+Southampton. It is a harmonious and beautiful poem, but the display of
+libidinous passion in the goddess, however in keeping with her character
+and with the broad taste of the age, is disgusting to the refined reader,
+even while he acknowledges the great power of the poet. In the same year
+was built the Globe Theatre, a hexagonal wooden structure, unroofed over
+the pit, but thatched over the stage and the galleries. In this, too,
+Shakspeare was a shareholder.
+
+
+THE RAPE OF LUCRECE.--The _Rape of Lucrece_ was published in 1594, and was
+dedicated to the same nobleman, who, after the custom of the period,
+became Shakspeare's patron, and showed the value of his patronage by the
+gift to the poet of a thousand pounds.
+
+Thus in making poetical versions of classical stories, which formed the
+imaginative pabulum of the age, and in readapting older plays, the poet
+was gaining that skill and power which were to produce his later immortal
+dramas.
+
+These, as we shall see, he began to write as early as 1589, and continued
+to produce until 1612.
+
+
+RETIREMENT AND DEATH.--A few words will complete his personal history: His
+fortune steadily increased; in 1602 he was the principal owner of the
+Globe; then, actuated by his home feeling, which had been kept alive by
+annual visits to Stratford, he determined, as soon as he could, to give up
+the stage, and to take up his residence there. He had purchased, in 1597,
+the New Place at Stratford, but he did not fully carry out his plan until
+1612, when he finally retired with ample means and in the enjoyment of an
+honorable reputation. There he exercised a generous hospitality, and led a
+quiet rural life. He planted a mulberry-tree, which became a pilgrim's
+shrine to numerous travellers; but a ruthless successor in the ownership
+of New Place, the Reverend Francis Gastrell, annoyed by the concourse of
+visitors, was Vandal enough to cut it down. Such was the anger of the
+people that he was obliged to leave the place, which he did after razing
+the mansion to the ground. His name is held in great detestation at
+Stratford now, as every traveller is told his story.
+
+Shakspeare's death occurred on his fifty-second birthday, April 23d, 1616.
+He had been ill of a fever, from which he was slowly recovering, and his
+end is said to have been the result of an over-conviviality in
+entertaining Drayton and Ben Jonson, who had paid him a visit at
+Stratford.
+
+His son Hamnet had died in 1596, at the age of twelve. In 1607, his
+daughter Susannah had married Dr. Hall; and in 1614 died Judith, who had
+married Thomas Quiney. Shakspeare's wife survived him, and died in 1623.
+
+
+LITERARY HABITUDES.--Such, in brief, is the personal history of
+Shakspeare: of his literary habitudes we know nothing. The exact dates of
+the appearance of his plays are, in most cases, doubtful. Many of these
+had been printed singly during his life, but the first complete edition
+was published in folio, in 1623. It contains _thirty-six_ plays, and is
+the basis of the later editions, which contain thirty-_seven_. Many
+questions arise which cannot be fully answered: Did he write all the plays
+contained in the volume? Are the First Part of Henry VI., Titus
+Andronicus,[31] and Pericles his work? Did he not write others not found
+among these? Had he, as was not uncommon then and later, collaboration in
+those which bear his name? Was he a Beaumont to some Fletcher, or a
+Sackville to some Norton? Upon these questions generations of Shakspearean
+scholars have expended a great amount of learned inquiry ever since his
+day, and not without results: it is known that many of his dramas are
+founded upon old plays, as to plots; and that he availed himself of the
+labor of others in casting his plays.
+
+But the real value of his plays, the insight into human nature, the
+profound philosophy, "the myriad-soul" which they display, are
+Shakspeare's only. By applying just rules of evidence, we conclude that he
+did write thirty-five of the plays attributed to him, and that he did not
+write, or was not the chief writer of others. It is certainly very strong
+testimony on these points, that seven years after his death, and _three
+years before that of Bacon_, a large folio should have been published by
+his professional friends Heminge and Condell, prefaced with ardent
+eulogies, claiming thirty-six plays as his, and that it did not meet with
+the instant and indignant cry that his claims were false. The players of
+that day were an envious and carping set, and the controversy would have
+been fierce from the very first, had there been just grounds for it.
+
+
+VARIETY OF PLAYS.--No attempt will be made to analyze any of the plays of
+Shakspeare: that is left for the private study and enjoyment of the
+student, by the use of the very numerous aids furnished by commentators
+and critics. It will be found often that in their great ardor, the
+dramatist has been treated like the Grecian poet:
+
+    [Shakspeare's] critics bring to view
+    Things which [Shakspeare] never knew.
+
+Many of the plays are based upon well-known legends and fictional tales,
+some of them already adopted in old plays: thus the story of King Lear and
+his daughters is found in Holinshed's Chronicle, and had been for years
+represented; from this Shakspeare has borrowed the story, but has used
+only a single passage. The play is intended to represent the ancient
+Celtic times in Britain, eight hundred years before Christ; and such is
+its power and pathos, that we care little for its glaring anachronisms and
+curious errors. In Holinshed are also found the stories of Cymbeline and
+Macbeth, the former supposed to have occurred during the Roman occupancy
+of Britain, and the latter during the Saxon period.
+
+With these before us, let us observe that names, chronology, geography,
+costumes, and customs are as nothing in his eyes. His aim is human
+philosophy: he places his living creations before us, dressing them, as it
+were, in any garments most conveniently at hand. These lose their
+grotesqueness as his characters speak and act. Paternal love and weakness,
+met by filial ingratitude; these are the lessons and the fearful pictures
+of Lear: sad as they are, the world needed them, and they have saved many
+a later Lear from expulsion and storm and death, and shamed many a Goneril
+and Regan, while they have strengthened the hearts of many a Cordelia
+since. Chastity and constancy shine like twin stars from the forest of
+Cymbeline. And what have we in Macbeth? Mad ambition parleying with the
+devil, in the guise of a woman lost to all virtue save a desire to
+aggrandize her husband and herself. These have a pretence of history; but
+Hamlet, with hardly that pretence, stands alone supreme in varied
+excellence. Ambition, murder, resistless fate, filial love, the love of
+woman, revenge, the power of conscience, paternal solicitude, infinite
+jest: what a volume is this!
+
+
+TABLE OF DATES AND SOURCES.--The following table, which presents the plays
+in chronological order,[32] the times when they were written, as nearly as
+can be known, and the sources whence they were derived, will be of more
+service to the student than any discursive remarks upon the several plays.
+
+Plays.                       Dates.                Sources.
+
+ 1. Henry VI., first part     1589   Denied to Shakspeare; attributed to
+                                       Marlowe or Kyd.
+ 2. Pericles                  1590   From the "Gesta Romanorum."
+ 3. Henry VI., second part    1591     "  an older play.
+ 4. Henry VI., third part     1591     "  "    "    "
+ 5. Two Gentlemen of Verona   1591     "  an old tale.
+ 6. Comedy of Errors          1592     "  a comedy of Plautus.
+ 7. Love's Labor Lost         1592     "  an Italian play.
+ 8. Richard II.               1593     "  Holinshed and other
+                                          chronicles.
+ 9. Richard III.              1593   From an old play and Sir Thomas
+                                       More's History.
+10. Midsummer Night's Dream   1594   Suggested by Palamon and Arcite,
+                                       The Knight's Tale, of Chaucer.
+11. Taming of the Shrew       1596   From an older play.
+12. Romeo and Juliet          1596     "  " old tale. Boccaccio.
+13. Merchant of Venice        1597     " Gesta Romanorum, with suggestions
+                                         from Marlowe's Jew of Malta.
+14. Henry IV., part 1         1597   From an old play.
+15. Henry IV., part 2         1598    "   "  "   "
+16. King John                 1598    "   "  "   "
+17. All's Well that Ends Well 1598    "  Boccaccio.
+18. Henry V.                  1599  From an older play.
+19. As You Like It            1600  Suggested in part by Lodge's novel,
+                                      Rosalynd.
+20. Much Ado About Nothing    1600  Source unknown.
+21. Hamlet                    1601  From the Latin History of Scandinavia,
+                                      by Saxo, called Grammaticus.
+22. Merry Wives of Windsor    1601  Said to have been suggested by
+                                      Elizabeth.
+23. Twelfth Night             1601  From an old tale.
+24. Troilus and Cressida      1602  Of classical origin, through Chaucer.
+25. Henry VIII.               1603  From the chronicles of the day.
+26. Measure for Measure       1603   "  an old tale.
+27. Othello                   1604   "  "   "   "
+28. King Lear                 1605   "  Holinshed.
+29. Macbeth                   1606   "      "
+30. Julius Caesar              1607   "  Plutarch's Parallel Lives.
+31. Antony and Cleopatra      1608   "      "         "       "
+32. Cymbeline                 1609   "  Holinshed.
+33. Coriolanus                1610   "  Plutarch.
+34. Timon of Athens           1610   "     "      and other sources.
+35. Winter's Tale             1611   "  a novel by Greene.
+36. Tempest                   1612   "  Italian Tale.
+37. Titus Andronicus          1593  Denied to Shakspeare; probably by
+                                      Marlowe or Kyd.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, (CONTINUED.)
+
+
+   The Grounds of his Fame. Creation of Character. Imagination and Fancy.
+   Power of Expression. His Faults. Influence of Elizabeth. Sonnets.
+   Ireland and Collier. Concordance. Other Writers.
+
+
+
+THE GROUNDS OF HIS FAME.
+
+
+From what has been said, it is manifest that as to his plots and
+historical reproductions, Shakspeare has little merit but taste in
+selection; and indeed in most cases, had he invented the stories, his
+merit would not have been great: what then is the true secret of his power
+and of his fame? This question is not difficult to answer.
+
+First, these are due to his wonderful insight into human nature, and the
+philosophy of human life: he dissects the human mind in all its
+conditions, and by this vivisection he displays its workings as it lives
+and throbs; he divines the secret impulses of all ages and
+characters--childhood, boyhood, manhood, girlhood, and womanhood; men of
+peace, and men of war; clowns, nobles, and kings. His large heart was
+sympathetic with all, and even most so with the lowly and suffering; he
+shows us to ourselves, and enables us to use that knowledge for our
+profit. All the virtues are held up to our imitation and praise, and all
+the vices are scourged and rendered odious in our sight. To read
+Shakspeare aright is of the nature of honest self-examination, that most
+difficult and most necessary of duties.
+
+
+CREATION OF CHARACTER.--Second: He stands supreme in the creation of
+character, which may be considered the distinguishing mark of the highest
+literary genius. The men and women whom he has made are not stage-puppets
+moved by hidden strings; they are real. We know them as intimately as the
+friends and acquaintances who visit us, or the people whom we accost in
+our daily walks.
+
+And again, in this varied delineation of character, Shakspeare less than
+any other author either obtrudes or repeats himself. Unlike Byron, he is
+nowhere his own hero: unlike most modern novelists, he fashions men who,
+while they have the generic human resemblance, differ from each other like
+those of flesh and blood around us: he has presented a hundred phases of
+love, passion, ambition, jealousy, revenge, treachery, and cruelty, and
+each distinct from the others of its kind; but lest any character should
+degenerate into an allegorical representation of a single virtue or vice,
+he has provided it with the other lineaments necessary to produce in it a
+rare human identity.
+
+The stock company of most writers is limited, and does arduous duty in
+each new play or romance; so that we detect in the comic actor, who is now
+convulsing the pit with laughter, the same person who a little while ago
+died heroically to slow music in the tragedy. Each character in Shakspeare
+plays but one part, and plays it skilfully and well. And who has portrayed
+the character of woman like Shakspeare?--the grand sorrow of the
+repudiated Catharine, the incorruptible chastity of Isabella, the
+cleverness of Portia, the loves of Jessica and of Juliet, the innocent
+curiosity of Miranda, the broken heart and crazed brain of the fair
+Ophelia.
+
+In this connection also should be noticed his powers of grouping and
+composition; which, in the words of one of his biographers, "present to us
+pictures from the realms of spirits and from fairyland, which in deep
+reflection and in useful maxims, yield nothing to the pages of the
+philosophers, and which glow with all the poetic beauty that an
+exhaustless fancy could shower upon them."
+
+
+IMAGINATION AND FANCY.--And this brings us to notice, in the third place,
+his rare gifts of imagination and of fancy; those instruments of the
+representative faculty by which objects of sense and of mind are held up
+to view in new, varied, and vivid lights. Many of his tragedies abound in
+imaginative pictures, while there are not in the realm of Fancy's fairy
+frostwork more exquisite representations than those found in the _Tempest_
+and the _Midsummer Night's Dream_.
+
+
+POWER OF EXPRESSION.--Fourth, Shakspeare is remarkable for the power and
+felicity of his expression. He adapts his language to the persons who use
+it, and thus we pass from the pompous grandiloquence of king and herald to
+the common English and coarse conceits of clown and nurse and
+grave-digger; from the bombastic speech of Glendower and the rhapsodies of
+Hotspur to the slang and jests of Falstaff.
+
+But something more is meant by felicity of expression than this. It
+applies to the apt words which present pithy bits of household philosophy,
+and to the beautiful words which convey the higher sentiments and flights
+of fancy; to the simple words couching grand thoughts with such exquisite
+aptness that they seem made for each other, so that no other words would
+do as well, and to the dainty songs, like those of birds, which fill his
+forests and gardens with melody. Thus it is that orators and essayists
+give dignity and point to their own periods by quoting Shakspeare.
+
+Such are a few of Shakspeare's high merits, which constitute him the
+greatest poet who has ever used the English tongue--poet, moralist, and
+philosopher in one.
+
+
+HIS FAULTS.--If it be necessary to point out his faults, it should be
+observed that most of them are those of the age and of his profession. To
+both may be charged the vulgarity and lewdness of some of his
+representations; which, however, err in this respect far less than the
+writings of his contemporaries.
+
+Again: in the short time allowed for the presentation of a play, before a
+restless audience, as soon as the plot was fairly shadowed, the hearers
+were anxious for the _denouement_. And so Shakspeare, careless of future
+fame, frequently displays a singular disparity between the parts. He has
+so much of detail in the first two acts, that in order to preserve the
+symmetry, five or six more would be necessary. Thus conclusions are
+hurried, when, as works of art, they should be the most elaborated.
+
+He has sometimes been accused of obscurity in expression, which renders
+some of his passages difficult to be understood by commentators; but this,
+in most cases, is the fault of his editors. The cases are exceptional and
+unimportant. His anachronisms and historical inaccuracies have already
+been referred to. His greatest admirers will allow that his wit and humor
+are very often forced and frequently out of place; but here, too, he
+should be leniently judged. These sallies of wit were meant rather to
+"tickle the ears of the groundlings" than as just subjects for criticism
+by later scholars. We know that old jokes, bad puns, and innuendoes are
+needed on the stage at the present day. Shakspeare used them for the same
+ephemeral purpose then; and had he sent down corrected versions to
+posterity, they would have been purged of these.
+
+
+INFLUENCE OF ELIZABETH.--Enough has been said to show in what manner
+Shakspeare represents his age, and indeed many former periods of English
+history. There are numerous passages which display the influence of
+Elizabeth. It was at her request that he wrote the _Merry Wives of
+Windsor_, in which Falstaff is depicted as a lover: the play of Henry
+VIII., criticizing the queen's father, was not produced until after her
+death. His pure women, like those of Spenser, are drawn after a queenly
+model. It is known that Elizabeth was very susceptible to admiration, but
+did not wish to be considered so; and Shakspeare paid the most delicate
+and courtly tribute to her vanity, in those exquisite lines from the
+_Midsummer Night's Dream_, showing how powerless Cupid was to touch her
+heart:
+
+            A certain aim he took
+    At a fair vestal, throned by the west;
+    And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
+    As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:
+    But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
+    Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon;
+    And _the imperial votaress passed on_,
+    In maiden meditation, fancy free.
+
+
+SHAKSPEARE'S SONNETS.--Before his time, the sonnet had been but little
+used in England, the principal writers being Surrey, Sir Walter Raleigh,
+Sidney, Daniel, and Drayton. Shakspeare left one hundred and fifty-four,
+which exhibit rare poetical power, and which are most of them addressed to
+a person unknown, perhaps an ideal personage, whose initials are W. H.
+Although chiefly addressed to a man, they are of an amatory nature, and
+dwell strongly upon human frailty, infidelity, and treachery, from which
+he seems to have suffered: the mystery of these poems has never been
+penetrated. They were printed in 1609. "Our language," says one of his
+editors, "can boast no sonnets altogether worthy of being placed by the
+side of Shakspeare's, except the few which Milton poured forth--so severe
+and so majestic."
+
+It need hardly be said that Shakspeare has been translated into all modern
+languages, in whole or in part. In French, by Victor Hugo and Guizot, Leon
+de Wailly and Alfred de Vigny; in German, by Wieland, A. W. Schlegel, and
+Buerger; in Italian, by Leoni and Carcano, and in Portuguese by La Silva.
+Goethe's Apprenticeship of Wilhelm Meister is a long and profound critique
+of Hamlet; and to the Germans he is quite as familiar and intelligible as
+to the English.
+
+
+IRELAND: COLLIER.--The most celebrated forgery of Shakspeare was that by
+Samuel Ireland, the son of a Shakspearean scholar, who was an engraver and
+dealer in curiosities. He wrote two plays, called _Vortigern_ and _Henry
+the Second_, which he said he had discovered; and he forged a deed with
+Shakspeare's autograph. By these he imposed upon his father and many
+others, but eventually confessed the forgery.
+
+One word should be said concerning the Collier controversy. John Payne
+Collier was a lawyer, born in 1789, and is known as the author of an
+excellent history of _English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of Shakspeare_
+and _Annals of the Stage to the Restoration_. In the year 1849, he came
+into possession of a copy of the folio edition of Shakspeare, published in
+1632, _full of emendations_, by an early owner of the volume. In 1852 he
+published these, and at once great enthusiasm was excited, for and against
+the emendations: many thought them of great value, while others even went
+so far as to accuse Mr. Collier of having made some of them himself. The
+chief value of the work was that it led to new investigations, and has
+thus thrown additional light upon the works of Shakspeare.
+
+
+CONCORDANCE.--The student is referred to a very complete concordance of
+Shakspeare, by Mrs. Mary Cowden Clarke, the labor of many years, by which
+every line of Shakspeare may be found, and which is thus of incalculable
+utility to the Shakspearean scholar.
+
+
+
+OTHER DRAMATIC WRITERS OF THE AGE OF SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+Ben Jonson, 1573-1637: this great dramatist, who deserves a larger space,
+was born in London; his father became a Puritan preacher, but after his
+death, his mother's second husband put the boy at brick-making. His spirit
+revolted at this, and he ran away, and served as a soldier in the Low
+Countries. On his return he killed Gabriel Spencer, a fellow-actor, in a
+duel, and was for some time imprisoned. His first play was a comedy
+entitled _Every Man in his Humour_, acted in 1598. This was succeeded,
+the next year, by _Every Man out of his Humour_. He wrote a great number
+of both tragedies and comedies, among which the principal are _Cynthia's
+Revels_, _Sejanus_, _Volpone_, _Catiline's Conspiracy_, and _The
+Alchemist_. In 1616, he received a pension from the crown of one hundred
+marks, which was increased by Charles I., in 1630, to one hundred pounds.
+He was the friend of Shakspeare, and had many wit-encounters with him. In
+these, Fuller compares Jonson to a great Spanish galleon, "built far
+higher in learning, solid and slow in performance," and Shakspeare to an
+"English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn
+with all tides, tack about and take advantage of all winds, by the
+quickness of his wit and invention."
+
+Massinger, 1548-1640: born at Salisbury. Is said to have written
+thirty-eight plays, of which only eighteen remain. The chief of these is
+the _Virgin Martyr_, in which he was assisted by Dekker. The best of the
+others are _The City Madam_ and _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_, _The Fatal
+Dowry_, _The Unnatural Combat_, and _The Duke of Milan_. _A New Way to Pay
+Old Debts_ keeps its place upon the modern stage.
+
+John Ford, born 1586: author of _The Lover's Melancholy_, _Love's
+Sacrifice_, _Perkin Warbeck_, and _The Broken Heart_. He was a pathetic
+delineator of love, especially of unhappy love. Some of his plots are
+unnatural, and abhorrent to a refined taste.
+
+Webster (dates unknown): this author is remarkable for his handling of
+gloomy and terrible subjects. His best plays are _The Devil's Law Case_,
+_Appius and Virginia_, _The Duchess of Malfy_, and _The White Devil_.
+Hazlitt says "his _White Devil_ and _Duchess of Malfy_ come the nearest to
+Shakspeare of anything we have upon record."
+
+Francis Beaumont, 1586-1615, and John Fletcher, 1576-1625: joint authors
+of plays, numbering fifty-two. A prolific union, in which it is difficult
+to determine the exact authorship of each. Among the best plays are _The
+Maid's Tragedy_, _Philaster_, and _Cupid's Revenge_. Many of the plots are
+licentious, but in monologues they frequently rise to eloquence, and in
+descriptions are picturesque and graphic.
+
+Shirley, 1594-1666: delineates fashionable life with success. His best
+plays are _The Maid's Revenge_, _The Politician_, and _The Lady of
+Pleasure_. The last suggested to Van Brugh his character of Lady Townly,
+in _The Provoked Husband_. Lamb says Shirley "was the last of a great
+race, all of whom spoke the same language, and had a set of moral feelings
+and notions in common. A new language and quite a new turn of tragic and
+comic interest came in at the Restoration."
+
+Thomas Dekker, died about 1638: wrote, besides numerous tracts,
+twenty-eight plays. The principal are _Old Fortunatus_, _The Honest
+Whore_, and _Satiro-Mastix, or, The Humorous Poet Untrussed_. In the last,
+he satirized Ben Jonson, with whom he had quarrelled, and who had
+ridiculed him in _The Poetaster_. In the Honest Whore are found those
+beautiful lines so often quoted:
+
+                            ... the best of men
+    That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer;
+    A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit;
+    The first true gentleman that ever breathed.
+
+Extracts from the plays mentioned may be found in Charles Lamb's
+"Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of
+Shakspeare."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+BACON, AND THE RISE OF THE NEW PHILOSOPHY.
+
+
+   Birth and Early Life. Treatment of Essex. His Appointments. His Fall.
+   Writes Philosophy. Magna Instauratio. His Defects. His Fame. His
+   Essays.
+
+
+
+BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE OF BACON.
+
+
+Contemporary with Shakspeare, and almost equal to him in English fame at
+least, is Francis Bacon, the founder of the system of experimental
+philosophy in the Elizabethan age. The investigations of the one in the
+philosophy of human life, were emulated by those of the other in the realm
+of general nature, in order to find laws to govern further progress, and
+to evolve order and harmony out of chaos.
+
+Bacon was born in London, on the 22d of January, 1560-61, to an enviable
+social lot. His father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, was for twenty years lord
+keeper of the great seal, and was eulogized by George Buchanan as "Diu
+Britannici regni secundum columen." His mother was Anne Cook, a person of
+remarkable acquirements in language and theology. Francis Bacon was a
+delicate, attractive, and precocious child, noticed by the great, and
+kindly called by the queen "her little lord keeper." Ben Jonson refers to
+this when he writes, at a later day:
+
+    England's high chancellor, the destined heir
+    In his soft cradle to his father's chair.
+
+Thus, in his early childhood, he became accustomed to the forms and
+grandeur of political power, and the modes by which it was to be striven
+for.
+
+In his thirteenth year he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, then,
+as now, the more mathematical and scientific of the two universities. But,
+like Gibbon at Oxford, he thought little of his alma mater, under whose
+care he remained only three years. It is said that at an early age he
+disliked the Logic of Aristotle, and began to excogitate his system of
+Induction: not content with the formal recorded knowledge, he viewed the
+universe as a great storehouse of facts to be educed, investigated, and
+philosophically classified.
+
+After leaving the university, he went in the suite of Sir Amyas Paulet,
+the English ambassador, to France; and recorded the observations made
+during his travels in a treatise _On the State of Europe_, which is
+thoughtful beyond his years. The sudden death of his father, in February,
+1579-80, recalled him to England, and his desire to study led him to apply
+to the government for a sinecure, which would permit him to do so without
+concern as to his support. It is not strange--considering his youth and
+the entire ignorance of the government as to his abilities--that this was
+refused. He then applied himself to the study of the law; and whatever his
+real ability, the jealousy of the Cecils no doubt prompted the opinion of
+the queen, that he was not very profound in the branch he had chosen, an
+opinion which was fully shared by the blunt and outspoken Lord Coke, who
+was his rival in love, law, and preferment. Prompted no doubt by the
+coldness of Burleigh, he joined the opposition headed by the Earl of
+Essex, and he found in that nobleman a powerful friend and generous
+patron, who used his utmost endeavors to have Bacon appointed
+attorney-general, but without success. To compensate Bacon for his
+failure, Essex presented him with a beautiful villa at Twickenham on the
+Thames, which was worth L2,000.
+
+
+TREATMENT OF ESSEX.--Essex was of a bold, eccentric, and violent temper.
+It is not to the credit of Bacon that when Essex, through his rashness and
+eccentricities, found himself arraigned for treason, Bacon deserted him,
+and did not simply stand aloof, but was the chief agent in his
+prosecution. Nor is this all: after making a vehement and effective speech
+against him, as counsel for the prosecution--a speech which led to his
+conviction and execution--Bacon wrote an uncalled-for and malignant paper,
+entitled "A Declaration of the Treasons of Robert, Earl of Essex."
+
+A high-minded man would have aided his friend; a cautious man would have
+remained neutral; but Bacon was extravagant, fond of show, eager for
+money, and in debt: he sought only to push his own fortunes, without
+regard to justice or gratitude, and he saw that he had everything to gain
+from his servility to the queen, and nothing from standing by his friend.
+Even those who thought Essex justly punished, regarded Bacon with aversion
+and contempt, and impartial history has not reversed their opinion.
+
+
+HIS APPOINTMENTS.--He strove for place, and he obtained it. In 1590 he was
+appointed counsel extraordinary to the queen: such was his first reward
+for this conduct, and such his first lesson in the school where thrift
+followed fawning. In 1593 he was brought into parliament for Middlesex,
+and there he charmed all hearers by his eloquence, which has received the
+special eulogy of Ben Jonson. In his parliamentary career is found a
+second instance of his truckling to power: in a speech touching the rights
+of the crown, he offended the queen and her ministers; and as soon as he
+found they resented it, he made a servile and unqualified apology.
+
+At this time he began to write his _Essays_, which will be referred to
+hereafter, and published two treatises, one on _The Common Law_, and one
+on _The Alienation Office_.
+
+In 1603 he was, by his own seeking, among the crowd of gentlemen knighted
+by James I. on his accession; and in 1604 he added fortune to his new
+dignity by marrying Alice Barnham, "a handsome maiden," the daughter of a
+London alderman. He had before addressed the dowager Lady Hatton, who had
+refused him and bestowed her hand upon his rival, Coke.
+
+In 1613 he attained to the long-desired dignity of attorney-general, a
+post which he filled with power and energy, but which he disgraced by the
+torture of Peacham, an old clergyman, who was charged with having written
+treason in a sermon which he never preached nor published. As nothing
+could be extorted from him by the rack, Bacon informed the king that
+Peacham "had a dumb devil." It should be some palliation of this deed,
+however, that the government was quick and sharp in ferretting out
+treason, and that torture was still authorized.
+
+In 1616 he was sworn of the privy council, and in the next year inherited
+his father's honors, being made lord keeper of the seal, principally
+through the favor of the favorite Buckingham. His course was still upward:
+in 1618 he was made lord high chancellor, and Baron Verulam, and the next
+year he was created Viscount St. Albans. Such rapid and high promotion
+marked his great powers, but it belonged to the period of despotism. James
+had been ruling without a parliament. At length the necessities of the
+government caused the king to summon a parliament, and the struggle began
+which was to have a fatal issue twenty-five years later. Parliament met,
+began to assert popular rights, and to examine into the conduct of
+ministers and high officials; and among those who could ill bear such
+scrutiny, Bacon was prominent.
+
+
+HIS FALL.--The charges against him were varied and numerous, and easy of
+proof. He had received bribes; he had given false judgments for money; he
+had perverted justice to secure the smiles of Buckingham, the favorite;
+and when a commission was appointed to examine these charges he was
+convicted. With abject humility, he acknowledged his guilt, and implored
+the pity of his judges. The annals of biography present no sorrier picture
+than this. "Upon advised consideration of the charges," he wrote,
+"descending into my own conscience, and calling my memory to account so
+far as I am able, I do plainly and ingenuously confess that I am guilty of
+corruption, and do renounce all defence. O my lords, spare a broken reed!"
+
+It is useless for his defenders, among whom the chief are Mr. Basil
+Montagu and Mr. Hepworth Dixon, to inform us that judges in that day were
+ill paid, and that it was the custom to receive gifts. If Bacon had a
+defence to make and did not make it, he was a coward or a sycophant: if
+what he said is true, he was a dishonest man, an unjust judge. He was
+sentenced to pay a fine of L40,000, and to be imprisoned in the Tower at
+the king's pleasure; the fine was remitted, and the imprisonment lasted
+but two days, a result, no doubt foreseen, of his wretched confession.
+This was the end of his public career. In retirement, with a pension of
+L1,200, making, with his other means, an annual income of L2,500, this
+"meanest of mankind" set himself busily to work to prove to the world that
+he could also be the "wisest and brightest;"[33] a duality of fame
+approached by others, but never equalled. He was, in fact, two men in one:
+a dishonest, truckling politician, and a large-minded and truth-seeking
+philosopher.
+
+
+BEGINS HIS PHILOSOPHY.--Retired in disgrace from his places at court, the
+rest of his life was spent in developing his _Instauratio Magna_, that
+revolution in the very principles and institutes of science--that
+philosophy which, in the words of Macaulay, "began in observations, and
+ended in arts." A few words will suffice to close his personal history.
+While riding in his coach, he was struck with the idea that snow would
+arrest animal putrefaction. He alighted, bought a fowl, and stuffed it
+with snow, with his own hands. He caught cold, stopped at the Earl of
+Arundel's mansion, and slept in damp sheets; fever intervened, and on
+Easter Day, 1626, he died, leaving his great work unfinished, but in such
+condition that the plan has been sketched for the use of the philosophers
+who came after him.
+
+He is said to have made the first sketch of the _Instauratio_ when he was
+twenty-six years old, but it was much modified in later years. He fondly
+called it also _Temporis Partus Maximus_, the greatest birth of Time.
+After that he wrote his _Advancement of Learning in 1605_, which was to
+appear in his developed scheme, under the title _De Augmentis
+Scientiarum_, written in 1623. His work advanced with and was modified by
+his investigations.
+
+In 1620 he wrote the _Novum Organum_, which, when it first appeared,
+called forth from James I. the profane _bon mot_ that it was like the
+peace of God, "because it passeth all understanding." Thus he was
+preparing the component parts, and fitting them into his system, which has
+at length become quite intelligible. A clear notion of what he proposed to
+himself and what he accomplished, may be found in the subjoined meagre
+sketch, only designed to indicate the outline of that system, which it
+will require long and patient study to master thoroughly.
+
+
+THE GREAT RESTORATION, (MAGNA INSTAURATIO.)--He divided it into six parts,
+bearing a logical relation to each other, and arranged in the proper order
+of study.
+
+I. Survey and extension of the sciences, (_De Augmentis Scientiarum_.)
+"Gives the substance or general description of the knowledge which mankind
+_at present possesses_." That is, let it be observed, not according to the
+received system and divisions, but according to his own. It is a new
+presentation of the existent state of knowledge, comprehending "not only
+the things already invented and known, but also those omitted and wanted,"
+for he says the intellectual globe, as well as the terrestrial, has its
+broils and deceits.
+
+In the branch "_De Partitione Scientiarum_," he divides all human learning
+into _History_, which uses the memory; _Poetry_, which employs the
+imagination; and _Philosophy_, which requires the reason: divisions too
+vague and too few, and so overlapping each other as to be of little
+present use. Later classifications into numerous divisions have been
+necessary to the progress of scientific research.
+
+II. Precepts for the interpretation of nature, (_Novum Organum_.) This
+sets forth "the doctrine of a more perfect use of the reason, and the true
+helps of the intellectual faculties, so as to raise and enlarge the powers
+of the mind." "A kind of logic, by us called," he says, "the art of
+interpreting nature: differing from the common logic ... in three things,
+the end, the order of demonstrating, and the grounds of inquiry."
+
+Here he discusses induction; opposes the syllogism; shows the value and
+the faults of the senses--as they fail us, or deceive us--and presents in
+his _idola_ the various modes and forms of deception. These _idola_, which
+he calls the deepest fallacies of the human mind, are divided into four
+classes: Idola Tribus, Idola Specus, Idola Fori, Idola Theatri. The first
+are the errors belonging to the whole human race, or _tribe_; the
+second--_of the den_--are the peculiarities of individuals; the third--_of
+the market-place_--are social and conventional errors; and the
+fourth--_those of the theatre_--include Partisanship, Fashion, and
+Authority.
+
+III. Phenomena of the Universe, or Natural and Experimental History, on
+which to found Philosophy, (_Sylva Sylvarum_.) "Our natural history is
+not designed," he says, "so much to please by vanity, or benefit by
+gainful experiments, as to afford light to the discovery of causes, and
+hold out the breasts of philosophy." This includes his patient search for
+facts--nature _free_, as in the history of plants, minerals, animals,
+etc.--nature _put to the torture_, as in the productions of art and human
+industry.
+
+IV. Ladder of the Understanding, (_Scala Intellectus_.) "Not illustrations
+of rules and precepts, but perfect models, which will exemplify the second
+part of this work, and represent to the eye the whole progress of the
+mind, and the continued structure and order of invention, in the most
+chosen subjects, after the same manner as globes and machines facilitate
+the more abstruse and subtle demonstrations in mathematics."
+
+V. Precursors or anticipations of the second philosophy, (_Prodromi sive
+anticipationes philosophiae secundae_.) "These will consist of such things
+as we have invented, experienced, or added by the same common use of the
+understanding that others employ"--a sort of scaffolding, only of use till
+the rest are finished--a set of suggestive helps to the attainment of this
+second philosophy, which is the goal and completion of his system.
+
+VI. Second Philosophy, or Active Science, (_Philosophia Secunda_.) "To
+this all the rest are subservient--_to lay down that philosophy_ which
+shall flow from the just, pure, and strict inquiry hitherto proposed." "To
+perfect this is beyond both our abilities and our hopes; yet we shall lay
+the foundations of it, and recommend the superstructure to posterity."
+
+An examination of this scheme will show a logical procession from the
+existing knowledge, and from existing defects, by right rules of reason,
+and the avoidance of deceptions, with a just scale of perfected models, to
+the _second philosophy_, or science in useful practical action, diffusing
+light and comfort throughout the world.
+
+In a philosophic instead of a literary work, these heads would require
+great expansion in order adequately to illustrate the scheme in its six
+parts. This, however, would be entirely out of our province, which is to
+present a brief outline of the works of a man who occupies a prominent
+place in the intellectual realm of England, as a profound philosopher, and
+as a writer of English prose; only as one might introduce a great man in a
+crowd: those who wish to know the extent and character of his greatness
+must study his works.
+
+They were most of them written in Latin, but they have been ably
+translated and annotated, and are within the ready reach and comprehension
+of students. The best edition in English, is that by Spedding, Ellis, and
+Heath, which has been republished in America.
+
+
+BACON'S DEFECTS.--Further than this tabular outline, neither our space nor
+the scope of our work will warrant us in going; but it is important to
+consider briefly the elements of Bacon's remarkable fame. His system and
+his knowledge are superseded entirely. Those who have studied physics and
+chemistry at the present day, know a thousand-fold more than Bacon could;
+for such knowledge did not exist in his day. But he was one of those--and
+the chief one--who, in that age of what is called the childhood of
+experimental philosophy, helped to clear away the mists of error, and
+prepare for the present sunshine of truth. "I have been laboring," says
+some writer, (quoted by Bishop Whately, Pref. to Essay XIV.,) "to render
+myself useless." Such was Bacon's task, and such the task of the greatest
+inventors, discoverers, and benefactors of the human race.
+
+Nor did Bacon rank high even as a natural philosopher or physicist in his
+own age: he seems to have refused credence to the discoveries of
+Copernicus and Galileo, which had stirred the scientific world into great
+activity before his day; and his investigations in botany and vegetable
+physiology are crude and full of errors.
+
+His mind, eminently philosophic, searched for facts only to establish
+principles and discover laws; and he was often impatient or obstinate in
+this search, feeling that it trammelled him in his haste to reach
+conclusions.
+
+In the consideration of the reason, he unduly despised the _Organon_ of
+Aristotle, which, after much indignity and misapprehension, still remains
+to elucidate the universal principle of reasoning, and published his new
+organon--_Novum Organum_--as a sort of substitute for it: Induction
+unjustly opposed to the Syllogism. In what, then, consists that wonderful
+excellence, that master-power which has made his name illustrious?
+
+
+HIS FAME.--I. He labored earnestly to introduce, in the place of fanciful
+and conjectural systems--careful, patient investigation: the principle of
+the procurement of well-known facts, in order that, by severe induction,
+philosophy might attain to general laws, and to a classification of the
+sciences. The fault of the ages before him had been hasty, careless, often
+neglected observation, inaccurate analysis, the want of patient successive
+experiment. His great motto was experiment, and again and again
+experiment; and the excellent maxims which he laid down for the proper
+conduct of experimental philosophy have outlived his own facts and system
+and peculiar beliefs. Thus he has fitly been compared to Moses. He led
+men, marshalled in strong array, to the vantage ground from which he
+showed them the land of promise, and the way to enter it; while he
+himself, after all his labors, was not permitted to enjoy it. Such men
+deserve the highest fame; and thus the most practical philosophers of
+to-day revere the memory of him who showed them from the mountain-top,
+albeit in dim vision, the land which they now occupy.
+
+II. Again, Bacon is the most notable example among natural philosophers of
+a man who worked for science and truth alone, with a singleness of purpose
+and entire unconcern as to immediate and selfish rewards. Bacon the
+philosopher was in the strongest contrast to Bacon the politician. He
+left, he said, his labors to posterity; his name and memory to foreign
+nations, and "to (his) own country, after some time is past over." His own
+time could neither appreciate nor reward them. Here is an element of
+greatness worthy of all imitation: he who works for popular applause, may
+have his reward, but it is fleeting and unsatisfying; he who works for
+truth alone, has a grand inner consequence while he works, and his name
+will be honored, if for nothing else, for this loyalty to truth. After
+what has been said of his servility and dishonesty, it is pleasing to
+contemplate this unsullied side of his escutcheon, and to give a better
+significance to the motto on his monument--_Sic sedebat_.
+
+
+HIS ESSAYS.--Bacon's _Essays_, or _Counsels Civil and Moral_, are as
+intelligible to the common mind as his philosophy is dry and difficult.
+They are short, pithy, sententious, telling us plain truths in simple
+language: he had been writing them through several years. He dedicated
+them, under the title of _Essays_, to Henry, Prince of Wales, the eldest
+son of King James I., a prince of rare gifts, and worthy such a
+dedication, who unfortunately died in 1612. They show him to be the
+greatest master of English prose in his day, and to have had a deep
+insight into human nature.
+
+Bacon is said to have been the first person who applied the word _essay_
+in English to such writings: it meant, as the French word shows, a little
+trial-sketch, a suggestion, a few loose thoughts--a brief of something to
+be filled in by the reader. Now it means something far more--a long
+composition, dissertation, disquisition. The subjects of the essays, which
+number sixty-eight, are such as are of universal interest--fame, studies,
+atheism, beauty, ambition, death, empire, sedition, honor, adversity, and
+suchlike.
+
+The Essays have been ably edited and annotated by Archbishop Whately, and
+his work has been republished in America.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE ENGLISH BIBLE.
+
+
+   Early Versions. The Septuagint. The Vulgate. Wiclif; Tyndale.
+   Coverdale; Cranmer. Geneva; Bishop's Bible. King James's Bible.
+   Language of the Bible. Revision.
+
+
+
+EARLY VERSIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES.
+
+
+When we consider the very extended circulation of the English Bible in the
+version made by direction of James I., we are warranted in saying that no
+work in the language, viewed simply as a literary production, has had a
+more powerful historic influence over the world of English-speaking
+people.
+
+Properly to understand its value as a version of the inspired writings, it
+is necessary to go back to the original history, and discover through what
+precedent forms they have come into English.
+
+All the canonical books of the Old Testament were written in Hebrew. The
+apocryphal books were produced either in a corrupted dialect, or in Greek.
+
+
+THE SEPTUAGINT.--Limiting our inquiry to the canonical books, and
+rejecting all fanciful traditions, it is known that about 286 or 285 B.C.,
+Ptolemy Philadelphus, King of Egypt, probably at the instance of his
+librarian, Demetrius Phalereus, caused seventy-two Jews, equally learned
+in Hebrew and in Greek, to be brought to Alexandria, to prepare a Greek
+version of the Hebrew Scriptures. This was for the use of the Alexandrian
+Jews. The version was called the Septuagint, or translation of the
+seventy. The various portions of the translation are of unequal merit,
+the rendering of the Pentateuch being the best; but the completed work was
+of great value, not only to the Jews dispersed in the countries where
+Greek had been adopted as the national language, but it opened the way for
+the coming of Christianity: the study of its prophecies prepared the minds
+of men for the great Advent, and the version was used by the earlier
+Christians as the historic ground of their faith.
+
+The books of the New Testament were written in Greek, with the probable
+exception of St. Matthew's Gospel, which, if written in Hebrew, or
+Aramaean, was immediately translated into Greek.
+
+Contemporary with the origin of Christianity, and the vast extension of
+the Roman Empire, the Latin had become the all-absorbing tongue; and, as
+might be expected, numerous versions of the whole and of parts of the
+Scriptures were made in that language, and one of these complete versions,
+which grew in favor, almost superseding all others, was called the _Vetus
+Itala_.
+
+
+THE VULGATE.--St. Jerome, a doctor of the Latin Church in the latter part
+of the fourth century, undertook, with the sanction of Damasus, the Bishop
+of Rome, a new Latin version upon the basis of the _Vetus Itala_, bringing
+it nearer to the Septuagint in the Old Testament, and to the original
+Greek of the New.
+
+This version of Jerome, corrected from time to time, was approved by
+Gregory I., (the Great,) and, since the seventh century, has been used by
+the Western Church, under the name of the _Vulgate_, (from _vulgatus_--for
+general or common use.) The Council of Trent, in the sixteenth century,
+declared it alone to be authentic.
+
+Throughout Western Europe this was used, and made the basis of further
+translations into the national languages. It was from the Vulgate that
+Aldhelm made his Anglo-Saxon version of the Psalter in 706; Bede, his
+entire Saxon Bible in the same period; Alfred, his portion of the Psalms;
+and other writers, fragmentary translations.
+
+As soon as the newly formed English language was strong enough, partial
+versions were attempted in it: one by an unknown hand, as early as 1290;
+and one by John de Trevisa, about one hundred years later.
+
+
+WICLIF: TYNDALE.--Wiclif's Bible was translated from the Latin Vulgate,
+and issued about 1378. If it be asked why he did not go to the original
+sources, and thus avoid the errors of successive renderings, the answer is
+plain: he was not sufficiently acquainted with Hebrew and Greek to
+translate from them. Wiclif's translation was eagerly sought, and was
+multiplied by the hands of skilful scribes. Its popularity was very great,
+as is attested by the fact that when, in the House of Lords, in the year
+1390, a bill was offered to suppress it, the measure signally failed. The
+first copy of Wiclif's Bible was not printed until the year 1731.
+
+About a century after Wiclif, the Greek language and the study of Greek
+literature came into England, and were of great effect in making the
+forthcoming translations more accurate.
+
+First among these new translators was William Tyndale, who was born about
+the year 1477. He was educated at Oxford and Cambridge, and left England
+for fear of persecution. He translated the Scriptures from the Greek, and
+printed the volume at Antwerp--the first printed translation of the
+Scriptures in English--in the year 1526. This work was largely circulated
+in England. It was very good for a first translation, and the language is
+very nearly that of King James's Bible. It met the fury of the Church, all
+the copies which could be found being burned by Tonstall, Bishop of
+London, at St. Paul's Cross. When Sir Thomas More asked how Tyndale
+subsisted abroad, he was pithily answered that Tyndale was supported by
+the Bishop of London, who sent over money to buy up his books. To the
+fame of being a translator of the Scriptures, Tyndale adds that of
+martyrdom. He was seized, at the instance of Henry VIII., in Antwerp, and
+condemned to death by the Emperor of Germany. He was strangled in the year
+1536, at Villefort, near Brussels, praying, just before his death, that
+the Lord would open the King of England's eyes.
+
+The Old Testament portion of Tyndale's Bible is principally from the
+Septuagint, and has many corruptions and errors, which have been corrected
+by more modern translators.
+
+
+MILES COVERDALE: CRANMER'S BIBLE.--In 1535, Miles Coverdale, a co-laborer
+of Tyndale, published "Biblia; The Bible, that is, the Holy Scriptures of
+the Olde and New Testament, faithfully and truly translated out of the
+Douche and Latyn into Englishe: Zurich." In the next year, 1536, Coverdale
+issued another edition, which was dedicated to Henry VIII., who ordered a
+copy to be placed in every parish church in England. This translation is
+in part that of Tyndale, and is based upon it. Another edition of this
+appeared in 1537, and was called Matthew's Bible, probably a pseudonym of
+Coverdale. Of this, from the beginning to the end of Chronicles is
+Tyndale's version. The rest of the Old Testament is Coverdale's
+translation. The entire New Testament is Tyndale's. This was published by
+royal license. Strange mutation! The same king who had caused Tyndale to
+be strangled for publishing the English Scriptures at Antwerp, was now
+spreading Tyndale's work throughout the parishes of England. Coverdale
+published many editions, among which the most noted was Cranmer's Bible,
+issued in 1539, so called because Cranmer wrote a preface to it. Coverdale
+led an eventful life, being sometimes in exile and prisoner, and at others
+in high favor. He was Bishop of Exeter, from which see he was ejected by
+Mary, in 1553. He died in 1568, at the age of eighty-one.
+
+
+THE GENEVAN: BISHOPS' BIBLE.--In the year 1557 he had aided those who were
+driven away by Mary, in publishing a version of the Bible at Geneva. It
+was much read in England, and is known as the Genevan Bible. The Great
+Bible was an edition of Coverdale issued in 1562. The Bishops' Bible was
+so called because, at the instance of Archbishop Parker, it was translated
+by a royal commission, of whom eight were bishops. And in 1571, a canon
+was passed at Canterbury, requiring a large copy of this work to be in
+every parish church, and in the possession of every bishop and dignitary
+among the clergy. Thus far every new edition and issue had been an
+improvement on what had gone before, and all tended to the production of a
+still more perfect and permanent translation. It should be mentioned that
+Luther, in Germany, after ten years of labor, from 1522 to 1532, had
+produced, unaided, his wonderful German version. This had helped the cause
+of translations everywhere.
+
+
+KING JAMES'S BIBLE.--At length, in 1603, just after the accession of James
+I., a conference was held at Hampton Court, which, among other tasks,
+undertook to consider what objections could be made to the Bishops' Bible.
+The result was that the king ordered a new version which should supersede
+all others. The number of eminent and learned divines appointed to make
+the translation was fifty-four; seven of these were prevented by
+disability of one kind or another. The remaining forty-seven were divided
+into six classes, and the labor was thus apportioned: ten, who sat at
+Westminster, translated from Genesis through Kings; eight, at Cambridge,
+undertook the other historical books and the Hagiographa, including the
+Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Ruth, Esther, and a few
+other books; seven at Oxford, the four greater Prophets, the Lamentations
+of Jeremiah, and the twelve minor Prophets; eight, also at Oxford, the
+four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Revelation of St. John;
+seven more at Westminster, the Epistles of St. Paul, and the remaining
+canonical books; and five more at Cambridge, the Apocryphal books. The
+following was the mode of translation: Each individual in one of the
+classes translated himself every book confided to that class; each class
+then met and compared these translations, and thus completed their task.
+The work thus done was sent by each class to all the other classes; after
+this, all the classes met together, and while one read the others
+criticized. The translation was commenced in the year 1607, and was
+finished in three years. The first public issue was in 1611, when the book
+was dedicated to King James, and has since been known as King James's
+Bible. It was adopted not only in the English Church, but by all the
+English people, so that the other versions have fallen into entire disuse,
+with the exception of the Psalms, which, according to the translation of
+Cranmer's Bible, were placed in the Book of Common Prayer, where they have
+since remained, constituting the Psalter. It should be observed that the
+Psalter, which is taken principally from the Vulgate, is not so near the
+original as the Psalms in King James's version: the language is, however,
+more musical and better suited to chanting in the church service.
+
+
+THE LANGUAGE OF THE BIBLE.--There have been numerous criticisms, favorable
+and adverse, to the language of King James's Bible. It is said to have
+been written in older English than that of its day, and Selden remarks
+that "it is rather translated into English words than into English
+phrase." The Hebraisms are kept, and the phraseology of that language is
+retained. This leads to the opinion of Bishop Horsley, that the adherence
+to the Hebrew idiom is supposed to have at once enriched and adorned our
+language. Bishop Middleton says "the style is simple, it is harmonious, it
+is energetic, and, which is of no small importance, use has made it
+familiar, and time has rendered it sacred." That it has lasted two
+hundred and fifty years without a rival, is the strongest testimony in
+favor of its accuracy and the beauty of its diction. Philologically
+considered, it has been of inestimable value as a strong rallying-point
+for the language, keeping it from wild progress in any and every
+direction. Many of our best words, which would otherwise have been lost,
+have been kept in current use because they are in the Bible. The peculiar
+language of the Bible expresses our most serious sentiments and our
+deepest emotions. It is associated with our holiest thoughts, and gives
+phraseology to our prayers. It is the language of heavenly things, but not
+only so: it is interwreathed in our daily discourse, kept fresh by our
+constant Christian services, and thus we are bound by ties of the same
+speech to the devout men of King James's day.
+
+
+REVISION.--There are some inaccuracies and flaws in the translation which
+have been discerned by the superior excellence of modern learning. In the
+question now mooted of a revision of the English Bible, the correction of
+these should be the chief object. A version in the language of the present
+day, in the course of time would be as archaic as the existing version is
+now; and the private attempts which have been made, have shown us the
+great danger of conflicting sectarian views.
+
+In any event, it is to be hoped that those who authorize a new translation
+will emulate the good sense and judgment of King James, by placing it in
+the hands of the highest learning, most liberal scholarship, and most
+devoted piety.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+JOHN MILTON, AND THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH.
+
+
+   Historical Facts. Charles I. Religious Extremes. Cromwell. Birth and
+   Early Works. Views of Marriage. Other Prose Works. Effects of the
+   Restoration. Estimate of his Prose.
+
+
+
+HISTORICAL FACTS.
+
+
+It is Charles Lamb who says "Milton almost requires a solemn service to be
+played before you enter upon him." Of Milton, the poet of _Paradise Lost_,
+this is true; but for Milton the statesman the politician, and polemic,
+this is neither necessary nor appropriate. John Milton and the
+Commonwealth! Until the present age, Milton has been regarded almost
+solely as a poet, and as the greatest imaginative poet England has
+produced; but the translation and publication of his prose works have
+identified him with the political history of England, and the discovery in
+1823, of his _Treatise on Christian Doctrine_, has established him as one
+of the greatest religious polemics in an age when every theological sect
+was closely allied to a political party, and thus rendered the strife of
+contending factions more bitter and relentless. Thus it is that the name
+of John Milton, as an author, is fitly coupled with the commonwealth, as a
+political condition.
+
+It remains for us to show that in all his works he was the strongest
+literary type of history in the age in which he lived. Great as he would
+have been in any age, his greatness is mainly English and historical. In
+his literary works may be traced every cardinal event in the history of
+that period: he aided in the establishment of the Commonwealth, and of
+that Commonwealth he was one of the principal characters. His pen was as
+sharp and effective as the sabres of Cromwell's Ironsides.
+
+A few words of preliminary history must introduce him to our reader. Upon
+the death of Queen Elizabeth, in 1603, James I. ascended the throne with
+the highest notions of kingly prerogative and of a church establishment;
+but the progress of the English people in education and intelligence, the
+advance in arts and letters which had been made, were vastly injurious to
+the autocratic and aristocratic system which James had received from his
+predecessor. His foolish arrogance and contempt for popular rights
+incensed the people thus enlightened as to their own position and
+importance. They soon began to feel that he was not only unjust, but
+ungrateful: he had come from a rustic throne in Scotland, where he had
+received L5,000 per annum, with occasional presents of fruits, grain, and
+poultry, to the greatest throne in Europe; and, besides, the Stuart
+family, according to Thackeray, "as regards mere lineage, were no better
+than a dozen English and Scottish houses that could be named."
+
+They resisted his illegal taxes and forced loans; they clamored against
+the unconstitutional Court of High Commission; they despised his arrogant
+favorites; and what they might have patiently borne from a gallant,
+energetic, and handsome monarch, they found it hard to bear from a
+pedantic, timid, uncouth, and rickety man, who gave them neither glory nor
+comfort. His eldest son, Prince Henry, the universal favorite of the
+nation, had died in 1612, before he was eighteen.
+
+
+CHARLES I.--When, after a series of struggles with the parliament, which
+he had reluctantly convened, James died in 1625, Charles I. came to an
+inheritance of error and misfortune. Imbued with the principles of his
+father, he, too, insisted upon "governing the people of England in the
+seventeenth century as they had been governed in the sixteenth," while in
+reality they had made a century of progress. The cloud increased in
+blackness and portent; he dissolved the parliament, and ruled without one;
+he imposed and collected illegal and doubtful taxes; he made forced loans,
+as his father had done; he was artful, capricious, winding and doubling in
+his policy; he made promises without intending to perform them; and found
+himself, finally, at direct issue with his parliament and his people.
+First at war with the political principles of the court, the nation soon
+found itself in antagonism with the religion and morals of the court.
+Before the final rupture, the two parties were well defined, as Cavaliers
+and Roundheads: each party went to extremes, through the spite and fury of
+mutual opposition. The Cavaliers affected a recklessness and dissoluteness
+greater than they really felt to be right, in order to differ most widely
+from those purists who, urged by analogous motives, decried all amusements
+as evil. Each party repelled the other to the extreme of opposition.
+
+
+RELIGIOUS EXTREMES.--Loyalty was opposed by radicalism, and the invectives
+of both were bitter in the extreme. The system and ceremonial of a
+gorgeous worship restored by Laud, and accused by its opposers of
+formalism and idolatry, were attacked by a spirit of excess, which, to
+religionize daily life, took the words of Scripture, and especially those
+of the Old Testament, as the language of common intercourse, which issued
+them from a gloomy countenance, with a nasal twang, and often with a false
+interpretation.
+
+As opposed to the genuflections of Laud and the pomp of his ritual, the
+land swarmed with unauthorized preachers; then came out from among the
+Presbyterians the Independents; the fifth-monarchy men, shouting for King
+Jesus; the Seekers, the Antinomians, who, like Trusty Tomkins, were elect
+by the fore-knowledge of God, who were not under the law but under grace,
+and who might therefore gratify every lust, and give the rein to every
+passion, because they were sealed to a certain salvation. Even in the army
+sprang up the Levellers, who wished to abolish monarchy and aristocracy,
+and to level all ranks to one. To each religious party, there was a
+political character, ranging from High Church and the divine right of
+kings, to absolute levellers in Church and State. This disintegrating
+process threatened not only civil war, with well-defined parties, but
+entire anarchy in the realm of England. It was long resisted by the
+conservative men of all opinions. At length the issue came: the king was a
+prisoner, without a shadow of power.
+
+The parliament was still firm, and would have treated with the king by a
+considerable majority; but Colonel Pride surrounded it with two regiments,
+excluded more than two hundred of the Presbyterians and moderate men; and
+the parliament, thus _purged_, appointed the High Court of Justice to try
+the king for treason.
+
+Charles I. fell before the storm. His was a losing cause from the day he
+erected his standard at Nottingham, in 1642, to that on which, after his
+noble bearing on the scaffold, the masked executioner held up his head and
+cried out, "This is the head of a traitor."
+
+With a fearful consistency the Commons voted soon after to abolish
+monarchy and the upper house, and on their new seal inscribed, "On the
+first year of freedom by God's blessing restored, 1648." The dispassionate
+historian of the present day must condemn both parties; and yet, out of
+this fierce travail of the nation, English constitutional liberty was
+born.
+
+
+CROMWELL.--The power which the parliament, under the dictation of the
+army, had so furiously wielded, passed into the hands of Cromwell, a
+mighty man, warrior, statesman, and fanatic, who mastered the crew, seized
+the helm, and guided the ship of State as she drove furiously before the
+wind. He became lord protector, a king in everything but the name. We
+need not enter into an analysis of these parties: the history is better
+known than any other part of the English annals, and almost every reader
+becomes a partisan. Cromwell, the greatest man of his age, was still a
+creature of the age, and was led by the violence of circumstances to do
+many things questionable and even wicked, but with little premeditation:
+like Rienzi and Napoleon, his sudden elevation fostered an ambition which
+robbed him of the stern purpose and pure motives of his earlier career.
+
+The establishment of the commonwealth seemed at first to assure the
+people's liberty; but it was only in seeming, and as the sequel shows,
+they liked the rule of the lord protector less than that of the
+unfortunate king; for, ten years after the beheading of Charles I., they
+restored the monarchy in the person of his son, Charles.
+
+Such, very briefly and in mere outline, was the political situation. And
+now to return to Milton: It is claimed that of all the elements of these
+troublous times, he was the literary type, and this may be demonstrated--
+
+   I. By observing his personal characteristics and political
+   appointments;
+
+   II. By the study of his prose works; and
+
+   III. By analyzing his poems.
+
+
+BIRTH AND EARLY WORKS.--John Milton was born on the 9th of December, 1608,
+in London. His grandfather, John Mylton, was a Papist, who disinherited
+his son, the poet's father, for becoming a Church-of-England man. His
+mother was a gentlewoman. Milton was born just in time to grow up with the
+civil troubles. When the outburst came in 1642, he was thirty-four years
+old, a solemn, cold, studious, thoughtful, and dogmatic Puritan. In 1624
+he entered Christ College, Cambridge, where, from his delicate and
+beautiful face and shy airs, he was called the "Lady of the College." It
+is said that he left the university on account of peculiar views in
+theology and politics; but eight years after, in 1632, he took his degree
+as master of arts. Meanwhile, in December, 1629, he had celebrated his
+twenty-first birthday, when the Star of Bethlehem was coming into the
+ascendant, with that pealing, organ-like hymn, "On the Eve of Christ's
+Nativity"--the worthiest poetic tribute ever laid by man, along with the
+gold, frankincense, and myrrh of the Eastern sages, at the feet of the
+Infant God:
+
+    See how from far upon the Eastern road,
+      The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet;
+    O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
+      And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;
+      Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,
+    And join thy voice unto the angel choir,
+    From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.
+
+Some years of travel on the Continent matured his mind, and gave full
+scope to his poetic genius. At Paris he became acquainted with Grotius,
+the illustrious writer upon public law; and in Rome, Genoa, Florence, and
+other Italian cities, he became intimate with the leading minds of the
+age. He returned to England on account of the political troubles.
+
+
+MILTON'S VIEWS OF MARRIAGE.--In the consideration of Milton's personality,
+we do not find in him much to arouse our heart-sympathy. His opinions
+concerning marriage and divorce, as set forth in several of his prose
+writings, would, if generally adopted, destroy the sacred character of
+divinely appointed wedlock. His views may be found in his essay on _The
+Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce;_ in his _Tetrachordon, or the four
+chief places in Scripture, which treat of Marriage, or Nullities in
+Marriage_; in his _Colasterion_, and in his translation of Martin Bucer's
+_Judgment Concerning Divorce_, addressed to the Parliament of England.
+Where women were concerned he was a hard man and a stern master.
+
+In 1643 he married Mary Powell, the daughter of a Cavalier; and, taking
+her from the gay life of her father's house, he brought her into a gloom
+and seclusion almost insupportable. He loved his books better than he did
+his wife. He fed and sheltered her, indeed, but he gave her no tender
+sympathy. Then was enacted in his household the drama of the rebellion in
+miniature; and no doubt his domestic troubles had led to his extended
+discussion of the question of divorce. He speaks, too, almost entirely in
+the interest of husbands. With him woman is not complementary to man, but
+his inferior, to be cherished if obedient, to minister to her husband's
+welfare, but to have her resolute spirit broken after the manner of
+Petruchio, the shrew-tamer. In all this, however, Milton was eminently a
+type of the times. It was the canon law of the established Church of
+England at which he aimed, and he endeavored to lead the parliament to
+legislation upon the most sacred ties and relations of human life.
+Happily, English morals were too strong, even in that turbulent period, to
+yield to this unholy attempt. It was a day when authority was questioned,
+a day for "extending the area of freedom," but he went too far even for
+emancipated England; and the mysterious power of the marriage tie has
+always been reverenced as one of the main bulwarks of that righteousness
+which exalteth a nation.
+
+His apology for Smectymnuus is one of his pamphlets against Episcopacy,
+and receives its title from the initial letters of the names of five
+Puritan ministers, who also engaged in controversy: they were Stephen
+Marshall, Edward Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcome, William Spenston.
+The Church of England never had a more intelligent and relentless enemy
+than John Milton.
+
+
+OTHER PROSE WORKS.--Milton's prose works are almost all of them of an
+historical character. Appointed Latin Secretary to the Council, he wrote
+foreign dispatches and treatises upon the persons and events of the day.
+In 1644 he published his _Areopagitica_, a noble paper in favor of
+_Unlicensed Printing_, and boldly directed against the Presbyterian party,
+then in power, which had continued and even increased the restraints upon
+the press. No stouter appeal for the freedom of the press was ever heard,
+even in America. But in the main, his prose pen was employed against the
+crown and the Church, while they still existed; against the king's memory,
+after the unfortunate monarch had fallen, and in favor of the parliament
+and all its acts. Milton was no trimmer; he gave forth no uncertain sound;
+he was partisan to the extreme, and left himself no loop-hole of retreat
+in the change that was to come.
+
+A famous book appeared in 1649, not long after Charles's execution,
+proclaimed to have been written by King Charles while in prison, and
+entitled _Eikon Basilike_, or _The Kingly Image_, being the portraiture of
+his majesty in his solitude and suffering. It was supposed that it might
+influence the people in favor of royalty, and so Milton was employed to
+answer it in a bitter invective, an unnecessary and heartless attack upon
+the dead king, entitled _Eikonoklastes_, or _The Image-breaker_. The Eikon
+was probably in part written by the king, and in part by Bishop Gauden,
+who indeed claimed its authorship after the Restoration.
+
+Salmasius having defended Charles in a work of dignified and moderate
+tone, Milton answered in his first _Defensio pro Populo Anglicano_; in
+which he traverses the whole ground of popular rights and kingly
+prerogative, in a masterly and eloquent manner. This was followed by a
+second _Defensio_. For the two he received L1,000, and by his own account
+accelerated the disease of the eyes which ended in complete blindness.
+
+No pen in England worked more powerfully than his in behalf of the
+parliament and the protectorate, or to stay the flood tide of loyalty,
+which bore upon its sweeping heart the restoration of the second Charles.
+He wrote the last foreign despatches of Richard Cromwell, the weak
+successor of the powerful Oliver; but nothing could now avail to check the
+return of monarchy. The people were tired of turmoil and sick of blood;
+they wanted rest, at any cost. The powerful hand of Cromwell was removed,
+and astute Monk used his army to secure his reward. The army, concurring
+with the popular sentiment, restored the Stuarts. The conduct of the
+English people in bringing Charles back stamped Cromwell as a usurper, and
+they have steadily ignored in their list of governors--called
+monarchs--the man through whose efforts much of their liberty had been
+achieved; but history asserts itself, and the benefits of the "Great
+Rebellion" are gratefully acknowledged by the people, whether the
+protectorate appears in the court list or not.
+
+
+THE EFFECT OF THE RESTORATION.--Charles II. came back to such an
+overwhelming reception, that he said, in his witty way, it must have been
+his own fault to stay away so long from a people who were so glad to see
+him when he did come. This restoration forced Milton into concealment: his
+public day was over, and yet his remaining history is particularly
+interesting. Inheriting weak eyes from his mother, he had overtasked their
+powers, especially in writing the _Defensiones_, and had become entirely
+blind. Although his person was included in the general amnesty, his
+polemical works were burned by the hangman; and the pen that had so
+powerfully battled for a party, now returned to the service of its first
+love, poetry. His loss of power and place was the world's gain. In his
+forced seclusion, he produced the greatest of English poems--religious,
+romantic, and heroic.
+
+
+ESTIMATE OF HIS PROSE.--Before considering his poems, we may briefly state
+some estimate of his prose works. They comprise much that is excellent,
+are full of learning, and contain passages of rarest rhetoric. He said
+himself, that in prose he had only "the use of his left hand;" but it was
+the left hand of a Milton. To the English scholar they are chiefly of
+historical value: many of them are written in Latin, and lose much of
+their terseness in a translation which retains classical peculiarities of
+form and phrase.
+
+His _History of England from the Earliest Times_ is not profound, nor
+philosophical; he followed standard chronicle authorities, but made few,
+if any, original investigations, and gives us little philosophy. His
+tractate on _Education_ contains peculiar views of a curriculum of study,
+but is charmingly written. He also wrote a treatise on _Logic_. Little
+known to the great world outside of his poems, there is one prose work,
+discovered only in 1823, which has been less read, but which contains the
+articles of his Christian belief. It is a tractate on Christian doctrine:
+no one now doubts its genuineness; and it proves him to have been a
+Unitarian, or High Arian, by his own confession. This was somewhat
+startling to the great orthodox world, who had taken many of their
+conceptions of supernatural things from Milton's _Paradise Lost_; and yet
+a careful study of that poem will disclose similar tendencies in the
+poet's mind. He was a Puritan whose theology was progressive until it
+issued in complete isolation: he left the Presbyterian ranks for the
+Independents, and then, startled by the rise and number of sects, he
+retired within himself and stood almost alone, too proud to be instructed,
+and dissatisfied with the doctrines and excesses of his earlier
+colleagues.
+
+In 1653 he lost his wife, Mary Powell, who left him three daughters. He
+supplied her place in 1656, by marrying Catherine Woodstock, to whom he
+was greatly attached, and who also died fifteen months after. Eight years
+afterward he married his third wife, Elizabeth Minshull, who survived him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE POETRY OF MILTON.
+
+
+   The Blind Poet. Paradise Lost. Milton and Dante. His Faults.
+   Characteristics of the Age. Paradise Regained. His Scholarship. His
+   Sonnets. His Death and Fame.
+
+
+
+THE BLIND POET.
+
+
+Milton's blindness, his loneliness, and his loss of power, threw him upon
+himself. His imagination, concentrated by these disasters and troubles,
+was to see higher things in a clear, celestial light: there was nothing to
+distract his attention, and he began that achievement which he had long
+before contemplated--a great religious epic, in which the heroes should be
+celestial beings and our sinless first parents, and the scenes Heaven,
+Hell, and the Paradise of a yet untainted Earth. His first idea was to
+write an epic on King Arthur and his knights: it is well for the world
+that he changed his intention, and took as a grander subject the loss of
+Paradise, full as it is of individual interest to mankind.
+
+In a consideration of his poetry, we must now first recur to those pieces
+which he had written at an earlier day. Before settling in London, he had,
+as we have seen, travelled fifteen months on the Continent, and had been
+particularly interested by his residence in Italy, where he visited the
+blind Galileo. The poems which most clearly show the still powerful
+influence of Italy in all European literature, and upon him especially,
+are the _Arcades, Comus, L'Allegro, Il Penseroso_, and _Lycidas_, each
+beautiful and finished, and although Italian in their taste, yet full of
+true philosophy couched in charming verse.
+
+The _Arcades_, (Arcadians,) composed in 1684, is a pastoral masque,
+enacted before the Countess Dowager of Derby at Harefield, by some noble
+persons of her family. The _Allegro_ is the song of Mirth, the nymph who
+brings with her
+
+    Jest and youthful jollity,
+    Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
+    Nods and becks and wreathed smiles,
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
+    And Laughter holding both his sides.
+
+The poem is like the nymph whom he addresses,
+
+    Buxom, blithe, and debonaire.
+
+The _Penseroso_ is a tribute to tender melancholy, and is designed as a
+pendant to the _Allegro_:
+
+    Pensive nun devout and pure,
+    Sober, steadfast, and demure,
+    All in a robe of darkest grain,
+    Flowing with majestic train.
+
+We fall in love with each goddess in turn, and find comfort for our
+varying moods from "grave to gay."
+
+Burke said he was certain Milton composed the _Penseroso_ in the aisle of
+a cloister, or in an ivy-grown abbey.
+
+_Comus_ is a noble poem, philosophic and tender, but neither pastoral nor
+dramatic, except in form; it presents the power of chastity in disarming
+_Circe, Comus_, and all the libidinous sirens. _L'Allegro_ and _Il
+Penseroso_ were written at Horton, about 1633.
+
+_Lycidas_, written in 1637, is a tender monody on the loss of a friend
+named King, in the Irish Channel, in that year, and is a classical
+pastoral, tricked off in Italian garb. What it loses in adherence to
+classic models and Italian taste, is more than made up by exquisite lines
+and felicitous phrases. In it he calls fame "that last infirmity of noble
+mind." Perhaps he has nowhere written finer lines than these:
+
+    So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed.
+    And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
+    And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
+    _Flames in the forehead of the morning sky_.
+
+Besides these, Milton wrote Latin poems with great vigor, if not with
+remarkable grace; and several Italian sonnets and poems, which have been
+much admired even by Italian critics. The sonnet, if not of Italian
+origin, had been naturalized there when its birth was forgotten; and this
+practice in the Italian gave him that power to produce them in English
+which he afterward used with such effect.
+
+
+PARADISE LOST.--Having thus summarily disposed of his minor poems, each of
+which would have immortalized any other man, we come to that upon which
+his highest fame rests; which is familiarly known by men who have never
+read the others, and who are ignorant of his prose works; which is used as
+a parsing exercise in many schools, and which, as we have before hinted,
+has furnished Protestant pulpits with pictorial theology from that day to
+this. It occupied him several years in the composition; from 1658, when
+Cromwell died, through the years of retirement and obscurity until 1667.
+It came forth in an evil day, for the merry monarch was on the throne, and
+an irreligious court gave tone to public opinion.
+
+The hardiest critic must approach the _Paradise Lost_ with wonder and
+reverence. What an imagination, and what a compass of imagination! Now
+with the lost peers in Hell, his glowing fancy projects an empire almost
+as grand and glorious as that of God himself. Now with undazzled,
+presumptuous gaze he stands face to face with the Almighty, and records
+the words falling from His lips; words which he has dared to place in the
+mouth of the Most High--words at the utterance of which
+
+               ... ambrosial fragrance filled
+    All heaven, and in the blessed spirits elect
+    Sense of new joy ineffable diffused.
+
+Little wonder that in his further flight he does not shrink from colloquy
+with the Eternal Son--in his theology not the equal of His Father--or that
+he does not fear to describe the fearful battle between Christ with his
+angelic hosts against the kingdom of darkness:
+
+              ... At his right hand victory
+    Sat eagle-winged: beside him hung his bow
+    And quiver with three-bolted thunder stored.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+         ... Them unexpected joy surprised,
+    When the great ensign of Messiah blazed,
+    Aloft by angels borne his sign in heaven.
+
+How heart-rending his story of the fall, and of the bitter sorrow of our
+first parents, whose fatal act
+
+    Brought death into the world and all our woe,
+    With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
+    Restore us, and regain the blissful seat.
+
+How marvellous is the combat at Hell-gate, between Satan and Death; how
+terrible the power at which "Hell itself grew darker"! How we strive to
+shade our mind's eye as we enter again with him into the courts of Heaven.
+How refreshingly beautiful the perennial bloom of Eden:
+
+    Picta velut primo Vere coruscat humus.
+
+What a wonderful story of the teeming creation related to our first
+parents by the lips of Raphael:
+
+    When from the Earth appeared
+    The tawny lion, pawing to get free
+    His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds,
+    And rampant shakes his brinded mane.
+
+And withal, how compact the poem, how perfect the drama. It is Paradise,
+perfect in beauty and holiness; attacked with devilish art; in danger;
+betrayed; lost!
+
+    Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked and ate;
+    Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat,
+    Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe
+    That all was lost!
+
+Unit-like, complete, brilliant, sublime, awful, the poem dazzles
+criticism, and belittles the critic. It is the grandest poem ever written.
+It almost sets up a competition with Scripture. Milton's Adam and Eve walk
+before us instead of the Adam and Eve of Genesis. Milton's Satan usurps
+the place of that grotesque, malignant spirit of the Bible, which, instead
+of claiming our admiration, excites only our horror, as he goes about like
+a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He it is who can declare
+
+    The mind is its own place, and in itself
+    Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
+    What matter where, if I be still the same,
+    And what I should be?
+
+
+MILTON AND DANTE.--It has been usual for the literary critic to compare
+Milton and Dante; and it is certain that in the conception, at least, of
+his great themes, Milton took Dante for his guide. Without an odious
+comparison, and conceding the great value, principally historical, of the
+_Divina Commedia_, it must be said that the palm remains with the English
+poet. Take, for a single illustration, the fall of the arch-fiend. Dante's
+Lucifer falls with such force that he makes a conical hole in the earth to
+its centre, and forces out a hill on the other side--a physical
+prediction, as the antipodes had not yet been established. The cavity is
+the seat of Hell; and the mountain, that of Purgatory. So mathematical is
+his fancy, that in vignette illustrations we have right-lined drawings of
+these surfaces and their different circles. Science had indeed progressed
+in Milton's time, but his imagination scorns its aid; everything is with
+him grandly ideal, as well as rhetorically harmonious:
+
+                  ... Him the Almighty power,
+    Hurled headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky,
+    With hideous ruin and combustion down
+    To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
+    In adamantine chains and penal power,
+    Who durst defy th' Omnipotent in arms.
+
+And when a lesser spirit falls, what a sad AEolian melody describes the
+downward flight:
+
+                       ... How he fell
+    From Heaven they fabled thrown by angry Jove,
+    Sheer o'er the crystal battlements: from morn
+    To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve
+    A summer's day; and with the setting sun,
+    Dropt from the zenith like a falling star.
+
+The heavenly colloquies to which we have alluded between the Father and
+the Son, involve questions of theology, and present peculiar views--such
+as the subordination of the Son, and the relative unimportance of the
+third Person of the Blessed Trinity. They establish Milton's Arianism
+almost as completely as his Treatise on Christian Doctrine.
+
+
+HIS FAULTS.--Grand, far above all human efforts, his poems fail in these
+representations. God is a spirit; he is here presented as a body, and that
+by an uninspired pen. The poet has not been able to carry us up to those
+infinite heights, and so his attempt only ends in a humanitarian
+philosophy: he has been obliged to lower the whole heavenly hierarchy to
+bring it within the scope of our objective comprehension. He blinds our
+poor eyes by the dazzling effulgence of that light which is
+
+    ... of the Eternal co-eternal beam.
+
+And it must be asserted that in this attempt Milton has done injury to the
+cause of religion, however much he has vindicated the power of the human
+intellect and the compass of the human imagination. He has made sensuous
+that which was entirely spiritual, and has attempted with finite powers to
+realize the Infinite.
+
+The fault is not so great when he delineates created intelligences,
+ranging from the highest seraph to him who was only "less than archangel
+ruined." We gaze, unreproved by conscience, at the rapid rise of
+Pandemonium; we watch with eager interest the hellish crew as they "open
+into the hill a spacious wound, and dig out ribs of gold." We admire the
+fabric which springs
+
+       ... like an exhalation, with the sound
+    Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet.
+
+Nothing can be grander or more articulately realized than that arched
+roof, from which,
+
+    Pendent by subtle magic, many a row
+    Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed
+    With naphtha and asphaltus, yields the light
+    As from a sky.
+
+It is an illustrative criticism that while the painter's art has seized
+these scenes, not one has dared to attempt his heavenly descriptions with
+the pencil. Art is less bold or more reverent than poetry, and rebukes the
+poet.
+
+
+CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AGE.--And here it is particularly to our purpose to
+observe, that in this very boldness of entrance into the holy of
+holies--in this attempted grasp with finite hands of infinite things,
+Milton was but a sublimated type of his age, and of the Commonwealth, when
+man, struggling for political freedom, went, as in the later age of the
+French Illuminati, too far in the regions of spirit and of faith. As
+Dante, with a powerful satire, filled his poem with the personages of the
+day, assigning his enemies to the _girone_ of the Inferno, so Milton vents
+his gentler spleen by placing cowls and hood and habits in the limbo of
+vanity and paradise of fools:
+
+             ... all these upwhirled aloft
+    Fly o'er the backside of the world far off,
+    Into a limbo large and broad, since called
+    The paradise of fools.
+
+It was a setting forth of that spirit which, when the Cavaliers were many
+of them formalists, and the Puritans many of them fanatics, led to the
+rise of many sects, and caused rude soldiers to bellow their own riotous
+fancies from the pulpit. In the suddenness of change, when the earthly
+throne had been destroyed, men misconceived what was due to the heavenly;
+the fancy which had been before curbed by an awe for authority, and was
+too ignorant to move without it, now revelled unrebuked among the
+mysteries which are not revealed to angelic vision, and thus "fools rushed
+in where angels fear to tread."
+
+The book could not fail to bring him immense fame, but personally he
+received very little for it in money--less than L20.
+
+
+PARADISE REGAINED.--It was Thomas Ellwood, Milton's Quaker friend, who,
+after reading the _Paradise Lost_, suggested the _Paradise Regained_. This
+poem will bear no comparison with its great companion. It may, without
+irreverence, be called "The gospel according to John Milton." Beauties it
+does contain; but the very foundation of it is false. Milton makes man
+regain Paradise by the success of Christ in withstanding the Devil's
+temptations in the wilderness; a new presentation of his Arian theology,
+which is quite transcendental; whereas, in our opinion, the gate of
+Paradise was opened only "by His precious death and burial; His glorious
+resurrection and ascension; and by the coming of the Holy Ghost." But if
+it is immeasurably inferior in its conception and treatment, it is quite
+equal to the _Paradise Lost_ in its execution.
+
+A few words as to Milton's vocabulary and style must close our notice of
+this greatest of English poets. With regard to the first, the Latin
+element, which is so manifest in his prose works, largely predominates in
+his poems, but accords better with the poetic license. In a list of
+authors which Mr. Marsh has prepared, down to Milton's time, which
+includes an analysis of the sixth book of the _Paradise Lost_, he is found
+to employ only eighty per cent. of Anglo-Saxon words--less than any up to
+that day. But his words are chosen with a delicacy of taste and ear which
+astonishes and delights; his works are full of an adaptive harmony, the
+suiting of sound to sense. His rhythm is perfect. We have not space for
+extended illustrations, but the reader will notice this in the lady's song
+in Comus--the address to
+
+    Sweet Echo, sweeter nymph that liv'st unseen
+          Within thy airy shell,
+    By slow Meander's margent green!
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Sweet queen of parley, daughter of the sphere,
+    So may'st thou be translated to the skies,
+    And give resounding grace to all heaven's harmonies.
+
+And again, the description of Chastity, in the same poem, is inimitable in
+the language:
+
+    So dear to Heaven is saintly Chastity,
+    That when a soul is found sincerely so,
+    A thousand liveried angels lackey her.
+
+
+HIS SCHOLARSHIP.--It is unnecessary to state the well-known fact, attested
+by all his works, of his elegant and versatile scholarship. He was the
+most learned man in England in his day. If, like J. C. Scaliger, he did
+not commit Homer to memory in twenty-one days, and the whole of the Greek
+poets in three months, he had all classical learning literally at his
+fingers' ends, and his works are absolutely glistening with drops which
+show that every one has been dipped in that Castalian fountain which, it
+was fabled, changed the earthly flowers of the mind into immortal jewels.
+
+Nor need we refer to what every one concedes, that a vein of pure but
+austere morals runs through all his works; but Puritan as he was, his
+myriad fancy led him into places which Puritanism abjured: the cloisters,
+with their dim religious light, in _Il Penseroso_--and anon with mirth he
+cries:
+
+    Come and trip it as you go,
+    On the light fantastic toe.
+
+
+SONNETS.--His sonnets have been variously estimated: they are not as
+polished as his other poems, but are crystal-like and sententious, abrupt
+bursts of opinion and feeling in fourteen lines. Their masculine power it
+was which caused Wordsworth, himself a prince of sonneteers, to say:
+
+                        In his hand,
+    The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew
+    Soul-animating strains....
+
+That to his dead wife, whom he saw in a vision; that to Cyriac Skinner on
+his blindness, and that to the persecuted Waldenses, are the most known
+and appreciated. That to Skinner is a noble assertion of heart and hope:
+
+    Cyriac, this three-years-day these eyes, though clear
+      To outward view, of blemish and of spot,
+      Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot:
+    Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
+    Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,
+      Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not
+      Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot
+    Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
+      Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?
+    The conscience friend to have lost them over-plied
+      In liberty's defence, my noble task,
+    Of which all Europe talks from side to side,
+      This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask
+    Content, though blind, had I no better guide.
+
+Milton died in 1674, of gout, which had long afflicted him; and he left
+his name and works to posterity. Posterity has done large but mistaken
+justice to his fame. Men have not discriminated between his real merits
+and his faults: all parties have conceded the former, and conspired to
+conceal the latter. A just statement of both will still establish his
+great fame on the immutable foundations of truth--a fame, the honest
+pursuit of which caused him, throughout his long life,
+
+    To scorn delights, and live laborious days.
+
+No writer has ever been the subject of more uncritical, ignorant, and
+senseless panegyric: like Bacon, he is lauded by men who never read his
+works, and are entirely ignorant of the true foundation of his fame. Nay,
+more; partisanship becomes very warlike, and we are reminded in this
+controversy of the Italian gentleman, who fought three duels in
+maintaining that Ariosto was a better poet than Tasso: in the third he was
+mortally wounded, and he confessed before dying that he had never read a
+line of either. A similar logomachy has marked the course of Milton's
+champions; words like sharp swords have been wielded by ignorance, and
+have injured the poet's true fame.
+
+He now stands before the world, not only as the greatest English poet,
+except Shakspeare, but also as the most remarkable example and
+illustration of the theory we have adopted, that literature is a very
+vivid and permanent interpreter of contemporary history. To those who ask
+for a philosophic summary of the age of Charles I. and Cromwell, the
+answer may be justly given: "Study the works of John Milton, and you will
+find it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+COWLEY, BUTLER, AND WALTON.
+
+
+   Cowley and Milton. Cowley's Life and Works. His Fame. Butler's Career.
+   Hudibras. His Poverty and Death. Izaak Walton. The Angler; and Lives.
+   Other Writers.
+
+
+
+COWLEY AND MILTON.
+
+
+In contrast with Milton, in his own age, both in political tenets and in
+the character of his poetry, stood Cowley, the poetical champion of the
+party of king and cavaliers during the civil war. Historically he belongs
+to two periods--antecedent and consequent--that of the rebellion itself,
+and that of the Restoration: the latter was a reaction from the former, in
+which the masses changed their opinions, in which the Puritan leaders were
+silenced, and in which the constant and consistent Cavaliers had their day
+of triumph. Both parties, however, modified their views somewhat after the
+whirlwind of excitement had swept by, and both deprecated the extreme
+violence of their former actions. This is cleverly set forth in a charming
+paper of Lord Macaulay, entitled _Cowley and Milton_. It purports to be
+the report of a pleasant colloquy between the two in the spring of 1665,
+"set down by a gentleman of the Middle Temple." Their principles are
+courteously expressed, in a retrospective view of the great rebellion.
+
+
+COWLEY'S LIFE AND WORKS.--Abraham Cowley, the posthumous son of a grocer,
+was born in London, in the year 1618. He is said to have been so
+precocious that he read Spenser with pleasure when he was twelve years
+old; and he published a volume of poems, entitled "Poetical Blossoms,"
+before he was fifteen. After a preliminary education at Westminster
+school, he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1636, and while
+there he published, in 1638, two comedies, one in English, entitled
+_Love's Riddle_, and one in Latin, _Naufragium Joculare, or, The Merry
+Shipwreck_.
+
+When the troubles which culminated in the civil war began to convulse
+England, Cowley, who was a strong adherent of the king, was compelled to
+leave Cambridge; and we find him, when the war had fairly opened, at
+Oxford, where he was well received by the Royal party, in 1643. He
+vindicated the justice of this reception by publishing in that year a
+satire called _Puritan and Papist_. Upon the retirement of the queen to
+Paris, he was one of her suite, and as secretary to Viscount St. Albans he
+conducted the correspondence in cipher between the queen and her
+unfortunate husband.
+
+He remained abroad during the civil war and the protectorate, returning
+with Charles II. in 1660. "The Blessed Restoration" he celebrated in an
+ode with that title, and would seem to have thus established a claim to
+the king's gratitude and bounty. But he was mistaken. Perhaps this led him
+to write a comedy, entitled _The Cutter of Coleman Street_, in which he
+severely censured the license and debaucheries of the court: this made the
+arch-debauchee, the king himself, cold toward the poet, who at once issued
+_A Complaint_; but neither satire nor complaint helped him to the desired
+preferment. He quitted London a disappointed man, and retired to the
+country, where he died on the 28th of July, 1667.
+
+His poems bear the impress of the age in a remarkable degree. His
+_Mistress, or, Love Verses_, and his other Anacreontics or paraphrases of
+Anacreon's odes, were eminently to the taste of the luxurious and immoral
+court of Charles II. His _Davideis_ is an heroic poem on the troubles of
+King David.
+
+His _Poem on the Late Civil War_, which was not published until 1679,
+twelve years after his death, is written in the interests of the monarchy.
+
+His varied learning gave a wide range to his pen. In 1661 appeared his
+_Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy_, which was
+followed in the next year by _Two Books of Plants_, which he increased to
+six books afterward--devoting two to herbs, two to flowers, and two to
+trees. If he does not appear in them to be profound in botanical
+researches, it was justly said by Dr. Johnson that in his mind "botany
+turned into poetry."
+
+His prose pen was as ready, versatile, and charming as his poetic pencil.
+He produced discourses or essays on commonplace topics of general
+interest, such as _myself; the shortness of life; the uncertainty of
+riches; the danger of procrastination_, etc. These are well written, in
+easy-flowing language, evincing his poetic nature, and many of them are
+more truly poetic than his metrical pieces.
+
+
+HIS FAME.--Cowley had all his good things in his lifetime; he was the most
+popular poet in England, and is the best illustration of the literary
+taste of his age. His poetry is like water rippling in the sunlight,
+brilliant but dazzling and painful: it bewilders with far-fetched and
+witty conceits: varied but full of art, there is little of nature or real
+passion to be found even in his amatory verses. He suited the taste of a
+court which preferred an epigram to a proverb, and a repartee to an
+apothegm; and, as a consequence, with the growth of a better culture and a
+better taste, he has steadily declined in favor, so that at the present
+day he is scarcely read at all. Two authoritative opinions mark the
+history of this decline: Milton, in his own day, placed him with Spenser
+and Shakspeare as one of the three greatest English poets; while Pope, not
+much more than half a century later, asks:
+
+    Who now reads Cowley? If he pleases yet,
+    His moral pleases, not his pointed wit.
+
+Still later, Dr. Johnson gives him the credit of having been the first to
+master the Pindaric ode in English; while Cowper expresses, in his Task,
+regret that his "splendid wit" should have been
+
+    Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools.
+
+But if he is neglected in the present day as a household poet, he stands
+prominently forth to the literary student as an historic personage of no
+mean rank, a type and representative of his age, country, and social
+conditions.
+
+
+
+SAMUEL BUTLER.
+
+
+BUTLER'S CAREER.--The author of Hudibras, a satirical poem which may as
+justly be called a comic history of England as any of those written in
+prose in more modern times, was born in Worcestershire, on the 8th of
+February, 1612. The son of poor parents, he received his education at a
+grammar school. Some, who have desired to magnify his learning, have said
+that he was for a time a student at Cambridge; but the chronicler Aubrey,
+who knew him well, denies this. He was learned, but this was due to the
+ardor with which he pursued his studies, when he was clerk to Mr.
+Jeffreys, an eminent justice of the peace, and as an inmate of the mansion
+of the Countess of Kent, in whose fine library he was associated with the
+accomplished Selden.
+
+We next find him domiciled with Sir Samuel Luke, a Presbyterian and a
+parliamentary soldier, in whose household he saw and noted those
+characteristics of the Puritans which he afterward ridiculed so severely
+in his great poem, a poem which he was quietly engaged in writing during
+the protectorate of Cromwell, in hope of the coming of a day when it could
+be issued to the world.
+
+This hope was fulfilled by the Restoration. In the new order he was
+appointed secretary to the Earl of Carbery, and steward of Ludlow Castle;
+and he also increased his frugal fortunes by marrying a widow, Mrs.
+Herbert, whose means, however, were soon lost by bad investments.
+
+
+HUDIBRAS.--The only work of merit which Butler produced was _Hudibras_.
+This was published in three parts: the first appeared in 1663, the second
+in 1664, and the third not until 1678. Even then it was left unfinished;
+but as the interest in the third part seems to flag, it is probable that
+the author did not intend to complete it. His death, two years later,
+however, settled the question.
+
+The general idea of the poem is taken from Don Quixote. As in that
+immortal work, there are two heroes. Sir Hudibras, corresponding to the
+Don, is a Presbyterian justice of the peace, whose features are said to
+have been copied from those of the poet's former employer, Sir Samuel
+Luke. For this, Butler has been accused of ingratitude, but the nature of
+their connection does not seem to have been such as to warrant the charge.
+Ralph the squire, the humble Sancho of the poem, is a cross-grained
+dogmatic Independent.
+
+These two the poet sends forth, as a knight-errant with a squire, to
+correct existing abuses of all kinds--political, religious, and
+scientific. The plot is rambling and disconnected, but the author
+contrives to go over the whole ground of English history in his inimitable
+burlesque. Unlike Cervantes, who makes his reader always sympathize with
+his foolish heroes, Butler brings his knight and squire into supreme
+contempt; he lashes the two hundred religious sects of the day, and
+attacks with matchless ridicule all the Puritan positions. The poem is
+directly historical in its statement of events, tenets, and factions, and
+in its protracted religious discussions: it is indirectly historical in
+that it shows how this ridicule of the Puritans, only four years after the
+death of Cromwell, delighted the merry monarch and his vicious court, and
+was greatly acceptable to the large majority of the English people. This
+fact marks the suddenness of the historic change from the influence of
+Puritanism to that of the restored Stuarts.
+
+Hudibras is written in octosyllabic verse, frequently not rising above
+doggerel: it is full of verbal "quips and cranks and wanton wiles:" in
+parts it is eminently epigrammatic, and many of its happiest couplets seem
+to have been dashed off without effort. Walpole calls Butler "the Hogarth
+of poetry;" and we know that Hogarth illustrated Hudibras. The comparison
+is not inapt, but the pictorial element in Hudibras is not its best claim
+to our praise. This is found in its string of proverbs and maxims
+elucidating human nature, and set forth in such terse language that we are
+inclined to use them thus in preference to any other form of expression.
+
+Hudibras is the very prince of _burlesques_; it stands alone of its kind,
+and still retains its popularity. Although there is much that belongs to
+the age, and much that is of only local interest, it is still read to find
+apt quotations, of which not a few have become hackneyed by constant use.
+With these, pages might be filled; all readers will recognize the
+following:
+
+He speaks of the knight thus:
+
+    On either side he would dispute,
+    Confute, change hands, and still confute:
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    For rhetoric, he could not ope
+    His mouth but out there flew a trope.
+
+Again: he refers, in speaking of religious characters, to
+
+    Such as do build their faith upon
+    The holy text of pike and gun,
+    And prove their doctrine orthodox,
+    By apostolic blows and knocks;
+    Compound for sins they are inclined to
+    By damning those they have no mind to.
+
+Few persons of the present generation have patience to read Hudibras
+through. Allibone says "it is a work to be studied once and gleaned
+occasionally." Most are content to glean frequently, and not to study at
+all.
+
+
+HIS POVERTY AND DEATH.--Butler lived in great poverty, being neglected by
+a monarch and a court for whose amusement he had done so much. They
+laughed at the jester, and let him starve. Indeed, he seems to have had
+few friends; and this is accounted for quaintly by Aubrey, who says:
+"Satirical wits disoblige whom they converse with, and consequently make
+to themselves many enemies, and few friends; and this was his manner and
+case."
+
+The best known of his works, after Hudibras, is the _Elephant in the
+Moon_, a satire on the Royal Society.
+
+It is significant of the popularity of Hudibras, that numerous imitations
+of it have been written from his day to ours.
+
+Butler died on the 25th of September, 1680. Sixty years after, the hand of
+private friendship erected a monument to him in Westminster Abbey. The
+friend was John Barber, Lord Mayor of London, whose object is thus stated:
+"That he who was destitute of all things when alive, might not want a
+monument when he was dead." Upon the occasion of erecting this, Samuel
+Wesley wrote:
+
+    While Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive,
+    No generous patron would a dinner give;
+    See him, when starved to death and turned to dust,
+    Presented with a monumental bust.
+    The poet's fate is here in emblem shown,
+    He asked for bread, and he received a stone.
+
+To his own age he was the prince of jesters; to English literature he has
+given its best illustration of the burlesque in rhetoric. To the reader of
+the present day he presents rare historical pictures of his day, of far
+greater value than his wit or his burlesque.
+
+
+
+IZAAK WALTON.
+
+
+If men are to be measured by their permanent popularity, Walton deserves
+an enthusiastic mention in literary annals, not for the greatness of his
+achievements, but for his having touched a chord in the human heart which
+still vibrates without hint of cessation wherever English is spoken.
+
+Izaak Walton was born at Stafford, on the 9th of August, 1593. In his
+earlier life he was a linen-draper, but he had made enough for his frugal
+wants by his shop to enable him to retire from business in 1643, and then
+he quietly assumed a position as _pontifex piscatorum_. His fishing-rod
+was a sceptre which he swayed unrivalled for forty years. He gathered
+about him in his house and on the borders of fishing streams an admiring
+and congenial circle, principally of the clergy, who felt it a privilege
+to honor the retired linen-draper. There must have been a peculiar charm,
+a personal magnetism about him, which has also imbued his works. His first
+wife was Rachel Floud, a descendant of the ill-fated Cranmer; and his
+second was Anne Ken, the half-sister of the saintly Bishop Ken. Whatever
+may have been his deficiencies of early education, he was so constant and
+varied a reader that he made amends for these.
+
+
+THE COMPLETE ANGLER.--His first and most popular work was _The Complete
+Angler, or, The Contemplative Man's Recreation_. It has been the delight
+of all sorts of people since, and has gone through more than forty
+respectable editions in England, besides many in America. Many of these
+editions are splendidly illustrated and sumptuous. The dialogues are
+pleasant and natural, and his enthusiasm for the art of angling is quite
+contagious.
+
+
+HIS LIVES.--Nor is Walton less esteemed by a smaller but more appreciative
+circle for his beautiful and finished biographies or _Lives_ of Dr.
+Donne, Wotton, Richard Hooker, George Herbert, and Bishop Robert
+Sanderson.
+
+Here Walton has bestowed and received fame: the simple but exquisite
+portraitures of these holy and worthy men have made them familiar to
+posterity; and they, in turn, by the virtues which Walton's pen has made
+manifest, have given distinction to the hand which portrayed them.
+Walton's good life was lengthened out to fourscore and ten. He died at the
+residence of his son-in-law, the Reverend William Hawkins, prebendary of
+Winchester Cathedral, in 1683. Bishop Jebb has judiciously said of his
+_Lives_: "They not only do ample justice to individual piety and learning,
+but throw a mild and cheerful light upon the manners of an interesting
+age, as well as upon the venerable features of our mother Church." Less,
+however, than any of his contemporaries can Walton be appreciated by a
+sketch of the man: his works must be read, and their spirit imbibed, in
+order to know his worth.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE AGE.
+
+
+George Wither, born in Hampshire, June 11, 1588, died May 2, 1667: he was
+a voluminous and versatile writer. His chief work is _The Shepherd's
+Hunting_, which, with beautiful descriptions of rural life, abounds in
+those strained efforts at wit and curious conceits, which were acceptable
+to the age, but which have lost their charm in a more sensible and
+philosophic age. Wither was a Parliament man, and was imprisoned and
+ill-treated after the Restoration. He, and most of those who follow, were
+classed by Dr. Johnson as _metaphysical poets_.
+
+Francis Quarles, 1592-1644: he was a Royalist, but belongs to the literary
+school of Withers. He is best known by his collection of moral and
+religious poems, called _Divine Emblems_, which were accompanied with
+quaint engraved illustrations. These allegories are full of unnatural
+conceits, and are many of them borrowed from an older source. He was
+immensely popular as a poet in his own day, and there was truth in the
+statement of Horace Walpole, that "Milton was forced to wait till the
+world had done admiring Quarles."
+
+George Herbert, 1593-1632: a man of birth and station, Herbert entered the
+Church, and as the incumbent of the living at Bemerton, he illustrated in
+his own piety and devotion "the beauty of holiness." Conscientious and
+self-denying in his parish work, he found time to give forth those devout
+breathings which in harmony of expression, fervor of piety, and simplicity
+of thought, have been a goodly heritage to the Church ever since, while
+they still retain some of those "poetical surprises" which mark the
+literary taste of the age. His principal work is _The Temple, or, Sacred
+Poems and Private Ejaculations_. The short lyrics which form the stones of
+this temple are upon the rites and ceremonies of the Church and other
+sacred subjects: many of them are still in great favor, and will always
+be. In his portraiture of the _Good Parson_, he paints himself. He
+magnifies the office, and he fulfilled all the requirements he has laid
+down.
+
+Robert Herrick, 1591-1674: like Herbert, Herrick was a clergyman, but,
+unlike Herbert, he was not a holy man. He wrote Anacreontic poems, full of
+wine and love, and appears to us like a reveller masking in a surplice.
+Being a cavalier in sentiment, he was ejected from his vicarage in 1648,
+and went to London, where he assumed the lay habit. In 1647 he published
+_Hesperides_, a collection of small poems of great lyric beauty,
+Anacreontic, pastoral, and amatory, but containing much that is coarse and
+indelicate. In 1648 he in part atoned for these by publishing his _Noble
+Numbers_, a collection of pious pieces, in the beginning of which he asks
+God's forgiveness for his "unbaptized rhymes," "writ in my wild,
+unhallowed times." The best comment upon his works may be found in the
+words of a reviewer: "Herrick trifled in this way solely in compliment to
+the age; whenever he wrote to please himself, he wrote from the heart to
+the heart." His _Litanie_ is a noble and beautiful penitential petition.
+
+Sir John Suckling, 1609-1641: a writer of love songs. That by which he is
+most favorably known is his exquisite _Ballad upon a Wedding_. He was a
+man of versatile talents; an officer in the army of Gustavus Adolphus, and
+a captain of horse in the army of Charles I. He wrote several plays, of
+which the best are _Aglaura_ and _The Discontented Colonel_. While
+evidently tinctured by the spirit of the age, he exceeded his
+contemporaries in the purity of his style and manliness of his expression.
+His wit is not so forced as theirs.
+
+Edmund Waller, 1605-1687: he was a cousin of John Hampden. By great care
+and adroitness he seems to have trimmed between the two parties in the
+civil war, but was suspected by both. His poetry was like himself,
+artificial and designed to please, but has little depth of sentiment. Like
+other poets, he praised Cromwell in 1654 in _A Panegyric_, and welcomed
+Charles II. in 1660, upon _His Majesty's Happy Return_. His greatest
+benefaction to English poetry was in refining its language and harmonizing
+its versification. He has all the conceits and strained wit of the
+metaphysical school.
+
+Sir William Davenant, 1605-1668: he was the son of a vintner, but
+sometimes claimed to be the natural son of Shakspeare, who was intimate
+with his father and mother. An ardent Loyalist, he was imprisoned at the
+beginning of the civil war, but escaped to France. He is best known by his
+heroic poem _Gondibert_, founded upon the reign of King Aribert of
+Lombardy, in the seventh century. The French taste which he brought back
+from his exile, is shown in his own dramas, and in his efforts to restore
+the theatre at the Restoration. His best plays are the _Cruel Brother_ and
+_The Law against Lovers_. He was knighted by Charles I., and succeeded Ben
+Jonson as poet laureate. On his monument in Westminster Abbey are these
+words: "O rare Sir William Davenant."
+
+Charles Cotton, 1630-1687: he was a wit and a poet, and is best known as
+the friend of Izaak Walton. He made an addition to _Walton's Complete
+Angler_, which is found in all the later editions. The companion of Walton
+in his fishing excursions on the river Dove, Cotton addressed many of his
+poems to his "Adopted Father." He made travesties upon Virgil and Lucian,
+which are characterized by great licentiousness; and wrote a gossiping and
+humorous _Voyage to Ireland_.
+
+Henry Vaughan, 1614-1695: he was called the _Silurist_, from his residence
+in Wales, the country of the Silures. He is favorably known by the _Silex
+Scintillans, or, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations_. With a rigid
+religious tone, he has all the attempt at rhetorical effect which mark the
+metaphysical school, but his language is harsher and more rugged. He has
+more heart than most of his colleagues, and extracts of great terseness
+and beauty are still made from his poems. He reproves the corruptions of
+the age, and while acknowledging an indebtedness, he gives us a clue to
+his inspiration: "The first, that with any effectual success attempted a
+diversion of this foul and overflowing stream, was that blessed man, Mr.
+George Herbert, whose holy life and verse gained many pious converts, of
+whom I am the least."
+
+The Earl of Clarendon, 1608-1674: Edward Hyde, afterward the Earl of
+Clarendon, played a conspicuous part in the history of England during his
+life, and also wrote a history of that period, which, although in the
+interests of the king's party, is an invaluable key to a knowledge of
+English life during the rebellion and just after the Restoration. A
+member of parliament in 1640, he rose rapidly in favor with the king, and
+was knighted in 1643. He left England in charge of the Prince of Wales in
+1646, and at once began his History of the Great Rebellion, which was to
+occupy him for many years before its completion. After the death of
+Charles I., he was the companion of his son's exile, and often without
+means for himself and his royal master, he was chancellor of the
+exchequer. At the Restoration in 1660, Sir Edward Hyde was created Earl of
+Clarendon, and entered upon the real duties of his office. He retained his
+place for seven years, but became disagreeable to Charles as a troublesome
+monitor, and at the same time incurred the hatred of the people. In 1667
+he was accused of high treason, and made his escape to France. Neglected
+by his master, ignored by the French monarch, he wandered about in France,
+from time to time petitioning his king to permit him to return and die in
+England, but without success. Seven years of exile, which he reminded the
+king "was a time prescribed and limited by God himself for the expiation
+of some of his greatest judgments," passed by, and the ex-chancellor died
+at Rouen. He had begun his history in exile as the faithful servant of a
+dethroned prince; he ended it in exile, as the cast-off servant of an
+ungrateful monarch. As a writer of contemporary history, Clarendon has
+given us the form and color of the time. The book is in title and handling
+a Royalist history. Its faults are manifest: first those of partisanship;
+and secondly, those which spring from his absence, so that much of the
+work was written without an observant knowledge. His delineation of
+character is wonderful: the men of the times are more pictorially
+displayed than in the portraits of Van Dyk. The style is somewhat too
+pompous, being more that of the orator than of the historian, and
+containing long and parenthetic periods. Sir Walter Scott says: "His
+characters may match those of the ancient historians, and one thinks he
+would know the very men if he were to meet them in society." Macaulay
+concedes to him a strong sense of moral and religious obligation, a
+sincere reverence for the laws of his country, and a conscientious regard
+for the honor and interests of the crown; but adds that "his temper was
+sour, arrogant, and impatient of opposition." No one can rightly
+understand the great rebellion without reading Clarendon's history of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+DRYDEN, AND THE RESTORED STUARTS.
+
+
+   The Court of Charles II. Dryden's Early Life. The Death of Cromwell.
+   The Restoration. Dryden's Tribute. Annus Mirabilis. Absalom and
+   Achitophel. The Death of Charles. Dryden's Conversion. Dryden's Fall.
+   His Odes.
+
+
+
+THE COURT OF CHARLES II.
+
+
+The antithetic literature which takes its coloring from the great
+rebellion, was now to give place to new forms not immediately connected
+with it, but incident to the Restoration. Puritanism was now to be
+oppressed, and the country was to be governed, under a show of
+constitutional right, more arbitrarily than ever before. The moral
+rebound, too, was tremendous; the debaucheries of the cavaliers of Charles
+I. were as nothing in comparison with the lewdness and filth of the court
+of Charles II. To say that he brought in French fashions and customs, is
+to do injustice to the French: there never was a viler court in Europe
+than his own. It is but in accordance with our historical theory that the
+literature should partake of and represent the new condition of things;
+and the most remarkable illustrations of this are to be found in the works
+of Dryden.
+
+It may indeed with truth be said that we have now reached the most
+absolute of the literary types of English history. There was no great
+event, political or social, which is not mirrored in his poems; no
+sentiment or caprice of the age which does not there find expression; no
+kingly whim which he did not prostitute his great powers to gratify; no
+change of creed, political or religious, of which he was not the
+recorder--few indeed, where royal favor was concerned, to which he was not
+the convert. To review the life of Dryden himself, is therefore to enter
+into the chronicle and philosophy of the times in which he lived. With
+this view, we shall dwell at some length upon his character and works.
+
+
+EARLY LIFE.--Dryden was born on the 10th of August, 1631, and died on the
+1st of May, 1700. He lived, therefore, during the reign of Charles I., the
+interregnum of Parliament, the protectorate of Cromwell, the restoration
+and reign of Charles II., and the reign of James II.; he saw and suffered
+from the accession of William and Mary--a wonderful and varied volume in
+English history. And of all these Dryden was, more than any other man, the
+literary type. He was of a good family, and was educated at Westminster
+and Cambridge, where he gave early proofs of his literary talents.
+
+His father, a zealous Presbyterian, had reared his children in his own
+tenets; we are not therefore astonished to find that his earliest poetical
+efforts are in accordance with the political conditions of the day. He
+settled in London, under the protection of his kinsman, Sir Gilbert
+Pickering, who was afterward one of the king's judges in 1649, and one of
+the council of eight who controlled the kingdom after Charles lost his
+head. As secretary to Sir Gilbert, young Dryden learned to scan the
+political horizon, and to aspire to preferment.
+
+
+CROMWELL'S DEATH, AND DRYDEN'S MONODY.--But those who had depended upon
+Cromwell, forgot that he was not England, and that his breath was in his
+nostrils. The time of his departure was at hand. He had been offered the
+crown (April 9, 1656,) by a subservient parliament, and wanted it; but his
+friends and family opposed his taking it; and the officers of the army,
+influenced by Pride, sent such a petition against it, that he felt obliged
+to refuse it. After months of mental anxiety and nervous torture--fearing
+assassination, keeping arms under his pillow, never sleeping above three
+nights together in the same chamber, disappointed that even after all his
+achievements, and with all his cunning efforts, he had been unable to put
+on the crown, and to be numbered among the English sovereigns--Cromwell
+died in 1658, leaving his title as Lord Protector to his son Richard, a
+weak and indolent man, who, after seven months' rule, fled the kingdom at
+the Restoration, to return after a generation had passed away, a very old
+man, to die in his native land. The people of Hertfordshire knew Richard
+Cromwell as the excellent and benevolent Mr. Clarke.
+
+Very soon after the death of Oliver Cromwell, Dryden, not yet foreseeing
+the Restoration, presented his tribute to the Commonwealth, in the shape
+of "Heroic Stanzas on the Death of Oliver Cromwell; written after his
+funeral." A few stanzas will show his political principles, and are in
+strange contrast with what was soon to follow:
+
+    How shall I then begin, or where conclude,
+      To draw a fame so truly circular?
+    For, in a round, what order can be showed,
+      Where all the parts so equal perfect are?
+
+    He made us freemen of the continent,
+      Whom nature did like captives treat before;
+    To nobler preys the English lion sent,
+      And taught him first in Belgian walks to roar.
+
+    His ashes in a peaceful urn shall rest;
+      His name a great example stands, to show
+    How strangely high endeavors may be blest,
+      Where piety and valor jointly go.
+
+
+THE RESTORATION.--Cromwell died in September: early in the next year these
+stanzas were written. One year later was the witness of a great event,
+which stirred England to its very depths, because it gave vent to
+sentiments for some time past cherished but concealed. The Long Parliament
+was dissolved on the 10th of March, 1660. The new parliament meets April
+25th; it is almost entirely of Royalist opinions; it receives Sir John
+Granville, the king's messenger, with loud acclamations; the old lords
+come forth once more in velvet, ermine, and lawn. It is proclaimed that
+General Monk, the representative of the army, soon to be Duke of
+Albemarle, has gone from St. Albans to Dover,
+
+    To welcome home again discarded faith.
+
+The strong are as tow, and the maker as a spark. From the house of every
+citizen, lately vocal with the praises of the Protector, issues a subject
+ready to welcome his king with the most enthusiastic loyalty.
+
+Royal proclamations follow each other in rapid succession: at length the
+eventful day has come--the 29th of May, 1660. All the bells of London are
+ringing their merriest chimes; the streets are thronged with citizens in
+holiday attire; the guilds of work and trade are out in their uniforms;
+the army, late the organ of Cromwell, is drawn up on Black Heath, and is
+cracking its myriad throat with cheers. In the words of Master Roger
+Wildrake, "There were bonfires flaming, music playing, rumps roasting,
+healths drinking; London in a blaze of light from the Strand to
+Rotherhithe." At length the sound of herald trumpets is heard; the king is
+coming; a cry bursts forth which the London echoes have almost forgotten:
+"God save the king! The king enjoys his own again!"
+
+It seems to the dispassionate reader almost incredible that the English
+people, who shed his father's blood, who rallied round the Parliament, and
+were fulsome in their praises of the Protector, should thus suddenly
+change; but, allowing for "the madness of the people," we look for
+strength and consistency to the men of learning and letters. We feel sure
+that he who sang his eulogy of Cromwell dead, can have now no lyric burst
+for the returning Stuart. We are disappointed.
+
+
+DRYDEN'S TRIBUTE.--The first poetic garland thrown at the feet of the
+restored king was Dryden's _Astraea Redux_, a poem on _The happy
+restoration of his sacred majesty Charles II._ To give it classic force,
+he quotes from the Pollio as a text.
+
+    Jam redit et virgo, redeunt saturnia regna;
+
+thus hailing the saturnian times of James I. and Charles I. A few lines of
+the poem complete the curious contrast:
+
+    While our cross stars deny us Charles his bed,
+    Whom our first flames and virgin love did wed,
+    For his long absence church and state did groan;
+    Madness the pulpit, faction seized the throne.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    How great were then our Charles his woes, who thus
+    Was forced to suffer for himself and us.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Oh happy prince whom Heaven hath taught the way,
+    By paying vows to have more vows to pay:
+    Oh happy age! oh, times like those alone
+    By Fate reserved for great Augustus' throne,
+    When the joint growth of arts and arms foreshow
+    The world a monarch, and that monarch you!
+
+The contrast assumes a clearer significance, if we remember that the real
+time which elapsed between the publications of these two poems was less
+than two years.
+
+This is greatly to Dryden's shame, as it is to Waller's, who did the same
+thing; but it must be clearly pointed out that in this the poets were
+really a type of all England, for whose suffrages they wrote thus. From
+this time the career of Dryden was intimately associated with that of the
+restored king. He wrote an ode for the coronation in 1661, and a poetical
+tribute to Clarendon, the Lord High Chancellor, the king's better self.
+
+To Dryden, as a writer of plays, we shall recur in a later chapter, when
+the other dramatists of the age will be considered.
+
+A concurrence of unusual events in 1665, brought forth the next year the
+"Annus Mirabilis," or _Wonderful Year_, in which these events are recorded
+with the minuteness of a chronicle. This is indeed its chief value; for,
+praised as it was at the time, it does not so well bear the analysis of
+modern criticism.
+
+
+ANNUS MIRABILIS.--It describes the great naval battle with the Dutch; the
+fire of London; and the ravages of the plague. The detail with which these
+are described, and the frequent felicity of expression, are the chief
+charm of the poem. In the refreshingly simple diary of Pepy's, we find
+this jotting under date of 3d February, 1666-7: "_Annus Mirabilis_. I am
+very well pleased this night with reading a poem I brought home with me
+last night from Westminster Hall, of Dryden's, upon the present war: a
+very good poem."
+
+Dryden's subserviency, aided by the power of his pen, gained its reward.
+In 1668, on the death of Sir William Davenant, he was appointed Laureate,
+and historiographer to the king, with an annual salary of L200. He soon
+became the most famous literary man in England. Milton, the Puritan, was
+producing his wonderful visions in darkened retirement, while at court, or
+in the seat of honor on the stage, or in his sacred chair at Will's
+Coffee-house in Covent Garden (near the fire-place in winter, and carried
+into the balcony in summer), "Glorious John" was the observed of all
+observers. Of Will's Coffee-house, Congreve says, in _Love for Love_, "Oh,
+confound that Will's Coffee-house; it has ruined more young men than the
+Royal Oak Lottery:" this speaks at once of the fashion and social license
+of the time.
+
+Charles II. was happy to have so fluent a pen, to lampoon or satirize his
+enemies, or to make indecent comedies for his amusement; while Dryden's
+aim seems to have been scarcely higher than preferment at court and
+honored contemporary notoriety for his genius. But if the great majority
+lauded and flattered him, he was not without his share in those quarrels
+of authors, which were carried on at that day not only with goose-quills,
+but with swords and bludgeons. It is recorded that he was once waylaid by
+the hired ruffians of the Earl of Rochester, and beaten almost to death:
+these broils generally had a political as well as a social significance.
+In his quarrels with the literary men, he used the shafts of satire. His
+contest with Thomas Shadwell has been preserved in his satire called
+McFlecknoe. Flecknoe was an Irish priest who wrote dull plays; and in this
+poem Dryden proposes Shadwell as his successor on the throne of dulness.
+It was the model or suggester of Pope's _Dunciad_; but the model is by no
+means equal to the copy.
+
+
+ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.--Nothing which he had yet written is so true an
+index to the political history as his "Absalom and Achitophel," which he
+published in 1681. The history may be given in few words. Charles II. had
+a natural son by an obscure woman named Lucy Walters. This boy had been
+created Duke of Monmouth. He was put forward by the designing Earl of
+Shaftesbury as the head of a faction, and as a rival to the Duke of York.
+To ruin the Duke was their first object; and this they attempted by
+inflaming the people against his religion, which was Roman Catholic. If
+they could thus have him and his heirs put out of the succession to the
+throne, Monmouth might be named heir apparent; and Shaftesbury hoped to be
+the power behind the throne.
+
+Monmouth was weak, handsome, and vain, and was in truth a puppet in wicked
+hands; he was engaged in the Rye-house plot, and schemed not only against
+his uncle, but against the person of his father himself. To satirize and
+expose these plots and plotters, Dryden (at the instance of the king, it
+is said,) wrote _Absalom and Achitophel_, in which are introduced, under
+Scripture names, many of the principal political characters of the day,
+from the king down to Titus Oates. The number of the names is 61. Charles
+is, of course, David, and Monmouth, the wayward son, is Absalom.
+Shaftesbury is Achitophel, and Dr. Oates figures as Corah. The Ethnic plot
+is the popish plot, and Gath is that land of exile where Charles so long
+resided. Strong in his praise of David, the poet is discreet and delicate
+in his handling of Absalom; his instinct is as acute as that of Falstaff:
+"Beware! instinct, the lion will not touch a true prince," or touch him so
+gently that the lion at least will not suffer. Thus, Monmouth is
+represented as
+
+    Half loath, and half consenting to the ill,
+    For royal blood within him struggled still;
+    He thus replied: "And what pretence have I
+    To take up arms for public liberty?
+    My father governs with unquestioned right,
+    The faith's defender and mankind's delight;
+    Good, gracious, just, observant of the laws,
+    And heaven by wonders has espoused his cause."
+
+But he may, and does, roundly rate Achitophel, who tempts with satanic
+seductions, and proves to the youth, from the Bible, his right to the
+succession, peaceably or forcibly obtained. Among those who conspired with
+Monmouth were honest hearts seeking for the welfare of the realm. Chief of
+these were Lord Russel and Sidney, of whom the latter was in favor of a
+commonwealth; and the former, only sought the exclusion of the Roman
+Catholic Duke of York, and the redress of grievances, but not the
+assassination or deposition of the king. Both fell on the scaffold; but
+they have both been considered martyrs in the cause of civil liberty.
+
+And here we must pause to say that in the literary structure, language,
+and rhythm of the poem, Dryden had made a great step toward that mastery
+of the rhymed pentameter couplet, which is one of his greatest claims to
+distinction.
+
+
+DEATH OF CHARLES.--At length, in 1685, Charles II., after a sudden and
+short illness, was gathered to his fathers. His life had been such that
+England could not mourn: he had prostituted female honor, and almost
+destroyed political virtue; sold English territory and influence to France
+for beautiful strumpets; and at the last had been received, on his
+death-bed, into, the Roman Catholic Church, while nominally the supreme
+head of the Anglican communion. England cannot mourn, but Dryden tortures
+language into crocodile tears in his _Threnodia Augustalis, sacred to the
+happy memory of King Charles II_. A few lines will exhibit at once the
+false statements and the absolute want of a spark of sorrow--dead,
+inanimate words, words, words!
+
+    Thus long my grief has kept me drunk:
+    Sure there 's a lethargy in mighty woe;
+    Tears stand congealed, and cannot flow.
+    ........
+    Tears for a stroke foreseen, afford relief;
+      But unprovided for a sudden blow,
+      Like Niobe, we marble grow,
+    And petrify with grief!
+
+
+DRYDEN'S CONVERSION.--The Duke of York succeeded as James II.: he was an
+open and bigoted Roman Catholic, who at once blazoned forth the death-bed
+conversion of his brother; and who from the first only limited his hopes
+to the complete restoration of the realm to popery. Dryden's course was at
+once taken; but his instinct was at fault, as but three short years were
+to show. He gave in his adhesion to the new king's creed; he who had been
+Puritan with the commonwealth, and churchman with the Restoration, became
+Roman Catholic with the accession of a popish king. He had written the
+_Religio Laici_ to defend the tenets of the Church of England against the
+attacks of papists and dissenters; and he now, to leave the world in no
+doubt as to his reasons and his honesty, published a poem entitled the
+_Hind and Panther_, which might in his earlier phraseology have been
+justly styled "The Christian experience of pious John Dryden." It seems a
+shameless act, but it is one exponent of the loyalty of that day. There
+are some critics who believe him to have been sincere, and who insist that
+such a man "is not to be sullied by suspicion that rests on what after all
+might prove a fortuitous coincidence." But such frequent changes with the
+government--with a reward for each change--tax too far even that charity
+which "thinketh no evil." Dryden's pen was eagerly welcomed by the Roman
+Catholics. He began to write at once in their interest, and thus to
+further his own. Dr. Johnson says: "That conversion will always be
+suspected which apparently concerns with interest. He that never finds his
+error till it hinders his progress toward wealth or honor, will not be
+thought to love truth only for herself."
+
+In this long poem of 2,000 lines, we have the arguments which conducted
+the poet to this change. The different beasts represent the different
+churches and sects. The Church of Rome is thus represented:
+
+    A milk-white hind, immortal and unchanged,
+    Fed on the lawns, and in the forest ranged;
+    Without unspotted, innocent within,
+    She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.
+
+The other beasts were united to destroy her; but she could "venture to
+drink with them at the common watering-place under the protection of her
+friend the kingly lion."
+
+The Panther is the Church of England:
+
+    The Panther, sure the noblest, next the hind,
+    And fairest creature of the spotted kind;
+    Oh, could her inborn stains be washed away,
+    She were too good to be a beast of prey!
+
+Then he Introduces.--
+
+   The _Bloody Bear_, an _Independent_ beast; the _Quaking Hare_, for the
+   _Quakers_; the _Bristled Baptist Boar_.
+
+In this fable, quite in the style of AEsop, we find the Dame, _i.e._, the
+Hind, entering into the subtle points of theology, and trying to prove her
+position. The poem, as might be supposed; was well received, and perhaps
+converted a few to the monarch's faith; for who were able yet to foresee
+that the monarch would so abuse his power, as to be driven away from his
+throne amid the execrations of his subjects.
+
+The harmony of Dryden and the power of James could control progressive
+England no longer. Like one man, the nation rose and uttered a mighty cry
+to William of Orange. James, trembling, flies hither and thither, and at
+length, fearing the fate of his father, he deserts his throne; the commons
+call this desertion abdication, and they give the throne to his nephew
+William and his daughter Mary. Such was the end of the restored Stuarts;
+and we can have no regret that it is: whatever sympathy we may have had
+with the sufferings of Charles I.,--and the English nation shared it, as
+is proved by the restoration of his son,--we can have none with his
+successors: they threw away their chances; they dissipated the most
+enthusiastic loyalty; they squandered opportunities; and had no enemies,
+even the bitterest, who were more fatal than themselves. And now it was
+manifest that Dryden's day was over. Nor does he shrink from his fate. He
+neither sings a Godspeeding ode to the runaway king, nor a salutatory to
+the new comers.
+
+
+DRYDEN'S FALL.--Stripped of his laureate-wreath and all his emoluments, he
+does not sit down to fold his hands and repine. Sixty years of age, he
+girds up his loins to work manfully for his living. He translates from the
+classics; he renders Chaucer into modern English: in 1690 he produced a
+play entitled Don Sebastian, which has been considered his dramatic
+master-piece, and, as if to inform the world that age had not dimmed the
+fire of his genius, he takes as his caption,--
+
+    ... nec tarda senectus
+    Debilitat vires animi, mutat que vigorem.
+
+This latter part of his life claims a true sympathy, because he is every
+inch a man.
+
+It must not be forgotten that Dryden presented Chaucer to England anew,
+after centuries of neglect, almost oblivion; for which the world owes him
+a debt of gratitude. This he did by modernizing several of the Canterbury
+Tales, and thus leading English scholars to seek the beauties and
+instructions of the original. The versions themselves are by no means well
+executed, it must be said. He has lost the musical words and fresh diction
+of the original, as a single comparison between the two will clearly show.
+Perhaps there is no finer description of morning than is contained in
+these lines of Chaucer:
+
+    The besy lark, the messager of day,
+    Saleweth in hir song the morwe gray;
+    And firy Phebus riseth up so bright
+    That all the orient laugheth of the sight.
+
+How expressive the words: the _busy_ lark; the sun rising like a strong
+man; _all the orient_ laughing. The following version by Dryden, loses at
+once the freshness of idea and the felicity of phrase:
+
+    The morning lark, the messenger of day,
+    Saluted in her song the morning gray;
+    And soon the sun arose with beams so bright
+    That all the horizon laughed to see the joyous sight.
+
+The student will find this only one of many illustrations of the manner
+in which Dryden has belittled Chaucer in his versions.
+
+
+ODES.--Dryden has been regarded as the first who used the heroic couplet
+with entire mastery. In his hands it is bold and sometimes rugged, but
+always powerful and handled with great ease: he fashioned it for Pope to
+polish. Of this, his larger poems are full of proof. But there is another
+verse, of irregular rhythm, in which he was even more successful,--lyric
+poetry as found in the irregular ode, varying from the short line to the
+"Alexandrine dragging its slow length along;" the staccato of a harp
+ending in a lengthened flow of melody.
+
+    Thus long ago,
+    Ere heaving billows learned to blow,
+    While organs yet were mute;
+    Timotheus to his breathing flute
+    And sounding lyre
+    Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
+
+When he became a Roman Catholic, St. Cecilia, "inventress of the vocal
+frame," became his chief devotion; and the _Song on St. Cecilia's Day_ and
+_An Ode to St. Cecilia_, are the principal illustrations of this new
+power.
+
+Gray, who was remarkable for his own lyric power, told Dr. Beattie that if
+there were any excellence in his own numbers, he had learned it wholly
+from Dryden.
+
+The _Ode on St. Cecilia's Day_, also entitled "_Alexander's Feast_," in
+which he portrays the power of music in inspiring that famous monarch to
+love, pity, and war, has to the scholar the perfect excellence of the best
+Greek lyric. It ends with a tribute to St. Cecilia.
+
+    At last divine Cecilia came,
+    Inventress of the vocal frame:
+    Now let Timotheus yield the prize,
+    Or both divide the crown.
+    He raised a mortal to the skies;
+    She drew an angel down,
+
+Dryden's prose, principally in the form of prefaces and dedications, has
+been admired by all critics; and one of the greatest has said, that if he
+had turned his attention entirely in that direction, he would have been
+_facile princeps_ among the prose writers of his day. He has, in general
+terms, the merit of being the greatest refiner of the English language,
+and of having given system and strength to English poetry above any writer
+up to his day; but more than all, his works are a transcript of English
+history--political, religious, and social--as valuable as those of any
+professed historian. Dryden married Lady Elizabeth Howard, the daughter of
+an earl, who, it is said, was not a congenial companion, and who
+afterwards became insane. He died from a gangrene in the foot. He declared
+that he died in the profession of the Roman Catholic faith; which raises a
+new doubt as to his sincerity in the change. Near the monument of old
+father Chaucer, in Westminster, is one erected, by the Duke of Buckingham,
+to Dryden. It merely bears name and date, as his life and works were
+supposed to need no eulogy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF THE GREAT REBELLION AND OF THE RESTORATION.
+
+
+   The English Divines. Hall. Chillingworth. Taylor. Fuller. Sir T.
+   Browne. Baxter. Fox. Bunyan. South. Other Writers.
+
+
+
+THE ENGLISH DIVINES.
+
+
+Having come down, in the course of English Literature, to the reign of
+William and Mary, we must look back for a brief space to consider the
+religious polemics which grew out of the national troubles and
+vicissitudes. We shall endeavor to classify the principal authors under
+this head from the days of Milton to the time when the Protestant
+succession was established on the English throne.
+
+The Established Church had its learned doctors before the civil war, many
+of whom contributed to the literature; but when the contest between king
+and parliament became imminent, and during the progress of the quarrel,
+these became controversialists,--most of them on the side of the
+unfortunate but misguided monarch,--and suffered with his declining
+fortunes.
+
+To go over the whole range of theological literature in this extended
+period, would be to study the history of the times from a theological
+point of view. Our space will only permit a brief notice of the principal
+writers.
+
+
+HALL.--First among these was Joseph Hall, who was born in 1574. He was
+educated at Cambridge, and was appointed to the See of Exeter in 1624,
+and transferred to that of Norwich in 1641, the year before Charles I.
+ascended the throne. The scope of his writings was quite extensive. As a
+theological writer, he is known by his numerous sermons, his _Episcopacy
+by Divine Right Asserted_, his _Christian Meditations_, and
+various commentaries and _Contemplations_ upon the Scriptures.
+He was also a poet and a satirist, and excelled in this field. His
+_Satires--Virgidemiarium_--were published at the early age of
+twenty-three; but they are highly praised by the critics, who rank him
+also, for eloquence and learning, with Jeremy Taylor. He suffered for his
+attachment to the king's cause, was driven from his see, and spent the
+last portion of his life in retirement and poverty. He died in 1656.
+
+
+CHILLINGWORTH.--The next in chronological order is William Chillingworth,
+who was born in 1602, and is principally known as the champion of
+Protestantism against Rome and Roman innovations. While a student at
+Oxford, he had been won over to the Roman Catholic Church by John Perse, a
+famous Jesuit; and he went at once to pursue his studies in the Jesuit
+college at Douay. He was so notable for his acuteness and industry, that
+every effort was made to bring him back. Archbishop Laud, his god-father,
+was able to convince him of his errors, and in two months he returned to
+England. A short time after this he left the Roman Catholics, and became
+tenfold more a Protestant than before. He entered into controversies with
+his former friends the Jesuits, and in answer to one of their treatises
+entitled, _Mercy and Truth, or Charity maintained by the Roman Catholics_,
+he wrote his most famous work, _The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to
+Salvation_. Chillingworth was a warm adherent of Charles I.; and was
+captured by the parliamentary forces in 1643. He died the next year. His
+double change of faith gave him the full range of the controversial field;
+and, in addition to this knowledge, the clearness of his language and the
+perspicuity of his logic gave great effect to his writings. Tillotson
+calls him "the glory of this age and nation."
+
+
+TAYLOR.--One of the greatest names in the annals of the English Church and
+of English literature is that of Jeremy Taylor. He was the son of a
+barber, and was born at Cambridge in 1613. A remarkably clever youth, he
+was educated at Cambridge, and soon owed his preferment to his talents,
+eloquence, and learning. An adherent of the king, he was appointed
+chaplain in the royal army, and was several times imprisoned. When the
+king's cause went down, and during the protectorate of Cromwell, he
+retired to Wales, where he kept a school, and was also chaplain to the
+Earl of Carberry. The vicissitudes of fortune compelled him to leave for a
+while this retreat, and he became a teacher in Ireland. The restoration of
+Charles II. gave him rest and preferment: he was made Bishop of Down and
+Connor. Taylor is now principally known for his learned, quaint, and
+eloquent discourses, which are still read. A man of liberal feelings and
+opinions, he wrote on "The liberty of prophesying, showing the
+unreasonableness of prescribing to other men's faith, and the iniquity of
+persecuting different opinions:" the title itself being a very liberal
+discourse. He upholds the Ritual in _An Apology for fixed and set Forms of
+Worship_. In this he considers the divine precepts to be contained within
+narrow limits, and that beyond this everything is a matter of dispute, so
+that we cannot unconditionally condemn the opinions of others.
+
+His _Great Exemplar of Sanctity and Holy Life_, his _Rule and Exercises of
+Holy Living and of Holy Dying_, and his _Golden Grove_, are devotional
+works, well known to modern Christians of all denominations. He has been
+praised alike by Roman Catholic divines and many Protestant Christians not
+of the Anglican Church. There is in all his writings a splendor of
+imagery, combined with harmony of style, and wonderful variety,
+readiness, and accuracy of scholarship. His quotations from the whole
+range of classic authors would furnish the Greek and Latin armory of any
+modern writer. What Shakspeare is in the Drama, Spenser in the Allegory,
+and Milton in the religious Epic, Taylor may claim to be in the field of
+purely religious literature. He died at Lisburn, in 1667.
+
+
+FULLER.--More quaint and eccentric than the writers just mentioned, but a
+rare representative of his age, stands Thomas Fuller. He was born in 1608;
+at the early age of twelve, he entered Cambridge, and, after completing
+his education, took orders. In 1631, he was appointed prebendary of
+Salisbury. Thence he removed to London in 1641, when the civil war was
+about to open. When the king left London, in 1642, Fuller preached a
+sermon in his favor, to the great indignation of the opposite party. Soon
+after, he was appointed to a chaplaincy in the royal army, and not only
+preached to the soldiers, but urged them forward in battle. In 1646 he
+returned to London, where he was permitted to preach, under
+_surveillance_, however. He seems to have succeeded in keeping out of
+trouble until the Restoration, when he was restored to his prebend. He did
+not enjoy it long, as he died in the next year, 1661. His writings are
+very numerous, and some of them are still read. Among these are _Good
+Thoughts in Bad Times, Good Thoughts in Worse Times_, and _Mixt
+Contemplations in Better Times_. The _bad_ and _worse_ times mark the
+progress of the civil war: the _better_ times he finds in the Restoration.
+
+One of his most valuable works is _The Church History of Britain, from the
+birth of Christ to 1648_, in 11 books. Criticized as it has been for its
+puns and quibbles and its occasional caricatures, it contains rare
+descriptions and very vivid stories of the important ecclesiastical eras
+in England.
+
+Another book containing important information is his _History of the
+Worthies of England_, a posthumous work, published by his son the year
+after his death. It contains accounts of eminent Englishmen in different
+countries; and while there are many errors which he would perhaps have
+corrected, it is full of odd and interesting information not to be found
+collated in any other book.
+
+Representing and chronicling the age as he does, he has perhaps more
+individuality than any writer of his time, and this gives a special
+interest to his works.
+
+
+SIR THOMAS BROWNE.--Classed among theological writers, but not a
+clergyman, Sir Thomas Browne is noted for the peculiarity of his subjects,
+and his diction. He was born in 1605, and was educated at Oxford. He
+studied medicine, and became a practising physician. He travelled on the
+continent, and returning to England in 1633, he began to write his most
+important work, _Religio Medici_, at once a transcript of his own life and
+a manifesto of what the religion of a physician should be. It was kept in
+manuscript for some time, but was published without his knowledge in 1642.
+He then revised the work, and published several editions himself. No
+description of the treatise can give the reader a just idea of it; it
+requires perusal. The criticism of Dr. Johnson is terse and just: it is
+remarkable, he says, for "the novelty of paradoxes, the dignity of
+sentiment, the quick succession of images, the multitude of abstruse
+allusions, the subtilty of disquisition, and the strength of language." As
+the portraiture of an inner life, it is admirable; and the accusation of
+heterodoxy brought against him on account of a few careless passages is
+unjust.
+
+Among his other works are _Essays on Vulgar Errors_ (_Pseudoxia
+Epidemica_), and _Hydriotaphica_ or _Urne burial_; the latter suggested by
+the exhumation of some sepulchral remains in Norfolk, which led him to
+treat with great learning of the funeral rites of all nations. To this he
+afterwards added _The Garden of Cyrus, or The Quincunxial Lozenge_, in
+which, in the language of Coleridge, he finds quincunxes "in heaven above,
+in the earth below, in the mind of man, in tones, optic nerves, in the
+roots of trees, in leaves, in everything." He died in 1682.
+
+Numerous sects, all finding doctrine and forms in the Bible, were the
+issue of the religious and political controversies of the day. Without
+entering into a consideration or even an enumeration of these, we now
+mention a few of the principal names among them.
+
+
+RICHARD BAXTER.--Among the most devout, independent, and popular of the
+religious writers of the day, Richard Baxter occupies a high rank. He was
+born in 1615, and was ordained a clergyman in 1638. In the civil troubles
+he desired to remain neutral, and he opposed Cromwell when he was made
+Protector. In 1662 he left the Church, and was soon the subject of
+persecution: he was always the champion of toleration. In prison, poor,
+hunted about from place to place, he was a martyr in spirit. During his
+great earthly troubles he was solaced by a vision, which he embodied in
+his popular work, _The Saints' Everlasting Rest_; and he wrote with great
+fervor _A Call to the Unconverted_. He was a very voluminous writer; the
+brutal Judge Jeffries, before whom he appeared for trial, called him "an
+old knave, who had written books enough to load a cart." He wrote a
+paraphrase of the New Testament, and numerous discourses. Dr. Johnson
+advised Boswell, when speaking of Baxter's works: "Read any of them; they
+are all good." He continued preaching until the close of his life, and
+died peacefully in 1691.
+
+
+GEORGE FOX.--The founder of the Society of Friends was born in 1624, in an
+humble condition of life, and at an early age was apprenticed to a
+shoemaker and grazier. Uneducated and unknown, he considered himself as
+the subject of special religious providence, and at length as
+supernaturally called of God. Suddenly abandoning his servile occupation,
+he came out in 1647, at the age of twenty-three, as the founder of a new
+sect; an itinerant preacher, he rebuked the multitudes which he assembled
+by his fervent words. Much of his success was due to his earnestness and
+self-abnegation. He preached in all parts of England, and visited the
+American colonies. The name Quaker is said to have been applied to this
+sect in 1650, when Fox, arraigned before Judge Bennet, told him to
+"tremble at the word of the Lord." The establishment of this sect by such
+a man is one of the strongest illustrations of the eager religious inquiry
+of the age.
+
+The works of Fox are a very valuable _Journal of his Life and Travels_;
+_Letters and Testimonies_; _Gospel Truth Demonstrated_,--all of which form
+the best statement of the origin and tenets of his sect. Fox was a solemn,
+reverent, absorbed man; a great reader and fluent expounder of the
+Scriptures, but fanatical and superstitious; a believer in witchcraft, and
+in his power to detect witches. The sect which he founded, and which has
+played so respectable a part in later history, is far more important than
+the founder himself. He died in London in 1690.
+
+
+WILLIAM PENN.--The fame of Fox in America has been eclipsed by that of his
+chief convert William Penn. In an historical or biographical work, the
+life of Penn would demand extended mention; but his name is introduced
+here only as one of the theological writers of the day. He was born in
+1644, and while a student at Oxford was converted to the Friends' doctrine
+by the preaching of Thomas Loe, a colleague of George Fox. The son of
+Admiral Sir William Penn, he was the ward of James II., and afterwards
+Lord Proprietary and founder of Pennsylvania. Persecuted for his tenets,
+he was frequently imprisoned for his preaching and writings. In 1668 he
+wrote _Truth Exalted_ and _The Sandy Foundation_, and when imprisoned for
+these, he wrote in jail his most famous work, _No Cross, no Crown_.
+
+After the expulsion of James II., Penn was repeatedly tried and acquitted
+for alleged attempts to aid the king in recovering his throne. The
+malignity of Lord Macaulay has reproduced the charges, but reversed, most
+unjustly, the acquittals. His record occupies a large space in American
+history, and he is reverenced for having established a great colony on the
+basis of brotherly love. Poor and infirm, he died in 1718.
+
+
+ROBERT BARCLAY, who was born in 1648, is only mentioned in this connection
+on account of his Latin apology for the Quakers, written in 1676, and
+translated since into English.
+
+
+JOHN BUNYAN.--Among the curious religious outcroppings of the civil war,
+none is more striking and singular than John Bunyan. He produced a work of
+a decidedly polemical character, setting forth his peculiar doctrines,
+and--a remarkable feature in the course of English literature--a story so
+interesting and vivid that it has met with universal perusal and
+admiration. It is at the same time an allegory which has not its equal in
+the language. Rhetoricians must always mention the Pilgrim's Progress as
+the most splendid example of the allegory.
+
+Bunyan was born in Elston, Bedfordshire, in 1628. The son of a tinker, his
+childhood and early manhood were idle and vicious. A sudden and sharp
+rebuke from a woman not much better than himself, for his blasphemy, set
+him to thinking, and he soon became a changed man. In 1653 he joined the
+Baptists, and soon, without preparation, began to preach. For this he was
+thrown into jail, where he remained for more than twelve years. It was
+during this period that, with no other books than the Bible and Fox's Book
+of Martyrs, he excogitated his allegory. In 1672 he was released through
+the influence of Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln. He immediately began to
+preach, and continued to do so until 1688, when he died from a fever
+brought on by exposure.
+
+In his first work, _Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners_, he gives us
+his own experience,--fearful dreams of early childhood, his sins and
+warnings in the parliamentary army, with divers temptations, falls, and
+struggles.
+
+Of his great work, _The Pilgrim's Progress_, it is hardly necessary to
+speak at length. The story of the Pilgrim, Christian, is known to all
+English readers, large and little; how he left the City of Destruction,
+and journeyed towards the Celestial City; of his thrilling adventures; of
+the men and things that retarded his progress, and of those who helped him
+forward. No one has ever discoursed with such vivid description and
+touching pathos of the Land of Beulah, the Delectable Mountains, the
+Christian's inward rapture at the glimpse of the Celestial City, and his
+faith-sustaining descent into the Valley of the Shadow of Death! As a work
+of art, it is inimitable; as a book of religious instruction, it is more
+to be admired for sentiment than for logic; its influence upon children is
+rather that of a high-wrought romance than of godly precept. It is a
+curious reproduction, with a slight difference in cast, of the morality
+play of an earlier time. Mercy, Piety, Christian, Hopeful, Greatheart,
+Faithful, are representatives of Christian graces; and, as in the
+morality, the Prince of Darkness figures as Apollyon.
+
+Bunyan also wrote _The Holy War_, an allegory, which describes the contest
+between Immanuel and Diabolus for the conquest of the city of Mansoul.
+This does not by any means share the popularity of _The Pilgrim's
+Progress_. The language of all his works is common and idiomatic, but
+precise and strong: it is the vigorous English of an unpretending man,
+without the graces of the schools, but expressing his meaning with
+remarkable clearness. Like Milton's Paradise Lost, Bunyan's allegory has
+been improperly placed by many persons on a par with the Bible as a body
+of Christian doctrine, and for instruction in righteousness.
+
+
+ROBERT SOUTH.--This eccentric clergyman was born in 1633. While king's
+scholar at Dr. Busby's school in London, he led the devotions on the day
+of King Charles' execution, and prayed for his majesty by name. At first a
+Puritan, he became a churchman, and took orders. He was learned and
+eloquent; but his sermons, which were greatly admired at the time, contain
+many oddities, forced conceits, and singular anti-climaxes, which gained
+for him the appellation of the witty churchman.
+
+He is accused of having been too subservient to Charles II.; and he also
+is considered as displaying not a little vindictiveness in his attacks on
+his former colleagues the Puritans. He is only known to this age by his
+sermons, which are still published and read.
+
+
+
+OTHER THEOLOGICAL WRITERS.
+
+
+_Isaac Barrow_, 1630-1677: a man of varied learning, a traveller in the
+East, and an oriental scholar. He was appointed Professor of Greek at
+Cambridge, and also lectured on Mathematics. He was a profound thinker and
+a weighty writer, principally known by his courses of sermons on the
+Decalogue, the Creed, and the Sacraments.
+
+_Edward Stillingfleet_, 1635-1699: a clergyman of the Church of England,
+he was appointed Bishop of Worcester. Many of his sermons have been
+published. Among his treatises is one entitled, _Irenicum, a Weapon-Salve
+for the Churches Wounds, or the Divine Right of Particular Forms of Church
+Government Discussed and Examined_. "The argument," says Bishop Burnet,
+"was managed with so much learning and skill that none of either side ever
+undertook to answer it." He also wrote _Origines Sacrae, or a Rational
+Account of the Christian Faith_, and various treatises in favor of
+Protestantism and against the Church of Rome.
+
+_William Sherlock_, 1678-1761: he was Dean of St. Paul's, and a writer of
+numerous doctrinal discourses, among which are those on _The Trinity_, and
+on _Death and the Future Judgment_. His son, Thomas Sherlock, D.D., born
+1678, was also a distinguished theological writer.
+
+_Gilbert Burnet_, 1643-1715: he was very much of a politician, and played
+a prominent part in the Revolution. He was made Bishop of Salisbury in
+1689. He is principally known by his _History of the Reformation_, written
+in the Protestant interest, and by his greater work, the _History of my
+Own Times_. Not without a decided bias, this latter work is specially
+valuable as the narration of an eye-witness. The history has been
+variously criticized for prejudice and inaccuracy; but it fills what would
+otherwise have been a great vacuum in English historical literature.
+
+_John Locke_, 1632-1704. In a history of philosophy, the name of this
+distinguished philosopher would occupy a prominent place, and his works
+would require extended notice. But it is not amiss to introduce him
+briefly in this connection, because his works all have an ethical
+significance. He was educated as a physician, and occupied several
+official positions, in which he suffered from the vicissitudes of
+political fortune, being once obliged to retreat from persecution to
+Holland. His _Letters on Toleration_ is a noble effort to secure the
+freedom of conscience: his _Treatises on Civil Government_ were specially
+designed to refute Sir John Filmer's _Patriarcha_, and to overthrow the
+principle of the _Jus Divinum_. His greatest work is an _Essay on the
+Human Understanding_. This marks an era in English thought, and has done
+much to invite attention to the subject of intellectual philosophy. He
+derives our ideas from the two sources, _sensation_ and _reflection_; and
+although many of his views have been superseded by the investigations of
+later philosophers, it is due to him in some degree that their inquiries
+have been possible.
+
+
+
+DIARISTS AND ANTIQUARIANS.
+
+
+_John Evelyn_, 1620-1705. Among the unintentional historians of England,
+none are of more value than those who have left detailed and gossiping
+diaries of the times in which they lived: among these Evelyn occupies a
+prominent place. He was a gentleman of education and position, who, after
+the study of law, travelled extensively, and resided several years in
+France. He had varied accomplishments. His _Sylva_ is a discourse on
+forest trees and on the propagation of timber in his majesty's dominions.
+To this he afterwards added _Pomona_, or a treatise on fruit trees. He was
+also the author of an essay on _A Parallel of the Ancient Architecture
+with the Modern_. But the work by which he is now best known is his
+_Diary_ from 1641 to 1705; it is a necessary companion to the study of
+the history of that period; and has been largely consulted by modern
+writers in making up the historic record of the time.
+
+_Samuel Pepys_, 1637-1703. This famous diarist was the son of a London
+tailor. He received a collegiate education, and became a connoisseur in
+literature and art. Of a prying disposition, he saw all that he could of
+the varied political, literary, and social life of England; and has
+recorded what he saw in a diary so quaint, simple, and amusing, that it
+has retained its popularity to the present day, and has greatly aided the
+historian both in facts and philosophy. He held an official position as
+secretary in the admiralty, the duties of which he discharged with great
+system and skill. In addition to this _Diary_, we have also his
+_Correspondence_, published after his death, which is historically of
+great importance. In both diary and correspondence he has the charm of
+great _naivete_,--as of a curious and gossiping observer, who never
+dreamed that his writings would be made public. Men and women of social
+station are painted in pre-Raphaelite style, and figure before us with
+great truth and vividness.
+
+_Elias Ashmole_, 1617-1693. This antiquarian and virtuoso is principally
+known as the founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. He studied law,
+chemistry, and natural philosophy. Besides an edition of the manuscript
+works of certain English chemists, he wrote _Bennevennu_,--the description
+of a Roman road mentioned in the Itinerary of Antoninus,--and a _History
+of the Order of the Garter_. His _Diary_ was published nearly a century
+after his death, but is by no means equal in value to those of Evelyn and
+Pepys.
+
+_John Aubrey_, 1627-1697: a man of curious mind, Aubrey investigated the
+supernatural topics of the day, and presented them to the world in his
+_Miscellanies_. Among these subjects it is interesting to notice "blows
+invisible," and "knockings," which have been resuscitated in the present
+day. He was a "perambulator," and, in the words of one of his critics,
+"picked up information on the highway, and scattered it everywhere as
+authentic." His most valuable contribution to history is found in his
+_Letters Written by Eminent Persons in the 17th and 18th Centuries, with
+Lives of Eminent Men_. The searcher for authentic material must carefully
+scrutinize Aubrey's _facts_; but, with much that is doubtful, valuable
+information may be obtained from his pages.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE DRAMA OF THE RESTORATION.
+
+
+   The License of the Age. Dryden. Wycherley. Congreve. Vanbrugh.
+   Farquhar. Etherege. Tragedy. Otway. Rowe. Lee. Southern.
+
+
+
+THE LICENSE OF THE AGE.
+
+
+There is no portion of the literature of this period which so fully
+represents and explains the social history of the age as the drama. With
+the restoration of Charles it returned to England, after a time in which
+the chief faults had been too great rigor in morals. The theatres had been
+closed, all amusements checked, and even poetry and the fine arts placed
+under a ban. In the reign of Charles I., Prynne had written his _Histrio
+Mastix_, or Scourge of the Stage, in which he not only denounced all stage
+plays, but music and dancing; and also declaimed against hunting, festival
+days, the celebration of Christmas, and Maypoles. For this he was indicted
+in the Star Chamber for libel, and was sentenced to stand in the pillory,
+to lose his ears, to pay the king a fine of L5000, and to be imprisoned
+for life. For his attack there was much excuse in the license of the
+former period; but when puritanism, in its turn, was brought under the
+three spears, the drama was to come back tenfold more injurious and more
+immoral than before.
+
+From the stern and gloomy morals of the Commonwealth we now turn to the
+debaucheries of the court,--from cropped heads and dark cloaks to plumes
+and velvet, gold lace and embroidery,--to the varied fashions of every
+kind for which Paris has always been renowned, and which Charles brought
+back with him from his exile;--from prudish morals to indiscriminate
+debauchery; from the exercisings of brewers' clerks, the expounding of
+tailors, the catechizing of watermen, to the stage, which was now loudly
+petitioned to supply amusement and novelty. Macaulay justly says: "The
+restraints of that gloomy time were such as would have been impatiently
+borne, if imposed by men who were universally believed to be saints; these
+restraints became altogether insupportable when they were known to be kept
+up for the profit of hypocrites! It is quite certain that if the royal
+family had never returned, there would have been a great relaxation of
+manners." It is equally certain, let us add, that morals would not have
+been correspondingly relaxed. The revulsion was terrible. In no period of
+English history was society ever so grossly immoral; and the drama, which
+we now come to consider, displays this immorality and license with a
+perfect delineation.
+
+The English people had always been fond of the drama in all its forms, and
+were ready to receive it even contaminated as it was by the licentious
+spirit of the time. An illiterate and ignorant people cannot think for
+themselves; they act upon the precepts and example of those above them in
+knowledge and social station: thus it is that a dissolute monarch and a
+subservient aristocracy corrupt the masses.
+
+
+DRYDEN'S PLAYS.--Although Dryden's reputation is based on his other poems,
+and although his dramas have conduced scarcely at all to his fame, he did
+play a principal part in this department of literary work. Dryden made
+haste to answer the call, and his venal muse wrote to please the town. The
+names of many of his plays and personages are foreign; but their vitality
+is purely English. Of his first play, _The Duke of Guise_, which was
+unsuccessful, he tells us: "I undertook this as the fairest way which the
+Act of Indemnity had left us, as setting forth the rise of the great
+rebellion, and of exposing the villanies of it upon the stage, to
+precaution posterity against the like errors;"--a rebellion the
+master-spirit of which he had eulogized upon his bier!
+
+His second play, _The Wild Gallant_, may be judged by the fact that it won
+for him the favor of Charles II. and of his mistress, the Duchess of
+Cleveland. Pepys saw it "well acted;" but says, "It hath little good in
+it." It is not our purpose to give a list of Dryden's plays; besides their
+occasional lewdness, they are very far inferior to his poems, and are now
+rarely read except by the historical student. They paid him in ready
+money, and he cannot ask payment from posterity in fame.
+
+On the 13th of January, 1667-8, (we are told by Pepys,) the ladies and the
+Duke of Monmouth acted _The Indian Emperour_ at court.
+
+The same chronicler says: _The Maiden Queene_ was "mightily commended for
+the regularity of it, and the strain and wit;" but of the _Ladys a la
+Mode_ he says it was "so mean a thing" that, when it was announced for the
+next night, the pit "fell a laughing, because the house was not a quarter
+full."
+
+But Dryden, as a playwright, does not enjoy the infamous honor of a high
+rank among his fellow-dramatists. The proper representations of the drama
+in that age were, in Comedy, Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar;
+and, in Tragedy, Otway, Rowe, and Lee.
+
+
+WYCHERLEY.--Of the comedists of this period, where all were evil, William
+Wycherley was the worst. In his four plays, _Love in a Wood_, _The
+Gentleman Dancing-Master_, _The Country Wife_, and _The Plain Dealer_, he
+outrages all decency, ridicules honesty and virtue, and makes vice always
+triumphant. As a young man, profligate with pen and in his life, he was a
+wicked old man; for, when sixty-four years of age, he published a
+miscellany of verses of which Macaulay says: "The style and versification
+are beneath criticism: the morals are those of Rochester." And yet it is
+sad to be obliged to say that his characters pleased the age, because such
+men and women really lived then, and acted just as he describes them. He
+depicted vice to applaud and not to punish it. Wycherley was born in 1640,
+and died in 1715.
+
+
+CONGREVE.--William Congreve, who is of the same school of morals, is far
+superior as a writer; indeed, were one name to be selected in illustration
+of our subject, it would be his. He was born in 1666, and, after being
+educated at Trinity College, Dublin, was a student at the Middle Temple.
+His first play, _The Old Bachelor_, produced in his twenty-first year, was
+a great success, and won for him the patronage of Lord Halifax. His next,
+_The Double Dealer_, caused Dryden to proclaim him the equal of
+Shakspeare! Perhaps his most famous comedy is _Love for Love_, which is
+besides an excellent index to the morality of the age. The author was
+quoted and caressed; Pope dedicated to him his Translation of the Iliad;
+and Voltaire considered him the most successful English writer of comedy.
+His merit consists in some degree of originality, and in the liveliness of
+his colloquies. His wit is brilliant and flashing, but, in the words of
+Thackeray, the world to him "seems to have had no moral at all."
+
+How much he owed to the French school, and especially to Moliere, may be
+judged from the fact that a whole scene in _Love for Love_ is borrowed
+from the _Don Juan_ of Moliere. It is that in which Trapland comes to
+collect his debt from Valentine Legend. Readers of Moliere will recall the
+scene between Don Juan, Sganarelle and M. Dimanche, which is here, with
+change of names, taken almost word for word. His men are gallants neither
+from love or passion, but from the custom of the age, of which it is said,
+"it would break Mr. Tattle's heart to think anybody else should be
+beforehand with him;" and Mr. Tattle was the type of a thousand fine
+gentlemen in the best English society of that day.
+
+His only tragedy, _The Mourning Bride_, although far below those of
+Shakspeare, is the best of that age; and Dr. Johnson says he would go to
+it to find the most poetical paragraph in the range of English poetry.
+Congreve died in 1729, leaving his gains to the Duchess of Marlborough,
+who cherished his memory in a very original fashion. She had a statue of
+him in ivory, which went by clockwork, and was daily seated at her table;
+and another wax-doll imitation, whose feet she caused to be blistered and
+anointed by physicians, as the poet's gouty extremities had been.
+
+Congreve was not ashamed to vindicate the drama, licentious as it was. In
+the year 1698, Jeremy Collier, a distinguished nonjuring clergyman,
+published _A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English
+Stage_; a very vigorous and severe criticism, containing a great deal of
+wholesome but bitter truth. Congreve came to the defence of the stage, and
+his example was followed by his brother dramatists. But Collier was too
+strong for his enemies, and the defences were very weak. There yet existed
+in England that leaven of purity which has steadily since been making its
+influence felt.
+
+
+VANBRUGH.--Sir John Vanbrugh (born in 1666, died in 1726) was an architect
+as well as a dramatist, but not great in either role. His principal dramas
+are _The Provoked Wife_, _The City Wives' Confederacy_, and _The Journey
+to London_ (finished by Colley Cibber). His personages are vicious and
+lewd, but quite real; and his wit is constant and flowing. _The Provoked
+Wife_ is so licentious a play that it is supposed Vanbrugh afterwards
+conceived and began his _Provoked Husband_ to make some amends for it.
+This latter play, however, he did not complete: it was finished after his
+death by Cibber, who says in the Prologue:
+
+    This play took birth from principles of truth,
+    To make amends for errors past of youth.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Though vice is natural, 't was never meant
+    The stage should show it but for punishment.
+    Warm with such thoughts, his muse once more took flame,
+    Resolved to bring licentious life to shame.
+
+If Vanbrugh was not born in France, it is certain that he spent many years
+there, and there acquired the taste and handling of the comic drama, which
+then had its halcyon days under Moliere. His dialogue is very spirited,
+and his humor is greater than that of Congreve, who, however, excelled him
+in wit.
+
+The principal architectural efforts of Vanbrugh were the design for Castle
+Howard, and the palace of Blenheim, built for Marlborough by the English
+nation, both of which are greater titles to enduring reputation than any
+of his plays.
+
+
+FARQUHAR.--George Farquhar was born in Londonderry, in 1678, and began his
+studies at Trinity College, Dublin, but was soon stage-struck, and became
+an actor. Not long after, he was commissioned in the army, and began to
+write plays in the style and moral tone of the age. Among his nine
+comedies, those which present that tone best are his _Love in a Bottle_,
+_The Constant Couple_, _The Recruiting Officer_, and _The Beaux'
+Stratagem_. All his productions were hastily written, but met with great
+success from their gayety and clever plots, especially the last two
+mentioned, which are not, besides, so immoral as the others, and which are
+yet acted upon the British stage.
+
+
+ETHEREGE.--Sir George Etherege, a coxcomb and a diplomatist, was born in
+1636, and died in 1694. His plays are, equally with the others mentioned,
+marked by the licentiousness of the age, which is rendered more insidious
+by their elegance. Among them are _The Comical Revenge, or Love in a
+Tub_, and _The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter_.
+
+
+
+TRAGEDY.
+
+
+The domain of tragedy, although perhaps not so attractive to the English
+people as comedy, was still sufficiently so to invite the attention of the
+literati. The excitement which is produced by exaggerated scenes of
+distress and death has always had a charm for the multitude; and although
+the principal tragedies of this period are based upon heroic stories, many
+of them of classic origin, the genius of the writer displayed itself in
+applying these to his own times, and in introducing that "touch of nature"
+which "makes the whole world kin." Human sympathy is based upon a
+community of suffering, and the sorrows of one age are similar to those of
+another. Besides, tragedy served, in the period of which we are speaking,
+to give variety and contrast to what would otherwise have been the gay
+monotony of the comic muse.
+
+
+OTWAY.--The first writer to be mentioned in this field, is Thomas Otway
+(born in 1651, died in 1685). He led an irregular and wretched life, and
+died, it is said, from being choked by a roll of bread which, after great
+want, he was eating too ravenously.
+
+His style is extravagant, his pathos too exacting, and his delineation of
+the passions sensational and overwrought. He produced in his earlier
+career _Alcibiades_ and _Don Carlos_, and, later, _The Orphan_, and _The
+Soldier's Fortune_. But the piece by which his fame was secured is _Venice
+Preserved_, which, based upon history, is fictional in its details. The
+original story is found in the Abbe de St. Real's _Histoire de la
+Conjuration du Marquis de Bedamar_, or the account of a Spanish conspiracy
+in which the marquis, who was ambassador, took part. It is still put upon
+the stage, with the omission, however, of the licentious comic portions
+found in the original play.
+
+
+NICHOLAS ROWE, who was born in 1673, a man of fortune and a government
+official, produced seven tragedies, of which _The Fair Penitent_, _Lady
+Jane Grey_, and _Jane Shore_ are the best. His description of the lover,
+in the first, has become a current phrase: "That haughty, gallant, gay
+Lothario,"--the prototype of false lovers since. The plots are too broad,
+but the moral of these tragedies is in most cases good.
+
+In _Jane Shore_, he has followed the history of the royal mistress, and
+has given a moral lesson of great efficacy.
+
+
+NATHANIEL LEE, 1657-1692: was a man of dissolute life, for some time
+insane, and met his death in a drunken brawl. Of his ten tragedies, the
+best are _The Rival Queens_, and _Theodosius, or The Force of Love_. The
+rival queens of Alexander the Great--Roxana and Statira--figure in the
+first, which is still presented upon the stage. It has been called, with
+just critical point, "A great and glorious flight of a bold but frenzied
+imagination, having as much absurdity as sublimity, and as much
+extravagance as passion; the poet, the genius, the scholar are everywhere
+visible."
+
+
+THOMAS SOUTHERN, 1659-1746: wrote _Isabella, or The Fatal Marriage_, and
+_Oronooko_. In the latter, although yielding to the corrupt taste of the
+time in his comic parts, he causes his captive Indian prince to teach that
+period a lesson by his pure and noble love for Imoinda. Oronooko is a
+prince taken by the English at Surinam and carried captive to England.
+
+These writers are the best representatives of those who in tragedy and
+comedy form the staple of that age. Their models were copied in succeeding
+years; but, with the expulsion of the Stuarts, morals were somewhat
+mended; and while light, gay, and witty productions for the stage were
+still in demand, the extreme licentiousness was repudiated by the public;
+and the plays of Cibber, Cumberland, Colman, and Sheridan, reflecting
+these better tastes, are free from much of the pollution to which we have
+referred.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+POPE, AND THE ARTIFICIAL SCHOOL.
+
+
+   Contemporary History. Birth and Early Life. Essay on Criticism. Rape of
+   the Lock. The Messiah. The Iliad. Value of the Translation. The
+   Odyssey. Essay on Man. The Artificial School. Estimate of Pope. Other
+   Writers.
+
+
+
+Alexander Pope is at once one of the greatest names in English literature
+and one of the most remarkable illustrations of the fact that the
+literature is the interpreter of English history. He was also a man of
+singular individuality, and may, in some respects, be considered a _lusus
+naturae_ among the literary men of his day.
+
+
+CONTEMPORARY HISTORY.--He was born in London on the 21st of May, 1688, the
+year which witnessed the second and final expulsion of the Stuarts, in
+direct line, and the accession of a younger branch in the persons of Mary
+and her husband, William of Orange. Pope comes upon the literary scene
+with the new order of political affairs. A dynasty had been overthrown,
+and the power of the parliament had been established; new charters of
+right had secured the people from kingly oppression; but there was still a
+strong element of opposition and sedition in the Jacobite party, which had
+by no means abandoned the hope of restoring the former rule. They were
+kept in check, indeed, during the reign of William and Mary, but they
+became bolder upon the accession of Queen Anne. They hoped to find their
+efforts facilitated by the fact that she was childless; and they even
+asserted that upon her death-bed she had favored the succession of the
+pretender, whom they called James III.
+
+In 1715, the year after the accession of George I., the electoral prince
+of Hanover,--whose grandmother was the daughter of James I.,--they broke
+out into open rebellion. The pretender landed in Scotland, and made an
+abortive attempt to recover the throne. The nation was kept in a state of
+excitement and turmoil until the disaster of Culloden, and the final
+defeat of Charles Edward, the young pretender, in 1745, one year after the
+death of Pope.
+
+These historical facts had a direct influence upon English society: the
+country was divided into factions; and political conflicts sharpened the
+wits and gave vigor to the conduct of men in all ranks. Pope was an
+interpreter of his age, in politics, in general culture, and in social
+manners and morals. Thus he was a politician among the statesmen
+Bolingbroke, Buckingham, Oxford, Sunderland, Halifax, Harley, and
+Marlborough. His _Essay on Criticism_ presents to us the artificial taste
+and technical rules which were established as a standard in literature.
+His _Essay on Man_, his _Moral Epistles_, and his _Universal Prayer_ are
+an index to the semi-Christian, semi-Grecian ethics of an age too selfish
+to be orthodox, and too progressive to be intolerant. His _Rape of the
+Lock_ is a striking picture of social life, sketched by the hand of a
+gentle satire. His translations of Homer, and their great success, are
+significant of a more extended taste for scholarship; not attended,
+however, with many incentives to originality of production. The nobles
+were still the patrons of literature, and they fancied old things which
+were grand, in new and gaudy English dresses. The age was also marked by
+rapid and uniform progress in the English language. The sonorous, but
+cumbrous English of Milton had been greatly improved by Dryden; and we
+have seen, also, that the terse and somewhat crude diction of Dryden's
+earlier works had been polished and rendered more harmonious in his later
+poems.
+
+This harmony of language seemed to Pope and to his patrons the chief aim
+of the poet, and to make it still more tuneful and melodious was the
+purpose of his life.
+
+
+BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE.--Pope was the son of a respectable linen-draper, who
+had achieved a competency and retired to enjoy it. The mother of the poet
+must have been a good one, to have retained the ardent and eulogistic
+affection of her son to the close of her life, as she did. This attachment
+is a marked feature in his biography, and at last finds vent in her
+epitaph, in which he calls her "_mater optima, mulierum amantissima_."
+
+Pope was a sickly, dwarfed, precocious child. His early studies in Latin
+and Greek were conducted by priests of the Roman Catholic Church, to which
+his parents belonged; but he soon took his education into his own hands.
+Alone and unaided he pursued his classical studies, and made good progress
+in French and German.
+
+Of his early rhyming powers he says:
+
+    "I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came."
+
+At the age of twelve, he was taken to Will's Coffee-house, to see the
+great Dryden, upon whom, as a model, he had already determined to fashion
+himself.
+
+His first efforts were translations. He made English versions of the first
+book of the _Thebais_ of Statius; several of the stories of Chaucer, and
+one of Ovid's Epistles, all of which were produced before he was fifteen.
+
+
+ESSAY ON CRITICISM.--He was not quite twenty-one when he wrote his _Essay
+on Criticism_, in which he lays down the canons of just criticism, and the
+causes which prevent it. In illustration, he attacks the multitude of
+critics of that day, and is particularly harsh in his handling of a few
+among them. He gained a name by this excellent poem, but he made many
+enemies, and among them one John Dennis, whom he had satirized under the
+name of Appius. Dennis was his life-long foe.
+
+Perhaps there is no better proof of the lasting and deserved popularity of
+this Essay, than the numerous quotations from it, not only in works on
+rhetoric and literary criticism, but in our ordinary intercourse with men.
+Couplets and lines have become household words wherever the English
+language is spoken. How often do we hear the sciolist condemned in these
+words:
+
+    A little learning is a dangerous thing;
+    Drink deep, or touch not the Pierian spring?
+
+Irreverence and rash speculation are satirized thus:
+
+    Nay, fly to altars; there they'll talk you dead,
+    For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
+
+We may waive a special notice of his _Pastorals_, which, like those of
+Dryden, are but clever imitations of Theocritus and anachronisms of the
+Alexandrian period. Of their merits, we may judge from his own words. "If
+they have any merit, it is to be attributed to some good old authors,
+whose works as I had leisure to study, so I hope I have not wanted care to
+imitate."
+
+
+RAPE OF THE LOCK.--The poem which displays most originality of invention
+is the _Rape of the Lock_. It is, perhaps, the best and most charming
+specimen of the mock-heroic to be found in English; and it is specially
+deserving of attention, because it depicts the social life of the period
+in one of its principal phases. Miss Arabella Fermor, one of the reigning
+beauties of London society, while on a pleasure party on the Thames, had a
+lock of her hair surreptitiously cut off by Lord Petre. Although it was
+designed as a joke, the belle was very angry; and Pope, who was a friend
+of both persons, wrote this poem to assuage her wrath and to reconcile
+them. It has all the system and construction of an epic. The poet
+describes, with becoming delicacy, the toilet of the lady, at which she is
+attended by obsequious sylphs.
+
+The party embark upon the river, and the fair lady is described in the
+splendor of her charms:
+
+    This nymph, to the destruction of mankind,
+    Nourished two locks, which graceful hung behind
+    In equal curls, and well conspired to deck,
+    With shining ringlets, the smooth, ivory neck.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare.
+    And beauty draws us by a single hair.
+
+Surrounding sylphs protect the beauty; and one to whom the lock has been
+given in charge, flutters unfortunately too near, and is clipped in two by
+the scissors that cut the lock. It is a rather extravagant conclusion,
+even in a mock-heroic poem, that when the strife was greatest to restore
+the lock, it flew upward:
+
+    A sudden star, it shot through liquid air,
+    And drew behind a radiant trail of hair,
+
+and thus, and always, it
+
+    Adds new glory to the shining sphere.
+
+With these simple and meagre materials, Pope has constructed an harmonious
+poem in which the sylphs, gnomes, and other sprites of the Rosicrucian
+philosophy find appropriate place and service. It failed in its principal
+purpose of reconciliation, but it has given us the best mock-heroic poem
+in the language. As might have been expected, it called forth bitter
+criticisms from Dennis; and there were not wanting those who saw in it a
+political significance. Pope's pleasantry was aroused at this, and he
+published _A Key to the Lock_, in which he further mystifies these sage
+readers: Belinda becomes Great Britain; the Baron is the Earl of Oxford;
+and Thalestris is the Duchess of Marlborough.
+
+
+THE MESSIAH.--In 1712 there appeared in one of the numbers of _The
+Spectator_, his _Messiah, a Sacred Eclogue_, written with the purpose of
+harmonizing the prophecy of Isaiah and the singular oracles of the Pollio,
+or Fourth Eclogue of Virgil. Elevated in thought and grand in diction, the
+Messiah has kept its hold upon public favor ever since, and portions of it
+are used as hymns in general worship. Among these will be recognized that
+of which the opening lines are:
+
+    Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise;
+    Exalt thy towering head and lift thine eyes.
+
+In 1713 he published a poem on _Windsor Forest_, and an _Ode on St.
+Cecilia's Day_, in imitation of Dryden. He also furnished the beautiful
+prologue to Addison's Cato.
+
+
+TRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD.--He now proposed to himself a task which was to
+give him more reputation and far greater emolument than anything he had
+yet accomplished--a translation of the Iliad of Homer. This was a great
+desideratum, and men of all parties conspired to encourage and reward him.
+Chapman's Homer, excellent as it was, was not in a popular measure, and
+was known only to scholars.
+
+In the execution of this project, Pope labored for six years--writing by
+day and dreaming of his work at night; translating thirty or forty lines
+before rising in the morning, and jotting down portions even while on a
+journey. Pope's polished pentameters, when read, are very unlike the
+full-voiced hexameters of Homer; but the errors in the translation are
+comparatively few and unimportant, and his own poetry is in his best vein.
+The poem was published by subscription, and was a great pecuniary success.
+This was in part due to the blunt importunity of Dean Swift, who said:
+"The author shall not begin to print until I have a thousand guineas for
+him." Parnell, one of the most accomplished Greek scholars of the day,
+wrote a life of Homer, to be prefixed to the work; and many of the
+critical notes were written by Broome, who had translated the Iliad into
+English prose. Pope was not without poetical rivals. Tickell produced a
+translation of the first book of the Iliad, which was certainly revised,
+and many thought partly written, by Addison. A coolness already existing
+between Pope and Addison was increased by this circumstance, which soon
+led to an open rupture between them. The public, however, favored Pope's
+version, while a few of the _dilettanti_ joined Addison in preferring
+Tickell's.
+
+The pecuniary results of Pope's labors were particularly gratifying. The
+work was published in six quarto volumes, and had more than six hundred
+subscribers, at six guineas a copy: the amount realized by Pope on the
+first and subsequent issues was upwards of five thousand pounds--an
+unprecedented payment of bookseller to author in that day.
+
+
+VALUE OF THE TRANSLATION.--This work, in spite of the criticism of exact
+scholars, has retained its popularity to the present time. Chapman's Homer
+has been already referred to. Since the days of Pope numerous authors have
+tried their hands upon Homer, translating the whole or a part. Among these
+is a very fine poem by Cowper, in blank verse, which is praised by the
+critics, but little read. Lord Derby's translation is distinguished for
+its prosaic accuracy. The recent version of our venerable poet, Wm. C.
+Bryant, is acknowledged to be at once scholarly, accurate, and harmonious,
+and will be of permanent value and reputation. But the exquisite tinkling
+of Pope's lines, the pleasant refrain they leave in the memory, like the
+chiming of silver bells, will cause them to last, with undiminished favor,
+unaffected by more correct rivals, as long as the language itself. "A very
+pretty poem, Mr. Pope," said the great Bentley; "but pray do not call it
+Homer." Despite this criticism of the Greek scholar, the world has taken
+it for Homer, and knows Homer almost solely through this charming medium.
+
+The Iliad was issued in successive years, the last two volumes appearing
+in 1720. Of course it was savagely attacked by Dennis; but Pope had won
+more than he had hoped for, and might laugh at his enemies.
+
+With the means he had inherited, increased by the sale of his poem, Pope
+leased a villa on the Thames, at Twickenham, which he fitted up as a
+residence for life. He laid out the grounds, built a grotto, and made his
+villa a famous spot.
+
+Here he was smitten by the masculine charms of the gifted Lady Mary
+Wortley Montagu, who figures in many of his verses, and particularly in
+the closing lines of the _Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard_. It was a singular
+alliance, destined to a speedy rupture. On her return from Turkey, in
+1718, where her husband had been the English ambassador, she took a home
+near Pope's villa, and, at his request, sat for her portrait. When, later,
+they became estranged, she laughed at the poet, and his coldness turned
+into hatred.
+
+
+THE ODYSSEY.--The success of his version of the Iliad led to his
+translation of the Odyssey; but this he did with the collaboration of
+Fenton and Broome, the former writing four and the latter six books. The
+volumes appeared successively in 1725-6, and there was an appendix
+containing the _Batrachomiomachia_, or Battle of the Frogs and Mice,
+translated by Parnell. For this work Pope received the lion's share of
+profits, his co-laborers being paid only L800.
+
+Among his miscellaneous works must be mentioned portions of _Martinus
+Scriblerus_. One of these, _Peri Bathous_, or _Art of Sinking in Poetry_,
+was the germ of The Dunciad.
+
+Like Dryden, he was attacked by the _soi-disant_ poets of the day, and
+retorted in similar style and taste. In imitation of Dryden's
+_MacFlecknoe_, he wrote _The Dunciad_, or epic of the Dunces, in the first
+edition of which Theobald was promoted to the vacant throne. It roused a
+great storm. Authors besieged the publisher to hinder him from publishing
+it, while booksellers and agents were doing all in their power to procure
+it. In a later edition a new book was added, deposing Theobald and
+elevating Colley Cibber to the throne of Dulness. This was ill-advised, as
+the ridicule, which was justly applied to Theobald, is not applicable to
+Cibber.
+
+
+ESSAY ON MAN.--The intercourse of the poet with the gifted but sceptical
+Lord Bolingbroke is apparent in his _Essay on Man_, in which, with much
+that is orthodox and excellent, the principles and influence of his
+lordship are readily discerned. The first part appeared in 1732, and the
+second some years later. The opinion is no longer held that Bolingbroke
+wrote any part of the poem; he has only infected it. It is one of Pope's
+best poems in versification and diction, and abounds with pithy proverbial
+sayings, which the English world has been using ever since as current
+money in conversational barter. Among many that might be selected, the
+following are well known:
+
+    All are but parts of one stupendous whole
+    Whose body nature is, and God the soul.
+
+    Know thou thyself, presume not God to scan;
+    The proper study of mankind is man.
+
+    A wit's a feather, and a chief's a rod;
+    An honest man's the noblest work of God.
+
+Among the historical teachings of Pope's works and career, and also among
+the curiosities of literature, must be noticed the publication of Pope's
+letters, by Curll the bookseller, without the poet's permission. They were
+principally letters to Henry Cromwell, Wycherley, Congreve, Steele,
+Addison, and Swift. There were not wanting those who believed that it was
+a trick of the poet himself to increase his notoriety; but such an
+opinion is hardly warranted. These letters form a valuable chapter in the
+social and literary history of the period.
+
+
+POPE'S DEATH AND CHARACTER.--On the 30th of May, 1744, Pope passed away,
+after a long illness, during which he said he was "dying of a hundred good
+symptoms." Indeed, so frail and weak had he always been, that it was a
+wonder he lived so long. His weakness of body seems to have acted upon his
+strong mind, which must account for much that is satirical and splenetic
+in his writings. Very short, thin, and ill-shaped, his person wanted the
+compactness necessary to stand alone, until it was encased in stays. He
+needed a high chair at table, such as children use; but he was an epicure,
+and a fastidious one; and despite his infirmities, his bright,
+intellectual eye and his courtly manners caused him to be noted quite as
+much as his defects.
+
+
+THE ARTIFICIAL SCHOOL.--Pope has been set forth as the head of the
+_Artificial School_. This is, perhaps, rather a convenient than an exact
+designation. He had little of original genius, but was an apt imitator and
+reproducer--what in painting would be an excellent copyist. His greatest
+praise, however, is that he reduced to system what had gone before him;
+his poems present in themselves an art of poetry, with technical canons
+and illustrations, which were long after servilely obeyed, and the
+influence of which is still felt to-day.
+
+And this artificial school was in the main due to the artificial character
+of the age. Nature seemed to have lost her charms; pastorals were little
+more than private theatricals, enacted with straw hats and shepherd's
+crook in drawing-rooms or on close-clipped lawns. Culture was confined to
+court and town, and poets found little inducement to consult the heart or
+to woo nature, but wrote what would please the town or court. This taste
+gave character to the technical standards, to which Pope, more than any
+other writer, gave system and coherence. Most of the literati were men of
+the town; many were fine gentlemen with a political bias; and thus it is
+that the school of poets of which Pope is the unchallenged head, has been
+known as the Artificial School.
+
+In the passage of time, and with the increase of literature, the real
+merits of Pope were for some time neglected, or misrepresented. The world
+is beginning to discern and recognize these again. Learned, industrious,
+self-reliant, controversial, and, above all, harmonious, instead of giving
+vent to the highest fancies in simple language, he has treated the
+common-place--that which is of universal interest--in melodious and
+splendid diction. But, above all, he stands as the representative of his
+age: a wit among the comic dramatists who were going out and the essayists
+who were coming in; a man of the world with Lady Mary and the gay parties
+on the Thames; a polemic, who dealt keen thrusts and who liked to see them
+rankle, and who yet writhed in agony when the _riposte_ came; a Roman
+Catholic in faith and a latitudinarian in speech;--such was Pope as a type
+of that world in which he lived.
+
+A poet of the first rank he was not; he invented nothing; but he
+established the canons of poetry, attuned to exquisite harmony the rhymed
+couplet which Dryden had made so powerful an instrument, improved the
+language, discerned and reconnected the discordant parts of literature;
+and thus it is that he towers above all the poets of his age, and has sent
+his influence through those that followed, even to the present day.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE PERIOD.
+
+
+_Matthew Prior_, 1664-1721: in his early youth he was a waiter in his
+uncle's tap-room, but, surmounting all difficulties, he rose to be a
+distinguished poet and diplomatist. He was an envoy to France, where he
+was noted for his wit and ready repartee. His love songs are somewhat
+immoral, but exquisitely melodious. His chief poems are: _Alma_, a
+philosophic piece in the vein of Hudibras; _Solomon_, a Scripture poem;
+and, the best of all, _The City and Country Mouse_, a parody on Dryden's
+_Hind and Panther_, which he wrote in conjunction with Mr. Montague. He
+was imprisoned by the Whigs in 1715, and lost all his fortune. He was
+distinguished by having Dr. Johnson as his biographer, in the _Lives of
+the Poets_.
+
+_John Arbuthnot_, 1667-1735: born in Scotland. He was learned, witty, and
+amiable. Eminent in medicine, he was physician to the court of Queen Anne.
+He is chiefly known in literature as the companion of Pope and Swift, and
+as the writer with them of papers in the Martinus Scriblerus Club, which
+was founded in 1714, and of which Pope, Gay, Swift, Arbuthnot, Harvey,
+Atterbury, and others, were the principal members. Arbuthnot wrote a
+_History of John Bull_, which was designed to render the war then carried
+on by Marlborough unpopular, and certainly conduced to that end.
+
+_John Gay_, 1688-1732: he was of humble origin, but rose by his talents,
+and figured at court. He wrote several dramas in a mock-tragic vein. Among
+these are _What D'ye Call It?_ and _Three Hours after Marriage_; but that
+which gave him permanent reputation is his _Beggar's Opera_, of which the
+hero is a highwayman, and the characters are prostitutes and Newgate
+gentry. It is interspersed with gay and lyrical songs, and was rendered
+particularly effective by the fine acting of Miss Elizabeth Fenton, in the
+part of _Polly_. The _Shepherd's Week_, a pastoral, contains more real
+delineations of rural life than any other poem of the period. Another
+curious piece is entitled, _Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of
+London_.
+
+_Thomas Parnell_, 1679-1718: he was the author of numerous poems, among
+which the only one which has retained popular favor is _The Hermit_, a
+touching poem founded upon an older story. He wrote the life of Homer
+prefixed to Pope's translation; but it was very much altered by Pope.
+
+_Thomas Tickell_, 1686-1740: particularly known as the friend of Addison.
+He wrote a translation of the First Book of Homer's Iliad, which was
+corrected by Addison, and contributed several papers to _The Spectator_.
+But he is best known by his _Elegy_ upon Addison, which Dr. Johnson calls
+a very "elegant funeral poem."
+
+_Isaac Watts_, 1674-1765: this great writer of hymns was born at
+Southampton, and became one of the most eminent of the dissenting
+ministers of England. He is principally known by his metrical versions of
+the Psalms, and by a great number of original hymns, which have been
+generally used by all denominations of Christians since. He also produced
+many hymns for children, which have become familiar as household words. He
+had a lyrical ear, and an easy, flowing diction, but is sometimes careless
+in his versification and incorrect in his theology. During the greater
+part of his life the honored guest of Sir Thomas Abney, he devoted himself
+to literature. Besides many sermons, he produced a treatise on _The First
+Principles of Geology and Astronomy_; a work on _Logic, or the Right Use
+of the Reason in the Inquiry after Truth_; and _A Supplement on the
+Improvement of the Mind_. These latter have been superseded as text-books
+by later and more correct inquiry.
+
+_Edward Young_, 1681-1765: in his younger days he sought preferment at
+court, but being disappointed in his aspirations, he took orders in the
+Church, and led a retired life. He published a satire entitled, _The Love
+of Fame, the Universal Passion_, which was quite successful. But his chief
+work, which for a long time was classed with the highest poetic efforts,
+is the _Night Thoughts_, a series of meditations, during nine nights, on
+Life, Death, and Immortality. The style is somewhat pompous, the imagery
+striking, but frequently unnatural; the occasional descriptions majestic
+and vivid; and the effect of the whole is grand, gloomy, and peculiar. It
+is full of apothegms, which have been much quoted; and some of his lines
+and phrases are very familiar to all.
+
+He wrote papers on many topics, and among his tragedies the best known is
+that entitled _The Revenge_. Very popular in his own day, Young has been
+steadily declining in public favor, partly on account of the superior
+claims of modern writers, and partly because of the morbid and gloomy
+views he has taken of human nature. His solemn admonitions throng upon the
+reader like phantoms, and cause him to desire more cheerful company. A
+sketch of the life of Young may be found in Dr. Johnson's _Lives of the
+Poets_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+ADDISON, AND THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE.
+
+
+   The Character of the Age. Queen Anne. Whigs and Tories. George I.
+   Addison--The Campaign. Sir Roger de Coverley. The Club. Addison's
+   Hymns. Person and Literary Character.
+
+
+
+THE CHARACTER OF THE AGE.
+
+
+To cater further to the Artificial Age, the literary cravings of which far
+exceeded those of any former period, there sprang up a school of
+Essayists, most of whom were also poets, dramatists, and politicians.
+Among these Addison, Steele, and Swift stand pre-eminent. Each of them was
+a man of distinct and interesting personality. Two of them--Addison and
+Swift--presented such a remarkable contrast, that it has been usual for
+writers on this period of English Literature to bring them together as
+foils to each other. This has led to injustice towards Swift; they should
+be placed in juxtaposition because they are of the same period, and
+because of their joint efforts in the literary development of the age. The
+period is distinctly marked. We speak as currently of the wits and the
+essayists of Queen Anne's reign as we do of the authors of the Elizabethan
+age.
+
+A glance at contemporary history will give us an intelligent clue to our
+literary inquiries, and cause us to observe the historical character of
+the literature.
+
+To a casual observer, the reign of Queen Anne seems particularly
+untroubled and prosperous. English history calls it the time of "Good
+Queen Anne;" and it is referred to with great unction by the _laudator
+temporis acti_, in unjust comparison with the period which has since
+intervened, as well as with that which preceded it.
+
+
+QUEEN ANNE.--The queen was a Protestant, as opposed to the Romanists and
+Jacobites; a faithful wife, and a tender mother in her memory of several
+children who died young. She was merciful, pure, and gracious to her
+subjects. Her reign was tolerant. There was plenty at home; rebellion and
+civil war were at least latent. Abroad, England was greatly distinguished
+by the victories of Marlborough and Eugene. But to one who looks through
+this veil of prosperity, a curious history is unfolded. The fires of
+faction were scarcely smouldering. It was the transition period between
+the expiring dynasty of the direct line of Stuarts and the coming of the
+Hanoverian house. Women took part in politics; sermons like that of
+Sacheverell against the dissenters and the government were thundered from
+the pulpit. Volcanic fires were at work; the low rumblings of an
+earthquake were heard from time to time, and gave constant cause of
+concern to the queen and her statesmen. Men of rank conspired against each
+other; the moral license of former reigns seems to have been forgotten in
+political intrigue. When James II. had been driven out in 1688, the
+English conscience compromised on the score of the divine right of kings,
+by taking his daughter Mary and her husband as joint monarchs. To do this,
+they affected to call the king's son by his second wife, born in that
+year, a pretender. It was said that he was the child of another woman, and
+had been brought to the queen's bedside in a warming-pan, that James might
+be able to present, thus fraudulently, a Roman Catholic heir to the
+throne. In this they did the king injustice, and greater injustice to the
+queen, Maria de Modena, a pleasing and innocent woman, who had, by her
+virtues and personal popularity alone, kept the king on his throne, in
+spite of his pernicious measures.
+
+When the dynasty was overthrown, the parliament had presented to William
+and Mary _A Bill of Rights_, in which the people's grievances were set
+forth, and their rights enumerated and insisted upon; and this was
+accepted by the monarchs as a condition of their tenure.
+
+Mary died in 1695, and when William followed her, in 1702, Anne, the
+second daughter of James, ascended the throne. Had she refused the
+succession, there would have been a furious war between the Jacobites and
+the Hanoverians. In 1714, Anne died childless, but her reign had bridged
+the chasm between the experiment of William and Mary and the house of
+Hanover. In default of direct heirs to Queen Anne, the succession was in
+this Hanoverian house; represented in the person of the Electress Sophia,
+the granddaughter of James I., through his daughter, Elizabeth of Bohemia.
+But this lineage of blood had lost all English affinities and sympathies.
+
+Meanwhile, the child born to James II., in 1688, had grown to be a man,
+and stood ready, on the death of Queen Anne, to re-affirm his claim to the
+throne. It was said that, although, on account of the plottings of the
+Jacobites, a price had been put upon his head, the queen herself wished
+him to succeed, and had expressed scruples about her own right to reign.
+She greatly disliked the family of Hanover, and while she was on her
+death-bed, the pretender had been brought to England, in the hope that she
+would declare him her successor. The elements of discord asserted
+themselves still more strongly. Whigs and Tories in politics, Romanists
+and Protestants in creed, Jacobite and Hanoverian in loyalty, opposed each
+other, harassing the feeble queen, and keeping the realm in continual
+ferment.
+
+
+WHIGS AND TORIES.--The Whigs were those who declared that kingly power was
+solely for the good of the subject; that the reformed creed was the
+religion of the realm; that James had forfeited the throne, and that his
+son was a pretender; and that the power justly passed to the house of
+Hanover. The Tories asserted that monarchs ruled by _divine right_; and
+that if, when religion was at stake, the king might be deposed, this could
+not affect the succession.
+
+Anne escaped her troubles by dying, in 1714. Sophia, the Electress of
+Hanover, who had only wished to live, she said, long enough to have
+engraved upon her tombstone: "Here lies Sophia, Queen of England," died,
+in spite of this desire, only a few weeks before the queen; and the new
+heir to the throne was her son, George Louis of Brunswick-Luneburg,
+electoral prince of Hanover.
+
+He came cautiously and selfishly to the throne of England; he felt his
+way, and left a line of retreat open; he brought not a spice of honest
+English sentiment, but he introduced the filth of the electoral court. As
+gross in his conduct as Charles II., he had indeed a prosperous reign,
+because it was based upon a just and tolerant Constitution; because the
+English were in reality not governed by a king, but by well-enacted laws.
+
+The effect of all this political turmoil upon the leading men in England
+had been manifest; both parties had been expectant, and many of the
+statesmen had been upon the fence, ready to get down on one side or the
+other, according to circumstances. Marlborough left the Tories and joined
+the Whigs; Swift, who had been a Whig, joined the Tories. The queen's
+first ministry had consisted of Whigs and the more moderate Tories; but as
+she fell away from the Marlboroughs, she threw herself into the hands of
+the Tories, who had determined, and now achieved, the downfall of
+Marlborough.
+
+Such was the reign of good Queen Anne. With this brief sketch as a
+preliminary, we return to the literature, which, like her coin, bore her
+image and carried it into succeeding reigns. In literature, the age of
+Queen Anne extends far beyond her lifetime.
+
+
+ADDISON.--The principal name of this period is that of Joseph Addison. He
+was the son of the rector of Milston, in Wiltshire, and was born in 1672.
+Old enough in 1688 to appreciate the revolution, as early as he could
+wield his pen, he used it in the cause of the new monarchs. At the age of
+fifteen he was sent from the Charter-House to Oxford; and there he wrote
+some Latin verses, for which he was rewarded by a university scholarship.
+After pursuing his studies at Oxford, he began his literary career. In his
+twenty-second year he wrote a poetical address to Dryden; but he chiefly
+sought preferment through political poetry. In 1695 he wrote a poem to the
+king, which was well received; and in 1699 he received a pension of L300.
+In 1701 he went upon the Continent, and travelled principally in France
+and Italy. On his return, he published his travels, and a _Poetical
+Epistle from Italy_, which are interesting as delineating continental
+scenes and manners in that day. Of the travels, Dr. Johnson said, "they
+might have been written at home;" but he praised the poetical epistle as
+the finest of Addison's poetical works.
+
+Upon the accession of Queen Anne, he continued to pay his court in verse.
+When the great battle of Blenheim was fought, in 1704, he at once
+published an artificial poem called _The Campaign_, which has received the
+fitting name of the _Rhymed Despatch_. Eulogistic of Marlborough and
+descriptive of his army manoeuvres, its chief value is to be found in
+its historical character, and not in any poetic merit. It was a political
+paper, and he was rewarded for it by the appointment of Commissioner of
+Appeals, in which post he succeeded the philosopher Locke.
+
+The spirit of this poem is found in the following lines:
+
+    Fiction may deck the truth with spurious rays,
+    And round the hero cast a borrowed blaze;
+    Marlboro's exploits appear divinely bright,
+    And proudly shine in their own native light.
+
+If we look for a contrast to this poem, indicating with it the two
+political sides of the question, it may be found in Swift's tract on _The
+Conduct of the Allies_, which asserts that the war had been maintained to
+gratify the ambition and greed of Marlborough, and also for the benefit of
+the Allies. Addison was appointed, as a reward for his poem,
+Under-Secretary of State.
+
+To this extent Addison was the historian by purpose. A moderate partisan,
+he eulogized King William, Marlborough, Lord Somers, Lord Halifax, and
+others, and thus commended himself to the crown; and in several elegant
+articles in _The Spectator_, he sought to mitigate the fierce party spirit
+of the time.
+
+
+SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY.--But it is the unconscious historian with whom we
+are most charmed, and by whom we are best instructed. It is in this
+character that Addison presents himself in his numerous contributions to
+_The Spectator_, _The Tatler_, and _The Guardian_. Amid much that is now
+considered pedantic and artificial, and which, in those faults, marks the
+age, are to be found as striking and truthful delineations of English life
+and society in that day as Chaucer has given us of an earlier period.
+
+Those who no longer read _The Spectator_ as a model of style and learning,
+must continue to prize it for these rare historic teachings. The men and
+women walk before us as in some antique representation in a social
+festival, when grandmothers' brocades are taken out, when curious fashions
+are displayed, when Honoria and Flavia, Fidelia and Gloriana dress and
+speak and ogle and flirt just as Addison saw and photographed them. We
+have their subjects of interest, their forms of gossip, the existing
+abuses of the day, their taste in letters, their opinions upon the works
+of literature, in all their freshness.
+
+The fullest and most systematic of these social delineations is found in
+the sketch of _The Club_ and _Sir Roger de Coverley_. The creation of
+character is excellent. Each member, individual and distinct, is also the
+type of a class.
+
+
+THE CLUB.--There is Will Honeycomb, the old beau, "a gentleman who,
+according to his years, should be in the decline of his life, but having
+ever been careful of his person, and always had an easy fortune, time has
+made but very little impression, either by wrinkles on his forehead or
+traces on his brain." He knew from what French woman this manner of
+curling the hair came, who invented hoops, and whose vanity to show her
+foot brought in short dresses. He is a woman-killer, sceptical about
+marriage; and at length he gives the fair sex ample satisfaction for his
+cruelty and egotism by marrying, unknown to his friends, a farmer's
+daughter, whose face and virtues are her only fortune.
+
+Captain Sentry, the nephew of Sir Roger, is, it may be supposed, the
+essayist's ideal of what an English officer should be--a courageous
+soldier and a modest gentleman.
+
+Sir Andrew Freeport is the retired merchant, drawn to the life. He is
+moderate in politics, as expediency in that age would suggest. Thoroughly
+satisfied of the naval supremacy of England, he calls the sea, "the
+British Common." He is the founder of his own fortune, and is satisfied to
+transmit to posterity an unsullied name, a goodly store of wealth, and the
+title he has so honorably won.
+
+In _The Templar_, we have a satire upon a certain class of lawyers. It is
+indicative of that classical age, that he understands Aristotle and
+Longinus better than Littleton and Coke, and is happy in anything but
+law--a briefless barrister, but a gentleman of consideration.
+
+But the most charming, the most living portrait is that of Sir Roger de
+Coverley, an English country gentleman, as he ought to be, and as not a
+few really were. What a generous humanity for all wells forth from his
+simple and loving heart! He has such a mirthful cast in his behavior that
+he is rather loved than esteemed. Repulsed by a fair widow, several years
+before, he keeps his sentiment alive by wearing a coat and doublet of the
+same cut that was in fashion at the time, which, he tells us, has been out
+and in twelve times since he first wore it. All the young women profess to
+love him, and all the young men are glad of his company.
+
+Last of all is the clergyman, whose piety is all reverence, and who talks
+and acts "as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and
+conceives hope from his decays and infirmities."
+
+It is said that Addison, warned by the fate of Cervantes,--whose noble
+hero, Don Quixote, was killed by another pen,--determined to conduct Sir
+Roger to the tomb himself; and the knight makes a fitting end. He
+congratulates his nephew, Captain Sentry, upon his succession to the
+inheritance; he is thoughtful of old friends and old servants. In a word,
+so excellent was his life, and so touching the story of his death, that we
+feel like mourners at a real grave. Indeed he did live, and still
+lives,--one type of the English country gentleman one hundred and fifty
+years ago. Other types there were, not so pleasant to contemplate; but
+Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley and Fielding's Squire Allworthy vindicate
+their class in that age.
+
+
+ADDISON'S HYMNS.--Addison appears to us also as the writer of beautiful
+hymns, and has paraphrased some of the Psalms. In this, like Watts, he
+catered to a decided religious craving of that day. In a Protestant realm,
+and by reason of religious controversy, the fine old hymns of the Latin
+church, which are now renewing their youth in an English dress, had fallen
+into disrepute: hymnody had, to some extent, superseded the plain chant.
+Hymns were in demand. Poets like Addison and Watts provided for this new
+want; and from the beauty of his few contributions, our great regret is
+that Addison wrote so few. Every one he did write is a gem in many
+collections. Among them we have that admirable paraphrase of the
+_Twenty-third Psalm_:
+
+    The Lord my pasture shall prepare,
+    And feed me with a shepherd's care;
+
+and the hymn
+
+    When all Thy mercies, O my God,
+      My rising soul surveys.
+
+None, however, is so beautiful, stately, and polished as the Divine Ode,
+so pleasant to all people, little and large,--
+
+    The spacious firmament on high.
+
+
+HIS PERSON AND CHARACTER.--In closing this brief sketch of Addison, a few
+words are necessary as to his personality, and an estimate of his powers.
+In 1716 he married the Countess-Dowager of Warwick, and parted with
+independence to live with a coronet. His married life was not happy. The
+lady was cold and exacting; and, it must be confessed, the poet loved a
+bottle at the club-room or tavern better than the luxuries of Holland
+House; and not infrequently this conviviality led him to excess. He died
+in 1719, in his forty-eighth year, and made a truly pious end. He wished,
+he said, to atone for any injuries he had done to others, and sent for his
+sceptical and dissolute step-son, Lord Warwick, to show him how a
+Christian could die. A monument has been erected to his memory in the
+Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey, and the closing words of the
+inscription upon it calls him "the honor and delight of the English
+nation."
+
+As a man, he was grave and retiring: he had a high opinion of his own
+powers; in company he was extremely diffident; in the main, he was moral,
+just, and consistent. His intemperance was in part the custom of the age
+and in part a physical failing, and it must have been excessive to be
+distinguished in that age. In the Latin-English of Dr. Johnson, "It is not
+unlikely that Addison was first seduced to excess by the manumission which
+he obtained from the servile timidity of his sober hours." This failing
+must be regarded as a blot on his fame.
+
+He was the most accomplished writer of his own age, and in elegance of
+style superior to all who had gone before him.
+
+In the words of his epitaph, his prose papers "encouraged the good and
+reformed the improvident, tamed the wicked, and in some degree made them
+in love with virtue." His poetry is chiefly of historical value, in that
+it represents so distinctly the Artificial School; but it is now very
+little read. His drama entitled _Cato_ was modelled upon the French drama
+of the classical school, with its singular preservation of the unities.
+But his contributions to _The Spectator_ and other periodicals are
+historically of great value. Here he abandons the artificial school;
+nothing in his delineations of character is simply statuesque or
+pictorial. He has done for us what the historians have left undone. They
+present processions of automata moving to the sound of trumpet and drum,
+ushered by Black Rod or Garter King-at-arms; but in Addison we find that
+Promethean heat which relumes their life; the galvanic motion becomes a
+living stride; the puppet eyes emit fire; the automata are men. Thus it
+is, that, although _The Spectator_, once read as a model of taste and
+style, has become antiquated and has been superseded, it must still be
+resorted to for its life-like portraiture of men and women, manners and
+customs, and will be found truer and more valuable for these than history
+itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+STEELE AND SWIFT.
+
+
+   Sir Richard Steele. Periodicals. The Crisis. His Last Days. Jonathan
+   Swift--Poems. The Tale of a Tub. Battle of the Books. Pamphlets. M. B.
+   Drapier. Gulliver's Travels. Stella and Vanessa. His Character and
+   Death.
+
+
+
+Contemporary with Addison, and forming with him a literary fraternity,
+Steele and Swift were besides men of distinct prominence, and clearly
+represent the age in which they lived.
+
+
+SIR RICHARD STEELE.--If Addison were chosen as the principal literary
+figure of the period, a sketch of his life would be incomplete without a
+large mention of his lifelong friend and collaborator, Steele. If to Bacon
+belongs the honor of being the first writer and the namer of the English
+_essay_, Steele may claim that of being the first periodical essayist.
+
+He was born in Dublin, in 1671, of English parents; his father being at
+the time secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He received his
+early education at the Charter-House school, in London, an institution
+which has numbered among its pupils many who have gained distinguished
+names in literature. Here he met and formed a permanent friendship with
+Addison. He was afterwards entered as a student at Merton College, Oxford;
+but he led there a wild and reckless life, and leaving without a degree,
+he enlisted as a private in the Horse Guards. Through the influence of his
+friends, he was made a cornet, and afterwards a captain, in the
+Fusileers; but this only gave him opportunity for continued dissipation.
+His principles were better than his conduct; and, haunted by conscience,
+he made an effort to reform himself by writing a devotional work called
+_The Christian Hero_; but there was such a contrast between his precepts
+and his life, that he was laughed at by the town. Between 1701 and 1704 he
+produced his three comedies. _The Funeral, or Grief a la Mode_; _The
+Tender Husband_, and _The Lying Lover_. The first two were successful upon
+the stage, but the last was a complete failure. Disgusted for the time
+with the drama, he was led to find his true place as the writer of those
+light, brilliant, periodical essays which form a prominent literary
+feature of the reign of Queen Anne. These _Essays_ were comments,
+suggestions, strictures, and satires upon the age. They were of immediate
+and local interest then, and have now a value which the writers did not
+foresee: they are unconscious history.
+
+
+PERIODICALS.--The first of these periodicals was _The Tatler_, a penny
+sheet, issued tri-weekly, on post-days. The first number appeared on the
+12th of April, 1709, and asserted the very laudable purpose "to expose the
+deceits, sins, and vanities of the former age, and to make virtue,
+simplicity, and plain-dealing the law of social life." "For this purpose,"
+in the words of Dr. Johnson,[34] "nothing is so proper as the frequent
+publication of short papers, which we read not as study, but amusement. If
+the subject be slight, the treatise is short. The busy may find time, and
+the idle may find patience." One _nom de plume_ of Steele was _Isaac
+Bickerstaff_, which he borrowed from Swift, who had issued party-pamphlets
+under that name.
+
+_The Tatler_ was a success. The fluent pen of Addison gave it valuable
+assistance; and in January, 1711, it was merged into, rather than
+superseded by, _The Spectator_, which was issued six days in the week.
+
+In this new periodical, Steele wrote the paper containing the original
+sketch of Sir Roger de Coverley and The Club; but, as has been already
+said, Addison adopted, elaborated, and finished this in several later
+papers. Steele had been by far the larger contributor to _The Tatler_. Of
+all the articles in _The Spectator_, Steele wrote two hundred and forty,
+and Addison two hundred and seventy-four; the rest were by various hands.
+In March, 1713, when _The Spectator_ was commencing its seventh volume,
+_The Guardian_ made its appearance. For the first volume of _The
+Guardian_, Addison wrote but one paper; but for the second he wrote more
+than Steele. Of the one hundred and seventy-six numbers of that
+periodical, eighty-two of the papers were by Steele and fifty-three by
+Addison. If the writings of Addison were more scholarly and elegant, those
+of Steele were more vivacious and brilliant; and together they have
+produced a series of essays which have not been surpassed in later times,
+and which are vividly delineative of their own.
+
+
+THE CRISIS.--The career of Steele was varied and erratic. He held several
+public offices, was a justice of the peace, and a member of parliament. He
+wrote numerous political tracts, which are not without historical value.
+For one pamphlet of a political character, entitled _The Crisis_, he was
+expelled from parliament for libel; but upon the death of Queen Anne, he
+again found himself in favor. He was knighted in 1715, and received
+several lucrative appointments.
+
+He was an eloquent orator, and as a writer rapid and brilliant, but not
+profound. Even thus, however, he catered to an age at once artificial and
+superficial. Very observant of what he saw, he rushed to his closet and
+jotted down his views in electrical words, which made themselves
+immediately and distinctly felt.
+
+
+HIS LAST DAYS.--Near the close of his life he produced a very successful
+comedy, entitled _The Conscious Lover_, which would have been of pecuniary
+value to him, were it not that he was already overwhelmed with debt. His
+end was a sad one; but he reaped what his extravagance and recklessness
+had sown. Shattered in health and ruined in fortune, he retreated from the
+great world into homely retirement in Wales, where he lived, poor and
+hidden, in a humble cottage at Llangunnor. His end was heralded by an
+attack of paralysis, and he died in 1729.
+
+After his death, his letters were published; and in the private history
+which they unfold, he appears, notwithstanding all his follies, in the
+light of a tender husband and of an amiable and unselfish man. He had
+principle, but he lacked resolution; and the wild, vacillating character
+of his life is mirrored in his writings, where _The Christian Hero_ stands
+in singular contrast to the comic personages of his dramas. He was a
+genial critic. His exuberant wit and humor reproved without wounding; he
+was not severe enough to be a public censor, nor pedantic enough to be the
+pedagogue of an age which often needed the lash rather than the gentle
+reproof, and upon which a merciful clemency lost its end if not its
+praises. He deserves credit for an attempt, however feeble, to reward
+virtue upon the stage, after the wholesale rewards which vice had reaped
+in the age of Charles II.
+
+Steele has been overshadowed, in his connection with Addison, by the more
+dignified and consistent career, the greater social respectability, and
+the more elegant and scholarly style of his friend; and yet in much that
+they jointly accomplished, the merit of Steele is really as great, and
+conduces much to the reputation of Addison. The one husbanded and
+cherished his fame; the other flung it away or lavished it upon his
+colleagues. As contributors to history, they claim an equal share of our
+gratitude and praise.
+
+
+JONATHAN SWIFT.--The grandfather of Swift was vicar of Goodrich, in
+Herefordshire. His father and mother were both English, but he was born in
+Dublin, in the year 1667. A posthumous child, he came into the world seven
+months after his father's death. From his earliest youth, he deplored the
+circumstances among which his lot had been cast. He was dependent upon his
+uncle, Godwin Swift, himself a poor man; but was not grateful for his
+assistance, always saying that his uncle had given him the education of a
+dog. At the University of Dublin, where he was entered, he did not bear a
+good character: he was frequently absent from his duties and negligent of
+his studies; and although he read history and poetry, he was considered
+stupid as well as idle. He was more than once admonished and suspended,
+but at length received his degree, _Speciali gratia_; which special act of
+grace implied that he had not fairly earned it. Piqued by this, he set to
+work in real earnest, and is said to have studied eight hours a day for
+eight years. Thus, from an idle and unsuccessful collegian, he became a
+man of considerable learning and a powerful writer.
+
+He was a distant connection of Sir William Temple, through Lady Temple;
+and he went, by his mother's advice, to live with that distinguished man
+at his seat, Shene, in Moor Park, as private secretary.
+
+In this position Swift seems to have led an uncomfortable life, ranking
+somewhere between the family and the upper servants. Sir William Temple
+was disposed to be kind, but found it difficult to converse with him on
+account of his moroseness and other peculiarities. At Shene he met King
+William III., who talked with him, and offered him a captaincy in the
+army. This Swift declined, knowing his unfitness for the post, and
+doubtless feeling the promptings of a higher ambition. It was also at
+Shene that he met a young girl, whose history was thenceforth to be
+mingled with his in sadness and sorrow, during their lives. This was
+Esther Johnson, the daughter of Temple's housekeeper, and surmised, at a
+later day, to be the natural daughter of Temple himself. When the young
+secretary first met her, she was fourteen years of age, very clever and
+beautiful; and they fell in love with each other.
+
+We cannot dwell at length upon the events of his life. His versatile pen
+was prolific of poetry, sentimental and satirical; of political allegories
+of great potency, of fiction erected of impossible materials, and yet so
+creating and peopling a world of fancy as to illude the reader into
+temporary belief in its truth.
+
+
+POEMS.--His poems are rather sententious than harmonious. His power,
+however, was great; he managed verse as an engine, and had an entire
+mastery over rhyme, which masters so many would-be poets. His _Odes_ are
+classically constructed, but massive and cumbrous. His satirical poems are
+eminently historical, ranging over and attacking almost every topic,
+political, religious, and social. Among the most characteristic of his
+miscellaneous verses are _Epigrams and Epistles, Clever Tom Pinch Going to
+be Hanged, Advice to Grub Street Writers, Helter-Skelter, The Puppet
+Show_, and similar odd pieces, frequently scurrilous, bitter, and lewd in
+expression. The writer of English history consults these as he does the
+penny ballads, lampoons, and caricatures of the day,--to discern the
+_animus_ of parties and the methods of hostile factions.
+
+But it is in his inimitable prose writings that Swift is of most value to
+the historical student. Against all comers he stood the Goliath of
+pamphleteers in the reign of Queen Anne, and there arose no David who
+could slay him.
+
+
+THE TALE OF A TUB.--While an unappreciated student at the university, he
+had sketched a satirical piece, which he finished and published in 1704,
+under the title of _The Tale of a Tub_. As a tub is thrown overboard at
+sea to divert a whale, so this is supposed to be a sop cast out to the
+_Leviathan_ of Hobbes, to prevent it from injuring the vessel of state.
+The story is a satire aimed against the Roman Catholics on the one hand,
+and the Presbyterians on the other, in order that he may exalt the Church
+of England as, in his judgment, free from the errors of both, and a just
+and happy medium between the two extremes. His own opinion of its merits
+is well known: in one of his later years, when his hand had lost its
+cunning, he is said to have exclaimed, as he picked it up, "What a genius
+I had when I wrote that book!" The characters of the story are _Peter_
+(representing St. Peter, or the Roman Catholic Church), _Martin_ (Luther,
+or the Church of England), and _Jack_ (John Calvin, or the Presbyterians).
+By their father's will each had been left a suit of clothes, made in the
+fashion of his day. To this Peter added laces and fringes; Martin took off
+some of the ornaments of doubtful taste; but Jack ripped and tore off the
+trimmings of his dress to such an extent that he was in clanger of
+exposing his nakedness. It is said that the invective was so strong and
+the satire so bitter, that they presented a bar to that preferment which
+Swift might otherwise have obtained. He appears at this time to have cared
+little for public opinion, except that it should fear his trenchant wit
+and do homage to his genius.
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS.--In the same year, 1704, he also published _The
+Battle of the Books_, the idea of which was taken from a French work of
+Courtraye, entitled "_Histoire de la guerre nouvellement declaree entre
+les Anciens et les Modernes_." Swift's work was written in furtherance of
+the views of his patron, Temple, who had some time before engaged in the
+controversy as to the relative merits of ancient and modern learning, and
+who, in the words of Macaulay, "was so absurd as to set up his own
+authority against that of Bentley on questions of Greek history and
+philology."
+
+_The Battle of the Books_ is of present value, as it affords information
+upon the opinions then held on a question which, in various forms, has
+been agitating the literary world ever since. In it Swift compares Dryden,
+Wotten, and Bentley with the old authors in St. James's Library, where the
+battle of the books is said to have taken place.
+
+Upon the death of Sir William Temple, in 1699, Swift had gone to London.
+He was ambitious of power and money, and when he found little chance of
+preferment among the Whigs, he became a Tory. It must be said, in
+explanation of this change, that, although he had called himself a Whig,
+he had disliked many of their opinions, and had never heartily espoused
+their cause. Like others already referred to, he watched the political
+horizon, and was ready for a change when circumstances should warrant it.
+This change and its causes are set forth in his _Bickerstaff's Ridicule of
+Astrology_ and _Sacramental Test_.
+
+The Whigs tried hard to retain him; the Tories were rejoiced to receive
+him, and modes of preferment for him were openly canvassed. One of these
+was to make him Bishop of Virginia, with metropolitan powers in America;
+but it failed. He was also recommended for the See of Hereford; but
+persons near the queen advised her "to be sure that the man she was going
+to make a bishop was a Christian." Thus far he had only been made rector
+of Agher and vicar of Laracor and Rathbeggin.
+
+
+VARIOUS PAMPHLETS.--His _Argument Against the Abolition of Christianity_,
+Dr. Johnson calls "a very happy and judicious irony." In 1710 he wrote a
+paper, at the request of the Irish primate, petitioning the queen to remit
+the first-fruits and twentieth parts to the Irish clergy. In 1712, ten
+days before the meeting of parliament, he published his _Conduct of the
+Allies_, which, exposing the greed of Marlborough, persuaded the nation to
+make peace. A supplement to this is found in _Reflections on the Barrier
+Treaty_, in which he shows how little English interests had been consulted
+in that negotiation.
+
+His pamphlet on _The Public Spirit of the Whigs_, in answer to Steele's
+_Crisis_, was so terrible a bomb-shell thrown into the camp of his former
+friends, and so insulting to the Scotch, that L300 were offered by the
+queen, at the instance of the Scotch lords, for the discovery of the
+author; but without success.
+
+At last his versatile and powerful pen obtained some measure of reward: in
+1713 he was made Dean of St. Patrick's, in Dublin, with a stipend of L700
+per annum. This was his greatest and last preferment.
+
+On the accession of George I., in the following year, he paid his court,
+but was received with something more than coldness. He withdrew to his
+deanery in Dublin, and, in the words of Johnson, "commenced Irishman for
+life, and was to contrive how he might be best accommodated in a country
+where he considered himself as in a state of exile." After some
+misunderstanding between himself and his Irish fellow-citizens, he
+espoused their cause so warmly that he became the most popular man in
+Ireland. In 1721 he could write to Pope, "I neither know the names nor the
+number of the family which now reigneth, further than the prayer-book
+informeth me." His letters, signed _M. B. Drapier_, on Irish manufactures,
+and especially those in opposition to Wood's monopoly of copper coinage,
+in 1724, wrought upon the people, producing such a spirit of resistance
+that the project of a debased coinage failed; and so influential did Swift
+become, that he was able to say to the Archbishop of Dublin, "Had I raised
+my finger, the mob would have torn you to pieces." This popularity was
+increased by the fact that a reward of L300 was offered by Lord Carteret
+and the privy council for the discovery of the authorship of the fourth
+letter; but although it was commonly known that Swift was the author,
+proof could not be obtained. Carteret, the Lord Lieutenant, afterwards
+said, "When people ask me how I governed Ireland, I said that I pleased
+Doctor Swift."
+
+Thus far Swift's literary labors are manifest history: we come now to
+consider that great work, _Gulliver's Travels_,--the most successful of
+its kind ever written,--in which, with all the charm of fiction in plot,
+incident, and description, he pictures the great men and the political
+parties of the day.
+
+
+GULLIVER'S TRAVELS.--Lemuel Gulliver, a surgeon's mate, finds himself
+shipwrecked on the shore of the country of Lilliput, the people of which
+are only six inches in height. His adventures are so vividly described
+that our charmed fancy places us among them as we read, and we, for a
+time, abandon ourselves to a belief in their reality. It was, however,
+begun as a political satire; in the insignificance of the court of
+pigmies, he attacks the feebleness and folly of the new reign. _Flimnap_,
+the prime minister of Lilliput, is a caricature of Walpole; the _Big
+Indians_ and _Little Indians_ represent the Protestants and Roman
+Catholics; the _High Heels_ and _Low Heels_ stand for the Whigs and
+Tories; and the heir-apparent, who wears one heel high and the other low,
+is the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II., who favored both parties in
+order to gain both to his purpose.
+
+In his second voyage, that to Brobdignag, his satirical imagination took a
+wider range--European politics as they appear to a superior intelligence,
+illustrated by a man of _sixty_ feet in comparison with one of _six_. As
+Gulliver had looked with curious contempt upon the united efforts of the
+Lilliputians, he now found himself in great jeopardy and fear when in the
+hands of a giant of Brobdignag. As the pigmy metropolis, five hundred
+yards square, was to London, so were London and other European capitals to
+the giants' city, two thousand miles in circumference. And what are the
+armies of Europe, when compared with that magnificent cavalry
+manoeuvring on a parade-ground twenty miles square, each mounted
+trooper ninety feet high, and all, as they draw their swords at command,
+representing ten thousand flashes of lightning?
+
+The third part contains the voyage of Gulliver--no less improbable than
+the former ones--to _Laputa_, the flying island of projectors and
+visionaries. This is a varied satire upon the Royal Society, the
+eccentricities of the savans, empirics of all kinds, mathematical magic,
+and the like. In this, political schemes to restore the pretender are
+aimed at. The Mississippi Scheme and the South Sea bubble are denounced.
+Here, too, in his journey to Luggnagg, he introduces the sad and revolting
+picture of the Struldbrugs, those human beings who live on, losing all
+their power and becoming hideously old.
+
+In his last voyage--to the land of the _Houyhnhnms_--his misanthropy is
+painfully manifest. This is the country where horses are masters, and men
+a servile and degraded race; and he has painted the men so brutish and
+filthy that the satire loses its point. The power of satire lies in
+contrast; we must compare the evil in men with the good: when the whole
+race is included in one sweeping condemnation, and an inferior being
+exalted, in opposition to all possibility, the standard is absurd, and the
+satirist loses his pains.
+
+The horses are the _Houyhnhnms_, (the name is an attempt to imitate a
+neigh,) a noble race, who are amazed and disgusted at the Yahoos,--the
+degraded men,--upon whom Swift, in his sweeping misanthropy, has exhausted
+his bitterness and his filth.
+
+
+STELLA AND VANESSA.--While Swift's mysterious associations with Stella and
+Vanessa have but little to do with the course of English Literature, they
+largely affect his personality, and no sketch of him would be complete
+without introducing them to the reader. We cannot conjure up the tall,
+burly form, the heavy-browed, scowling, contemptuous face, the sharp blue
+eye, and the bushy black hair of the dean, without seeing on one side and
+the other the two pale, meek-eyed, devoted women, who watch his every
+look, shrink from his sudden bursts of wrath, receive for their
+infatuation a few fair words without sentiment, and earnestly crave a
+little love as a return for their whole hearts. It is a wonderful,
+touching, baffling story.
+
+Stella he had known and taught in her young maidenhood at Sir William
+Temple's. As has been said, she was called the daughter of his steward and
+housekeeper, but conjectures are rife that she was Sir William's own
+child. When Swift removed to Ireland, she came, at Swift's request, with a
+matron friend, Mrs. Dingley, to live near him. Why he did not at once
+marry her, and why, at last, he married her secretly, in 1716, are
+questions over which curious readers have puzzled themselves in vain, and
+upon which, in default of evidence, some perhaps uncharitable conclusions
+have been reached. The story of their association may be found in the
+_Journal to Stella_.
+
+With Miss Hester Vanhomrigh (Vanessa) he became acquainted in London, in
+1712: he was also her instructor; and when with her he seems to have
+forgotten his allegiance to Stella. Cadenus, as he calls himself, was too
+tender and fond: Vanessa became infatuated; and when she heard of Swift's
+private marriage with Stella, she died of chagrin or of a broken heart.
+She had cancelled the will which she had made in Swift's favor, and left
+it in charge to her executors to publish their correspondence. Both sides
+of the history of this connection are fully displayed in the poem of
+_Cadenus and Vanessa_, and in the _Correspondence of Swift and Vanessa_.
+
+
+CHARACTER AND DEATH.--Pride overbearing and uncontrollable, misanthropy,
+excessive dogmatism, a singular pleasure in giving others pain, were among
+his personal faults or misfortunes. He abused his companions and servants;
+he never forgave his sister for marrying a tradesman; he could attract
+with winning words and repel with furious invective; and he was always
+anxiously desiring the day of his death, and cursing that of his birth.
+His common farewell was "Good-bye; I hope we may never meet again." There
+is a painful levity in his verses _On the Death of Doctor Swift_, in which
+he gives an epitome of his life:
+
+    From Dublin soon to London spread,
+    'Tis told at court the dean is dead!
+    And Lady Suffolk, in the spleen,
+    Runs laughing up to tell the queen:
+    The queen, so gracious, mild, and good,
+    Cries, "Is he gone? it's time he should."
+
+At last the end came. While a young man, he had suffered from a painful
+attack of vertigo, brought on by a surfeit of fruit; "eating," he says, in
+a letter to Mrs. Howard, "an hundred golden pippins at a time." This had
+occasioned a deafness; and both giddiness and deafness had recurred at
+intervals, and at last manifestly affected his mind. Once, when walking
+with some friends, he had pointed to an elm-tree, blasted by lightning,
+and had said, "I shall be like that tree: I shall die first at the top."
+And thus at last the doom fell. Struck on the brain, he lingered for nine
+years in that valley of spectral horrors, of whose only gates idiocy and
+madness are the hideous wardens. From this bondage he was released by
+death on the 19th of October, 1745.
+
+Many have called it a fearful retribution for his sins, and especially for
+his treatment of Stella and Vanessa. A far more reasonable and charitable
+verdict is that the evil in his conduct through life had its origin in
+congenital disorder; and in his days of apparent sanity, the character of
+his eccentric actions is to be palliated, if not entirely excused, on the
+plea of insanity. Additional force is given to this judgment by the fact
+that, when he died, it was found that he had left his money to found a
+hospital for the insane, illustrating the line,--
+
+    A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind.
+
+In that day of great classical scholars, Swift will hardly rank among the
+most profound; but he possessed a creative power, a ready and versatile
+fancy, a clear and pleasing but plain style. He has been unjustly accused
+by Lady Montagu of having stolen plot and humor from Cervantes and
+Rabelais: he drew from the same source as they; and those suggestions
+which came to him from them owe all their merit to his application of
+them. As a critic, he was heartless and rude; but as a polemic and a
+delineator of his age, he stands prominently forth as an historian, whose
+works alone would make us familiar with the period.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE AGE.
+
+
+_Sir William Temple_, 1628-1698: he was a statesman and a political
+writer; rather a man of mark in his own day than of special interest to
+the present time. After having been engaged in several important
+diplomatic affairs, he retired to his seat of Moor Park, and employed
+himself in study and with his pen. His _Essays and Observations on
+Government_ are valuable as a clue to the history. In his controversy with
+Bentley on the _Epistles of Phalaris_, and the relative merits of ancient
+and modern authors, he was overmatched in scholarship. In a literary point
+of view, Temple deserves praise for the ease and beauty of his style. Dr.
+Johnson says he "was the first writer who gave cadence to English prose."
+"What can be more pleasant," says Charles Lamb, "than the way in which the
+retired statesman peeps out in his essays, penned in his delightful
+retreat at Shene?" He is perhaps better known in literary history as the
+early patron of Swift, than for his own works.
+
+
+_Sir Isaac Newton_, 1642-1727: the chief glory of Newton is not connected
+with literary effort: he ranks among the most profound and original
+philosophers, and was one of the purest and most unselfish of men. The
+son of a farmer, he was born at Woolsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, after his
+father's death,--a feeble, sickly child. The year of his birth was that in
+which Galileo died. At the age of fifteen he was employed on his mother's
+farm, but had already displayed such an ardor for learning that he was
+sent first to school and then to Cambridge, where he was soon conspicuous
+for his talents and his genius. In due time he was made a professor. His
+discoveries in astronomy, mechanics, and optics are of world-wide renown.
+The law of gravitation was established by him, and set forth in his paper
+_De Motu Corporum_. His treatise on _Fluxions_ prepared the way for that
+wonderful mathematical, labor-saving instrument--the differential
+calculus. In 1687 he published his _Philosophiae Naturalis Principia
+Mathematica_, in which all his mathematical theories are propounded. In
+1696 he was made Warden of the Mint, and in 1699 Master of the Mint. Long
+a member of the Royal Society, he was its president for the last
+twenty-four years of his life. In 1688 he was elected member of parliament
+for the university of Cambridge. Of purely literary works he left two,
+entitled respectively, _Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the
+Apocalypse of St. John_, and a _Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended_;
+both of which are of little present value except as the curious remains of
+so great a man.
+
+
+_Viscount Bolingbroke_ (Henry St. John), 1678-1751: as an erratic
+statesman, a notorious free-thinker, a dissipated lord, a clever political
+writer, and an eloquent speaker, Lord Bolingbroke was a centre of
+attraction in his day, and demands observation in literary history. During
+the reign of Queen Anne he was a plotter in favor of the pretender, and
+when she died, he fled the realm to avoid impeachment for treason. In
+France he joined the pretender as Secretary of State, but was dismissed
+for intrigue; and on being pardoned by the English king, he returned to
+England. His writings are brilliant but specious. His influence was felt
+in the literary society he drew around him,--Swift, Pope, and
+others,--and, as has been already said, his opinions are to be found in
+that _Essay on Man_ which Pope dedicated to him. In his meteoric political
+career he represents and typifies one phase of the time in which he lived.
+
+
+_George Berkeley_, 1684-1753: he was educated at Trinity College, Dublin,
+and soon engaged in metaphysical controversy. In 1724 he was made Dean of
+Derry, and in 1734, Bishop of Cloyne. A man of great philanthropy, he set
+forth a scheme for the founding of the _Bermudas College_, to train
+missionaries for the colonies and to labor among the North American
+Indians. As a metaphysician, he was an _absolute idealist_. This is no
+place to discuss his theory. In the words of Dr. Reid, "He maintains ...
+that there is no such thing as matter in the universe; that the sun and
+moon, earth and sea, our own bodies and those of our friends, are nothing
+but ideas in the minds of those who think of them, and that they have no
+existence when they are not objects of thought; that all that is in the
+universe may be reduced to two categories, to wit, _minds_ and _ideas in
+the mind_." The reader is referred, for a full discussion of this
+question, to Sir William Hamilton's _Metaphysics_. Berkeley's chief
+writings are: _New Theory of Vision, Treatise Concerning the Principles of
+Human Knowledge_, and _Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous_. His name
+and memory are especially dear to the American people; for, although his
+scheme of the training-college failed, he lived for two years and a half
+in Newport, where his house still stands, and where one of his children is
+buried. He presented to Yale College his library and his estate in Rhode
+Island, and he wrote that beautiful poem with its kindly prophecy:
+
+    Westward the course of empire takes its way:
+      The four first acts already past,
+    A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
+      Time's noblest offspring is the last.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF MODERN FICTION.
+
+
+   The New Age. Daniel Defoe. Robinson Crusoe. Richardson. Pamela, and
+   Other Novels. Fielding. Joseph Andrews. Tom Jones. Its Moral. Smollett.
+   Roderick Random. Peregrine Pickle.
+
+
+
+THE NEW AGE.
+
+
+We have now reached a new topic in the course of English
+Literature--contemporaneous, indeed, with the subjects just named, but
+marked by new and distinct development. It was a period when numerous and
+distinctive forms appeared; when genius began to segregate into schools
+and divisions; when the progress of letters and the demands of popular
+curiosity gave rise to works which would have been impossible, because
+uncalled for, in any former period. English enterprise was extending
+commerce and scattering useful arts in all quarters of the globe, and thus
+giving new and rich materials to English letters. Clive was making himself
+a lord in India; Braddock was losing his army and his life in America.
+This spirit of English enterprise in foreign lands was evoking literary
+activity at home: there was no exploit of English valor, no extension of
+English dominion and influence, which did not find its literary
+reproduction. Thus, while it was an age of historical research, it was
+also that of actual delineations of curious novelties at home and abroad.
+
+Poetry was in a transition state; it was taking its leave of the unhealthy
+satire and the technical wit of Queen Anne's reign, and attempting, on
+the one hand, the impostures of Macpherson and Chatterton,--to which we
+shall hereafter refer,--and, on the other, the restoration of the pastoral
+from the theatrical to the real, in Thomson's song of the Rolling Year,
+and Cowper's pleasant Task, so full of life and nature. Swallow-like,
+English poetry had hung about the eaves or skimmed the surface of town and
+court; but now, like the lark, it soared into freer air--
+
+    Coetusque vulgares et udam
+    Spernit humum fugiente penna.
+
+In short, it was a day of general awakening. The intestine troubles
+excited by the Jacobites were brought to an end by the disaster of
+Culloden, in 1745. The German campaigns culminating at Minden, in 1759,
+opened a door to the study of German literature, and of the Teutonic
+dialects as elements of the English language.
+
+It is, therefore, not astonishing that in this period Literature should
+begin to arrange itself into its present great divisions. As in an earlier
+age the drama had been born to cater to a popular taste, so in this, to
+satisfy the public demand, arose English _prose fiction_ in its peculiar
+and enduring form. There had been grand and desultory works preceding
+this, such as _Robinson Crusoe, The Pilgrim's Progress_, and Swift's
+inimitable story of _Gulliver_; but the modern novel, unlike these, owes
+its origin to a general desire for delineations of private life and
+manners. "Show us ourselves!" was the cry.
+
+A novel may be defined as a fictitious story of modern life describing the
+management and mastery of the human passions, and especially the universal
+passion of love. Its power consists in the creation of ideal characters,
+which leave a real impress upon the reader's mind; it must be a prose
+_epic_ in that there is always a hero, or, at least, a heroine, generally
+both, and a _drama_ in its presentation of scenes and supplementary
+personages. Thackeray calls his _Vanity Fair_ a novel without a hero: it
+is impossible to conceive a novel without a heroine. There must also be a
+_denouement_, or consummation; in short, it must have, in the words of
+Aristotle, a beginning, middle, and ending, in logical connection and
+consecutive interest.
+
+
+DANIEL DEFOE.--Before, however, proceeding to consider the modern novel,
+we must make mention of one author, distinctly of his own age as a
+political pamphleteer, but who, in his chief and inimitable work, stands
+alone, without antecedent or consequent. _Robinson Crusoe_ has had a host
+of imitators, but no rival.
+
+Daniel Foe, or, as he afterwards called himself, De Foe, was born in
+London, in the year 1661. He was the son of a butcher, but such was his
+early aptitude, for learning, that he was educated to become a dissenting
+minister. His own views, however, were different: he became instead a
+political author, and wrote with great force against the government of
+James II. and the Established Church, and in favor of the dissenters. When
+the Duke of Monmouth landed to make his fatal campaign, Defoe joined his
+standard; but does not seem to have suffered with the greater number of
+the duke's adherents.
+
+He was a warm supporter of William III.; and his famous poem, _The
+True-Born Englishman_, was written in answer to an attack upon the king
+and the Dutch, called _The Foreigners_. Of his own poem he says, in the
+preface, "When I see the town full of lampoons and invectives against the
+Dutch, only because they are foreigners, and the king reproached and
+insulted by insolent pedants and ballad-making poets for employing
+foreigners and being a foreigner himself, I confess myself moved by it to
+remind our nation of their own original, thereby to let them see what a
+banter they put upon themselves, since--speaking of Englishmen _ab
+origine_--we are really all foreigners ourselves:"
+
+    The Pict and painted Briton, treach'rous Scot,
+    By hunger, theft, and rapine hither brought;
+    Norwegian pirates, buccaneering Danes,
+    Whose red-haired offspring everywhere remains;
+    Who, joined with Norman-French, compound the breed
+    From whence your true-born Englishmen proceed.
+
+In 1702, just after the death of King William, Defoe published his
+severely ironical pamphlet, _The Shortest Way with the Dissenters_.
+Assuming the character of a High Churchman, he says: "'Tis vain to trifle
+in the matter. The light, foolish handling of them by fines is their glory
+and advantage. If the gallows instead of the compter, and the galleys
+instead of the fines, were the reward of going to a conventicle, there
+would not be so many sufferers." His irony was at first misunderstood: the
+High Churchmen hailed him as a champion, and the Dissenters hated him as
+an enemy. But when his true meaning became apparent, a reward of L50 was
+offered by the government for his discovery. His so-called "scandalous and
+seditious pamphlet" was burnt by the common hangman: he was tried, and
+sentenced to pay two hundred marks, to stand three times in the pillory,
+and to be imprisoned during the queen's pleasure. He bore his sentence
+bravely, and during his two years' residence in prison he published a
+periodical called _The Review_. In 1709 he wrote a _History of the Union_
+between England and Scotland.
+
+
+ROBINSON CRUSOE.--But none of these things, nor all combined, would have
+given to Defoe that immortality which is his as the author of _Robinson
+Crusoe_. Of the groundwork of the story not much need be said.
+
+Alexander Selkirk, the sailing-master of an English privateer, was set
+ashore, in 1704, at his own request, on the uninhabited island Juan
+Fernandez, which lies several hundred miles from the coast of Chili, in
+the Pacific Ocean. He was supplied with clothing and arms, and remained
+there alone for four years and four months. It is supposed that his
+adventures suggested the work. It is also likely that Defoe had read the
+journal of Peter Serrano, who, in the sixteenth century, had been
+_marooned_ in like manner on a desolate island lying off the mouth of the
+Oroonoque (Orinoco). The latter locality was adopted by Defoe. But it is
+not the fact or the adventures which give power to _Robinson Crusoe_. It
+is the manner of treating what might occur to any fancy, even the dullest.
+The charm consists in the simplicity and the verisimilitude of the
+narrative, the rare adaptation of the common man to his circumstances, his
+projects and failures, the birth of religion in his soul, his conflicting
+hopes and fears, his occasional despair. We see in him a brother, and a
+suffering one. We live his life on the island; we share his terrible fear
+at the discovery of the footprint, his courage in destroying the cannibal
+savages and rescuing the victim. Where is there in fiction another man
+Friday? From the beginning of his misfortunes until he is again sailing
+for England, after nearly thirty years of captivity, he holds us
+spellbound by the reality, the simplicity, and the pathos of his
+narrative; but, far beyond the temporary illusion of the modern novel,
+everything remains real: the shipwrecked mariner spins his yarns in sailor
+fashion, and we believe and feel every word he says. The book, although
+wonderfully good throughout, is unequal: the prime interest only lasts
+until he is rescued, and ends with his embarkation for England. The
+remainder of his travels becomes, as a narrative, comparatively tiresome
+and tame; and we feel, besides, that, after his unrivalled experience, he
+should have remained in England, "the observed of all observers." Yet it
+must be said that we are indebted to his later journey in Spain and
+France, his adventures in the Eastern Seas, his caravan ride overland from
+China to Europe, for much which illustrates the manners and customs of
+navigation and travel in that day.
+
+_Robinson Crusoe_ stands alone among English books, a perennial fountain
+of instruction and pleasure. It aids in educating each new generation:
+children read it for its incident; men to renew their youth; literary
+scholars to discover what it teaches of its time and of its author's
+genius. Its influence continues unabated; it incites boys to maritime
+adventure, and shows them how to use in emergency whatever they find at
+hand. It does more: it tends to reclaim the erring by its simple homilies;
+it illustrates the ruder navigation of its day; shows us the habits and
+morals of the merchant marine, and the need and means of reforming what
+was so very bad.
+
+Defoe's style is clear, simple, and natural. He wrote several other works,
+of which few are now read. Among these are the _Account of the Plague, The
+Life and Piracies of Captain Singleton_, and _The Fortunes and Misfortunes
+of Moll Flanders_. He died on the 24th of April, 1731.
+
+
+RICHARDSON.--Samuel Richardson, who, notwithstanding the peculiar merits
+of Defoe, must be called the _Father of Modern Prose Fiction_, was born in
+Derbyshire, in 1689. The personal events of his life are few and
+uninteresting. A carpenter's son, he had but little schooling, and owed
+everything to his own exertions. Apprenticed to a printer in London, at
+the age of fifteen, he labored assiduously at his trade, and it rewarded
+him with fortune: he became, in turn, printer of the Journals of the House
+of Commons, Master of the Stationers' Company, and Printer to the King.
+While young, he had been the confidant of three young women, and had
+written or corrected their love-letters for them. He seems to have had
+great fluency in letter-writing; and being solicited by a publisher to
+write a series of familiar letters on the principal concerns of life,
+which might be used as models,--a sort of "Easy Letter-Writer,"--he began
+the task, but, changing his plan, he wrote a story in a series of letters.
+The first volume was published in 1741, and was no less a work than
+_Pamela_. The author was then fifty years old; and he presents in this
+work a matured judgment concerning the people and customs of the day,--the
+printer's notions of the social condition of England,--shrewd, clever, and
+defective.
+
+Wearied as the world had been by what Sir Walter Scott calls the "huge
+folios of inanity" which had preceded him, the work was hailed with
+delight. There was a little affectation; but the sentiment was moral and
+natural. Ladies carried _Pamela_ about in their rides and walks. Pope,
+near his end, said it was a better moral teacher than sermons: Sherlock
+recommended it from the pulpit.
+
+
+PAMELA, AND OTHER NOVELS.--_Pamela_ is represented as a poor servant-maid,
+but beautiful and chaste, whose honor resists the attack of her dissolute
+master, and whose modesty and virtue overcome his evil nature. Subdued and
+reclaimed by her chastity and her charms, he reforms, and marries her.
+Some pictures which are rather warmly colored and indelicate in our day
+were quite in keeping with the taste of that time, and gave greater effect
+to the moral lesson assigned to be taught.
+
+In his next work, _Clarissa Harlowe_, which appeared in 1749, he has drawn
+the picture of a perfect woman preserving her purity amid seductive
+gayeties, and suffering sorrows to which those of the Virgin Martyr are
+light. We have, too, an excellent portraiture of a bold and wicked, but
+clever and gifted man--Lovelace.
+
+His third and last novel, _Sir Charles Grandison_, appeared in 1753. The
+hero, _Sir Charles_, is the model of a Christian gentleman; but is,
+perhaps, too faultless for popular appreciation.
+
+In his delineations of humbler natures,--country girls like
+_Pamela_,--Richardson is happiest: in his descriptions of high life he has
+failed from ignorance. He was not acquainted with the best society, and
+all his grandees are stilted, artificial, and affected; but even in this
+fault he is of value, for he shows us how men of his class at that time
+regarded the society of those above them.
+
+These works, which, notwithstanding their length, were devoured eagerly as
+soon as they appeared, are little read at present, and exist rather as
+historical interpreters of an age that is past, than as present light
+literature: they have been driven from our shelves by Scott, Dickens,
+Thackeray, and a host of charming novelists since his day.
+
+Richardson lived the admired of a circle of ladies,--to whose sex he had
+paid so noble a tribute,--the hero of tea-drinkings at his house on
+Parson's Green; his books gave him fame, but his shop--in the back office
+of which he wrote his novels, when not pressed by business--gave him money
+and its comforts. He died at the age of seventy-two, on the 4th of July,
+1761.
+
+He was an unconscious actor in a great movement which had begun in France.
+The brilliant theories of Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and
+Dalembert--containing much truth and many heresies--were felt in England,
+and had given a new impetus to English intellect; indeed, it is not
+strange, when we come to consider, that while Richardson's works were
+praised in English pulpits, Voltaire and the French atheists declared that
+they saw in them an advance towards human perfectibility and
+self-redemption, of which, if true, Richardson himself was unconscious.
+From the amours of men and women of fashion, aided by intriguing
+maid-servants and lying valets, Richardson turned away to do honor to
+untitled merit, to exalt the humble, and to defy gilded vice. Whatever
+were the charms of rank, he has elevated our humanity; thus far, and thus
+far only, has he sympathized with the Frenchmen who attacked the
+corruptions of the age, but who assaulted also its faith and its
+reverence.
+
+
+HENRY FIELDING.--The path of prose fiction, so handsomely opened by
+Richardson, was immediately entered and pursued by a genius of higher
+order, and as unlike him as it was possible to be. Richardson still clung
+to romantic sentiment, Fielding eschewed it; Richardson was a teacher of
+morality, Fielding shielded immorality; Richardson described artificial
+manners in a society which he did not frequent, Fielding, in the words of
+Coleridge, "was like an open lawn on a breezy day in May;" Richardson was
+a plebeian, a carpenter's son, a successful printer; Fielding was a
+gentleman, the son of General Fielding, and grandson of the Earl of
+Denbigh; Richardson steadily rose, by his honest exertions, to independent
+fortune, Fielding passed from the high estate of his ancestors into
+poverty and loose company; the one has given us mistaken views of high
+life, the other has been enabled, by his sad experience, to give us
+truthful pictures of every grade of English society in his day from the
+lord, the squire, and the fop to the thief-taker, the prostitute, and the
+thief.
+
+Henry Fielding was born on the 22d of April, 1707, at Sharpham Park,
+Somersetshire. While yet a young man, he had read _Pamela_; and to
+ridicule what he considered its prudery and over-righteousness, he hastily
+commenced his novel of _Joseph Andrews_. This Joseph is represented as the
+brother of Pamela,--a simple country lad, who comes to town and finds a
+place as Lady Booby's footman. As Pamela had resisted her master's
+seductions, he is called upon to oppose the vile attempts of his mistress
+upon his virtue.
+
+In that novel, as well as in its successors, _Tom Jones_ and _Amelia_,
+Fielding has given us rare pictures of English life, and satires upon
+English institutions, which present the social history of England a
+century ago: in this view our sympathies are not lost upon purely ideal
+creations.
+
+In him, too, the French _illuminati_ claimed a co-laborer; and their
+influence is more distinctly seen than in Richardson's works: great
+social problems are discussed almost in the manner of a Greek chorus;
+mechanical forms of religion are denounced. The French philosophers
+attacked errors so intertwined with truth, that the violent stabs at the
+former have cut the latter almost to death; Richardson attacked the errors
+without injuring the truth: he is the champion of purity. If _Joseph
+Andrews_ was to rival _Pamela_ in chastity, _Tom Jones_ was to be
+contrasted with both in the same particular.
+
+
+TOM JONES.--Fielding has received the highest commendations from literary
+men. Byron calls him the "prose Homer of human nature;" and Gibbon, in
+noticing that the Lords of Denbigh were descended, like Charles V., from
+Rudolph of Hapsburg, says: "The successors of Charles V. may despise their
+brethren of England, but the romance of _Tom Jones_--that exquisite
+picture of human manners--will outlive the Palace of the Escurial and the
+Imperial Eagle of Austria." We cannot go so far; we quote the praise but
+doubt the prophecy. The work is historically valuable, but technically
+imperfect and unequal. The plot is rambling, without method: most of the
+scenes lie in the country or in obscure English towns; the meetings are as
+theatrical as stage encounters; the episodes are awkwardly introduced, and
+disfigure the unity; the classical introductions and invocations are
+absurd. His heroes are men of generous impulses but dissolute lives, and
+his women are either vile, or the puppets of circumstance.
+
+
+ITS TRUE VALUE.--What can redeem his works from such a category of
+condemnation? Their rare portraiture of character and their real glimpses
+of nature: they form an album of photographs of life as it was--odd,
+grotesque, but true. They have no mysterious Gothic castles like that of
+Otranto, nor enchanted forests like that of Mrs. Radcliffe. They present
+homely English life and people,--_Partridge_, barber, schoolmaster, and
+coward; _Mrs. Honor_, the type of maid-servants, devoted to her mistress,
+and yet artful; _Squire Western_, the foul and drunken country gentleman;
+_Squire Allworthy_, a noble specimen of human nature; _Parson Adams_, who
+is regarded by the critics as the best portrait among all his characters.
+
+And even if we can neither commend nor recommend heroes like _Tom Jones_,
+such young men really existed, and the likeness is speakingly drawn: we
+bear with his faults because of his reality. Perhaps our verdict may be
+best given in the words of Thackeray. "I am angry," he says, "with Jones.
+Too much of the plum-cake and the rewards of life fall to that boisterous,
+swaggering young scapegrace. Sophia actually surrenders without a proper
+sense of decorum; the fond, foolish, palpitating little creature. 'Indeed,
+Mr. Jones,' she says, 'it rests with you to name the day.' ... And yet
+many a young fellow, no better than Mr. Thomas Jones, has carried by a
+_coup-de-main_ the heart of many a kind girl who was a great deal too good
+for him."
+
+When _Joseph Andrews_ appeared, and Richardson found that so profane a
+person as Fielding had dared to burlesque his _Pamela_, he was angry; and
+his little tea-drinking coterie was warm in his defence; but Fielding's
+party was then, and has remained, the stronger.
+
+In his novel of _Amelia_, we have a general autobiography of Fielding.
+Amelia, his wife, is lovely, chaste, and constant. Captain Booth--Fielding
+himself--is errant, guilty, generous, and repentant. We have besides in it
+many varieties of English life,--lords, clergymen, officers; Vauxhall and
+the masquerade; the sponging-house and its inmates, debtors and
+criminals,--all as Fielding saw and knew them.
+
+The condition of the clergy is more clearly set forth in Fielding's novels
+than in the pages of Echard, Oldham, Wood, Macaulay, or Churchill
+Babington. So changed was their estate since the Reformation, that few
+high-born youths, except the weak or lame, took holy orders. Many
+clergymen worked during the week. One, says South, was a cobbler on
+weekdays, and preached on Sundays. Wilmot says: "We are struck by the
+phenomenon of a learned man sitting down to prove, with the help of logic,
+that a priest or a chaplain in a family is not a servant,"--Jeremy
+Collier: _Essays on Pride and the Office of a Chaplain_.
+
+Fielding drew them and their condition from the life. Parson Adams is the
+most excellent of men. His cassock is ten years old; over it he dons a
+coarse white overcoat, and travels on foot to London to sell nine volumes
+of sermons, wherewithal to buy food for his family. He engages the
+innkeeper in serious talk; he does desperate battle to defend a young
+woman who has fallen into the hands of ruffians on the highway; and when
+he is arrested, his manuscript Eschylus is mistaken for a book of ciphers
+unfolding a dreadful plot against the government. This is a hit against
+the ignorance and want of education among the people; for it is some time
+before some one in the company thinks he saw such characters many years
+ago when he was young, and that it may be Greek. The incident of Parson
+Trulliber mistaking his fellow-priest for a pork-merchant, on account of
+his coarse garments, is excellent, but will not bear abbreviation. Adams
+is splattered by the huge, overfed swine, and ejaculates, "_Nil habeo cum
+porcis_; I am a clergyman, sir, and am not come to buy hogs!" The
+condition of a curate and the theology of the publican are set forth in
+the conversation between Parson Adams and the innkeeper.
+
+The works of Fielding may be justly accused of describing immoral scenes
+and using lewd language; but even in this they are delineative of the
+manners and conversation of an age in which such men lived, such scenes
+occurred, such language was used. I liken the great realm of English prose
+fiction to some famous museum of art. The instructor of the young may
+carefully select what pictures to show them; but the student of English
+literature moves through the rooms and galleries, gazing, judging,
+approving, condemning, comparing. Genius may have soiled its canvas with
+what is prurient and vile; lascivious groups may stand side by side with
+pictures of saints and madonnas. To leave the figure, it is wise counsel
+to read on principle, and, armed with principle, to accept and imitate the
+good, and to reject the evil. Conscience gives the rule, and for every
+bane will give the antidote.
+
+Of this school and period, Fielding is the greatest figure. One word as to
+his career. Passing through all social conditions,--first a country
+gentleman, living on or rather squandering his first wife's little fortune
+in following the hounds and entertaining the county; then a playwright,
+vegetating very seedily on the proceeds of his comedies; justice of the
+peace, and encountering, in his vocation, such characters as _Jonathan
+Wild_; drunken, licentious, unfaithful to his wife, but always--strange
+paradox of poor human nature--generous as the day; mourning with bitter
+tears the loss of his first wife, and then marrying her faithful
+maid-servant, that they may mourn for her together,--he seems to have been
+a rare mechanism without a _governor_. "Poor Harry Fielding!" And yet to
+this irregular, sinful character, we owe the inimitable portraitures of
+English life as it was, in _Joseph Andrews_, _Tom Jones_, and _Amelia_.
+
+Fielding's habits, acting upon a naturally weak constitution, wore him
+out. He left England, and wandered to the English factory at Lisbon, where
+he died, in 1754, in the forty-eighth year of his age.
+
+
+TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT.--Smollett, the third in order and in rank of the
+novelists of his age, was born at Cardross, Dumbartonshire, in 1721, of a
+good family; but he had small means. After some schooling at Dumbarton and
+a university career at Glasgow, he was, from necessity, apprenticed to a
+surgeon. But as his grandfather, Sir James Smollett, on whom he depended,
+died, he left his master, at the age of eighteen, and, taking in his
+pocket a manuscript play he had thus early written,--_The Regicides_,--he
+made his way to London, the El Dorado of all youths with literary
+aspirations. The play was not accepted; but, through the knowledge
+obtained in the surgery, he received an appointment as surgeon's mate, and
+went out with Admiral Vernon's fated expedition to Carthagena in that
+capacity, and thus acquired a knowledge of the sea and of sailors which he
+was to use with great effect in his later writings. For a time he remained
+in the West Indies, where he fell in love with Miss Anne Lascelles, whom
+he afterwards married. In 1746 he returned to London, and, after an
+unsuccessful attempt to practise medicine, he threw himself with great
+vigor into the field of literature. He was a man of strange and
+antagonistic features, just and generous in theory, quarrelsome and
+overbearing in practice. From the year 1746 his pen seems to have been
+always busy. He first tried his hand on some satires, which gained for him
+numerous enemies; and in 1748 he produced his first novel, _Roderick
+Random_, which, in spite of its indecency, the world at once acknowledged
+to be a work of genius: the verisimilitude was perfect; every one
+recognized in the hero the type of many a young North countryman going out
+to seek his fortune. The variety is great, the scenes are more varied and
+real than those in Richardson and Fielding, the characters are numerous
+and vividly painted, and the keen sense of ridicule pervading the book
+makes it a broad jest from beginning to end. Historically, his
+delineations are valuable; for he describes a period in the annals of the
+British marine which has happily passed away,--a hard life in little
+stifling holds or forecastles, with hard fare,--a base life, for the
+sailor, oppressed on shipboard, was the prey of vile women and land-sharks
+when on shore. What pictures of prostitution and indecency! what obscenity
+of language! what drunken infernal orgies! We may shun the book as we
+would shun the company, and yet the one is the exact portraiture of the
+other.
+
+Roderick Random was followed, in 1751, by _Peregrine Pickle_, a book in
+similar taste, but the characters in which are even more striking. The
+forms of Commodore Trunnion, Lieutenant Hatchway, Pipes the boatswain, and
+Ap Morgan the choleric Welsh surgeon, are as familiar to us now as at the
+first.
+
+Smollett had now retired to Chelsea, where his facile pen was still hard
+at work. In 1753 appeared his _Ferdinand Count Fathom_, the portraiture of
+a complete villain, corresponding in character with Fielding's _Jonathan
+Wild_, but with a better moral.
+
+About this time he translated _Don Quixote_; and although his version is
+still published, it is by no means true to the idiom of the language, nor
+to the higher purpose of Cervantes.
+
+Passing by his _Complete History of Authentic and Entertaining Voyages_,
+we come to his _History of England from the Descent of Julius Caesar to the
+Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748_. It is not a profound work; but it is
+so currently written, that, in lieu of better, the latter portion was
+taken to supplement Hume; as a work of less merit than either, that of
+Bissett was added in the later editions to supplement Smollett and Hume.
+For this history he is said to have received L2000.
+
+In 1762 he issued _The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves_, who, with his
+attendant, _Captain Crowe_, goes forth, in the style of Don Quixote and
+Sancho, to _do_ the world. Smollett's forte was in the broadly humorous,
+and this is all that redeems this work from utter absurdity.
+
+
+HUMPHREY CLINKER.--His last work of any importance, and perhaps his best,
+is _The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker_, described in a series of letters
+descriptive of this amusing imaginative journey. Mrs. Winifred, Tabitha,
+and, best of all, Lismahago, are rare characters, and in all respects,
+except its vulgarity, it was the prototype of Hood's exquisite _Up the
+Rhine_.
+
+From the year 1756, Smollett edited, at intervals, various periodicals,
+and wrote what he thought very good poetry, now forgotten,--an _Ode to
+Independence_, after the Greek manner of strophe and antistrophe, not
+wanting in a noble spirit; and _The Tears of Scotland_, written on the
+occasion of the Duke of Cumberland's barbarities, in 1746, after the
+battle of Culloden:
+
+    Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn
+    Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn!
+    Thy sons, for valor long renowned,
+    Lie slaughtered on thy native ground.
+
+Smollett died abroad on the 21st of October, 1771. His health entirely
+broken, he had gone to Italy, and taken a cottage near Leghorn: a slight
+resuscitation was the consequence, and he had something in prospect to
+live for: he was the heir-at-law to the estate of Bonhill, worth L1000 per
+annum; but the remorseless archer would not wait for his fortune.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+STERNE, GOLDSMITH, AND MACKENZIE.
+
+
+   The Subjective School. Sterne--Sermons. Tristram Shandy. Sentimental
+   Journey. Oliver Goldsmith. Poems--The Vicar. Histories, and Other
+   Works. Mackenzie. The Man of Feeling.
+
+
+
+THE SUBJECTIVE SCHOOL.
+
+
+In the same age, and inspired by similar influences, there sprang up a
+widely-different school of novelists, which has been variously named as
+the Sentimental and the Subjective School. Richardson and Fielding
+depicted what they saw around them objectively, rather than the
+impressions made upon their individual sensitiveness. Both Sterne and
+Goldsmith were eminently subjective. They stand as a transparent medium
+between their works and the reader. The medium through which we see
+_Tristram Shandy_ is a double lens,--one part of which is the distorted
+mind of the author, and the other the nondescript philosophy which he
+pilfered from Rabelais and Burton. The glass through which the _Vicar of
+Wakefield_ is shown us is the good-nature and loving heart of Goldsmith,
+which brighten and gladden every creation of his pen. Thus it is that two
+men, otherwise essentially unlike, appear together as representatives of a
+school which was at once sentimental and subjective.
+
+
+STERNE.--Lawrence Sterne was the son of an officer in the British army,
+and was born, in 1713, at Clonmel, in Ireland, where his father was
+stationed.
+
+His father died not long afterwards, at Gibraltar, from the effect of a
+wound which he had received in a duel; and it is indicative of the _code
+of honor_ in that day, that the duel was about a goose at the mess-table!
+What little Lawrence learned in his brief military experience was put to
+good use afterwards in his army reminiscences and portraitures in
+_Tristram Shandy_. No doubt My Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim are sketches
+from his early recollections. Aided by his mother's relations, he studied
+at Cambridge, and afterwards, without an inward call, but in accordance
+with the custom of the day, he entered into holy orders, and was presented
+to a living, of which he stood very much in need.
+
+
+HIS SERMONS.--With no spirit for parochial work, it must be said that he
+published very forcible and devout sermons, and set before his people and
+the English world a pious standard of life, by which, however, he did not
+choose to measure his own: he preached, but did not practise. In a letter
+to Mr. Foley, he says: "I have made a good campaign in the field of the
+literati: ... two volumes of sermons which I shall print very soon will
+bring me a considerable sum.... 'Tis but a crown for sixteen sermons--dog
+cheap; but I am in quest of honor, not money."
+
+These discourses abound in excellent instruction and in pithy expressions;
+but it is painful to see how often his pointed rebukes are undesignedly
+aimed at his own conduct. In one of them he says: "When such a man tells
+you that a thing goes against his conscience, always believe he means
+exactly the same thing as when he tells you it goes against his stomach--a
+present want of appetite being generally the true cause of both." In his
+discourse on _The Forgiveness of Injuries_, we have the following striking
+sentiment: "The brave only know how to forgive: it is the most refined and
+generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at. Cowards have done
+good and kind actions; cowards have even fought, nay, sometimes even
+conquered; but a coward never forgave." All readers of _Tristram Shandy_
+will recall his sermon on the text, "For we trust we have a good
+conscience," so affecting to Corporal Trim and so overwhelming to Dr.
+Slop.
+
+But if his sermons are so pious and good, we look in vain into his
+entertaining _Letters_ for a corresponding piety in his life. They are
+witty, jolly, occasionally licentious. They touch and adorn every topic
+except religion; and so it may be feared that all his religion was
+written, printed, bound, and sold by subscription, in those famous
+sermons, sixteen for a crown--"dog cheap!"
+
+
+TRISTRAM SHANDY.--In 1759 appeared the first part of _Tristram Shandy_--a
+strange, desultory work, in which many of the curious bits of philosophy
+are taken from Montaigne, Burton, Rabelais, and others; but which has,
+besides, great originality in the handling and in the portraiture of
+characters. Much of what Sterne borrowed from these writers passed for his
+own in that day, when there were comparatively few readers of the authors
+mentioned. As to the charge of plagiarism, we may say that Sterne's hero
+is like the _Gargantua_ of Rabelais in many particulars; but he is a man
+instead of a monster; while the chapter on _Hobby-Horses_ is a
+reproduction, in a new form of crystallization, of _Gargantua's wooden
+horses_.
+
+So, too, the entire theological cast of _Tristram Shandy_ is that of the
+sixteenth century;--questions before the Sorbonne, the use of
+excommunication, and the like. Dr. Slop, the Roman Catholic surgeon of the
+family, is but a weak mouthpiece of his Church in the polemics of the
+story; for Sterne was a violent opponent of the Church of Rome in story as
+well as in sermon; and Obadiah, the stupid man-servant, is the lay figure
+who receives the curses which Dr. Slop reads,--"cursed in house and
+stable, garden and field and highway, in path or in wood, in the water or
+in the church." Whether the doctor was in earnest or not, Obadiah paid
+him fully by upsetting him and his pony with the coach-horse.
+
+But in spite of the resemblance to Rabelais and a former age, it must be
+allowed that _Tristram Shandy_ contains many of the richest pictures and
+fairest characters of the age in which it was written. Rural England is
+truthfully presented, and the political cast of the day is shown in his
+references to the war in Flanders. Among the sterling original portraits
+are those of Mr. Shandy, the country gentleman, controversial and
+consequential; Mrs. Shandy, the nonentity,--the Amelia Osborne and Mrs.
+Nickleby of her day; Yorick, the lukewarm, time-serving priest--Sterne
+himself: and these are only supplementary characters.
+
+The sieges of towns in the Low Countries, then going on, are pleasantly
+connected with that most exquisite of characters, _my Uncle Toby_, who has
+a fortification in his garden,--sentry-box, cannon, and all,--and who
+follows the great movement on this petty scale from day to day, as the
+bulletins come in from the seat of war.
+
+The _Widow Wadman_, with her artless wiles, and the "something in her
+eye," makes my Uncle Toby--who protests he can see nothing in the
+white--look, not without peril, "with might and main into the pupil." Ah,
+that sentry-box and the widow's tactics might have conquered many a more
+wary man than my Uncle Toby! and yet my Uncle Toby escaped.
+
+Now, all these are real English characters, sketched from life by the hand
+of genius, and they become our friends and acquaintances forever. It seems
+as though Sterne, after a long and close study of Rabelais and Burton, had
+fancied that, with their aid, he might write a money-making book; but his
+own genius, rising superior to the plagiarism, took the project out of his
+venal hands; and from the antique learning and the incongruities which he
+had heaped together, bright and beautiful forms sprang forth like genii
+from the mine, to subsidize the tears and laughter of all future time.
+What an exquisite creation is my Uncle Toby!--a soldier in the van of
+battle, a man of honor and high tone in every-day life, a kind brother, a
+good master to Corporal Trim, simple as a child, benevolent as an angel.
+"Go, poor devil," quoth he to the fly which buzzed about his nose all
+dinner-time, "get thee gone; why should I hurt thee? This world is surely
+wide enough to hold both thee and me!"
+
+And as for Corporal Trim, he is a host in himself. There is in the English
+literary portrait-gallery no other Uncle Toby, there is no other Corporal
+Trim. Hazlitt has not exaggerated in saying that the _Story of Le Fevre_
+is perhaps the finest in the English language. My Uncle Toby's conduct to
+the dying officer is the perfection of loving-kindness and charity.
+
+
+THE SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY.--Sterne's _Sentimental Journey_, although
+charmingly written,--and this is said in spite of the preference of such a
+critic as Horace Walpole,--will not compare with _Tristram Shandy_: it is
+left unfinished, and is constantly suggestive of licentiousness.
+
+Sterne's English is excellent and idiomatic, and has commended his works
+to the ordinary reader, who shrinks from the hyperlatinism of the time
+represented so strongly by Dr. Johnson and his followers. His wit, if
+sometimes artificial, is always acute; his sentiment is entirely
+artificial; "he is always protruding his sensibility, trying to play upon
+you as upon an instrument; more concerned that you should acknowledge his
+power than have any depth of feeling." Thackeray, whose opinion is just
+quoted, calls him "a great jester, not a great humorist." He had lived a
+careless, self-indulgent life, and was no honor to his profession. His
+death was like a retribution. In a mean lodging, with no friends but his
+bookseller, he died suddenly from hemorrhage. His funeral was hasty, and
+only attended by two persons; his burial was in an obscure graveyard; and
+his body was taken up by corpse-snatchers for the dissecting-room of the
+professor of anatomy at Cambridge,--alas, poor Yorick!
+
+
+OLIVER GOLDSMITH.--We have placed Goldsmith in immediate connection with
+Sterne as, like him, of the Subjective School, in his story of the _Vicar
+of Wakefield_ and his numerous biographical and prose sketches; but he
+belongs to more than one literary school of his period. He was a poet, an
+essayist, a dramatist, and an historian; a writer who, in the words of his
+epitaph,--written by Dr. Johnson, and with no extravagant
+eulogium,--touched all subjects, and touched none that he did not
+adorn,--_nullum quod tetigit non ornavit_. His life was a strange
+melodrama, so varied with laughter and tears, so checkered with fame and
+misfortune, so resounding with songs pathetic and comic, that, were he an
+unknown hero, his adventures would be read with pleasure by all persons of
+sensibility. There is no better illustration of the _subjective_ in
+literature. It is the man who is presented to us in his works, and who can
+no more be disjoined from them than the light from the vase, the beauties
+of which it discloses. As an essayist, he was of the school of Addison and
+Steele; but he has more ease of style and more humor than his teachers. As
+a dramatist, he had many and superior competitors in his own vein; and yet
+his plays still occupy the stage. As an historian, he was fluent but
+superficial; and yet the charm of his style and the easy flow of his
+narrative, have given his books currency as manuals of instruction. And
+although as a writer of fiction, or of truth gracefully veiled in the
+garments of fiction, he stands unrivalled in his beautiful and touching
+story of the incorruptible _Vicar_, yet this is his only complete story,
+and presents but one side of his literary character. Considering him first
+as a poet, we shall find that he is one of the Transition School, but that
+he has a beautiful originality: his poems appeal not to the initiated
+alone, but to human nature in all its conditions and guises; they are
+elevated and harmonious enough for the most fastidious taste, and simple
+and artless enough to please the rustic and the child. To say that he is
+the most popular writer in the whole course of English Literature thus
+far, is hardly to overstate his claims; and the principal reason is that,
+with a blundering and improvident nature, a want of dignity, a lack of
+coherence, he had a great heart, alive to human suffering; he was generous
+to a fault, true to the right, and ever seeking, if constantly failing, to
+direct and improve his own life, and these good characteristics are
+everywhere manifest in his works. A brief recital of the principal events
+in his career will throw light upon his works, and will do the best
+justice to his peculiar character.
+
+Oliver Goldsmith was born at the little village of Pallas, in Ireland,
+where his father was a poor curate, on the 10th of November, 1728. There
+were nine children, of whom he was the fifth. His father afterwards moved
+to Lissoy, which the poet described, in his _Deserted Village_, as
+
+    Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,
+    Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain.
+
+As his father was entirely unable to educate so numerous a family,
+Goldsmith owed his education partly to his uncle, the Rev. Thomas
+Contarini, and in part to his brother, the Rev. Henry Goldsmith, whom he
+cherished with the sincerest affection. An attack of the small-pox while
+he was a boy marked his face, and he was to most persons an
+unprepossessing child. He was ill-treated at school by larger boys, and
+afterwards at Trinity College, Dublin, which he entered as a sizar, by his
+tutor. He was idle, careless, and improvident: he left college without
+permission, but was taken back by his brother, and was finally graduated
+with a bachelor's degree, in 1749. His later professional studies were
+spasmodic and desultory: he tried law and medicine, and more than once
+gained a scanty support by teaching. Seized with a rambling spirit, he
+went to the Continent, and visited Holland, France, Germany, Switzerland,
+and Italy; sometimes gaining a scanty livelihood by teaching English, and
+sometimes wandering without money, depending upon his flute to win a
+supper and bed from the rustics who lived on the highway. He obtained, it
+is said, the degree of Doctor of Medicine at Padua; and on his return to
+England, he went before a board of examiners to obtain the position of
+surgeon's mate in the army or navy. He was at this time so poor that he
+was obliged to borrow a suit of clothes to make a proper appearance before
+the examiners. He failed in his examination, and then, in despair, he
+pawned the borrowed clothes, to the great anger of the publisher who had
+lent them. This failure in his medical examination, unfortunate as it then
+seemed, secured him to literature. From that time his pen was constantly
+busy for the reviews and magazines. His first work was _An Inquiry into
+the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe_, which, at least, prepared
+the way for his future efforts. This appeared in 1759, and is
+characterized by general knowledge and polish of style.
+
+
+HIS POEMS.--In 1764 he published _The Traveller_, a moralizing poem upon
+the condition of the people under the European governments. It was at once
+and entirely successful; philosophical, elegant, and harmonious, it is
+pitched in a key suited to the capacity of the world at large; and as, in
+the general comparison of nations, he found abundant reason for lauding
+England, it was esteemed patriotic, and was on that account popular. Many
+of its lines have been constantly quoted since.
+
+In 1770 appeared his _Deserted Village_, which was even more popular than
+_The Traveller_; nor has this popularity flagged from that time down to
+the present day. It is full of exquisite pictures of rural life and
+manners. It is what it claims to be,--not an attempt at high art or epic,
+but a gallery of cabinet pictures of rare finish and detail, painted by
+the poet's heart and appealing to the sensibility of every reader. The
+world knows it by heart,--the portraiture of the village schoolmaster and
+his school; the beautiful picture of the country parson:
+
+    A man he was to all the country dear,
+    And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
+
+This latter is a worthy companion-piece to Chaucer's "poor persoune," and
+is, besides, a filial tribute to Goldsmith's father. So real are the
+characters and scenes, that the poem has been a popular subject for the
+artist. If in _The Traveller_ he has been philosophical and didactic, in
+the _Deserted Village_ he is only descriptive and tender. In no work is
+there a finer spirit of true charity, the love of man for God's
+sake,--like God himself, "no respecter of persons."
+
+While in form and versification he is like Pope and the Artificial School,
+he has the sensibility to nature of Thomson, and the simplicity of feeling
+and thought of Wordsworth; and thus he stands between the two great poetic
+periods, partaking of the better nature of both.
+
+
+THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.--Between the appearance of these two poems, in
+1766, came forth that nonpareil of charming stories, _The Vicar of
+Wakefield_. It is so well known that we need not enter into an analysis of
+it. It is the story of a good vicar, of like passions with ourselves; not
+wanting in vanity and impetuosity, but shining in his Christian virtue
+like a star in the midst of accumulating misfortunes,--a man of immaculate
+honor and undying faith, preaching to his fellow-prisoners in the jail,
+surveying death without fear, and at last, like Job, restored to
+happiness, and yet maintaining his humility. It does not seem to have been
+constructed according to artificial rules, but rather to have been told
+extemporaneously, without effort and without ambition; and while this very
+fact has been the cause of some artistic faults and some improbabilities,
+it has also given it a peculiar charm, by contrast with such purely
+artificial constructions as the _Rasselas_ of Johnson.
+
+So doubtful was the publisher, who had bought the manuscript for L60, that
+he held it back for two years, until the name of the author had become
+known through _The Traveller_, and was thus a guarantee for its success.
+The _Vicar of Wakefield_ has also an additional value in its delineation
+of manners, persons, and conditions in that day, and in its strictures
+upon the English penal law, in such terms and with such suggestions as
+seem a prophecy of the changes which have since taken place.
+
+
+HISTORIES, AND OTHER WORKS.--Of Goldsmith's various histories it may be
+said that they are of value for the clear, if superficial, presentation of
+facts, and for their charm of style.
+
+The best is, without doubt, _The History of England_; but the _Histories
+of Greece and Rome_, re-edited, are still used as text-books in many
+schools. The _Vicar_ has been translated into most of the modern
+languages, and imitated by many writers since.
+
+As an essayist, Goldsmith has been a great enricher of English history.
+His Chinese letters--for the idea of which he was indebted to the _Lettres
+Persanes_ of Montesquieu--describe England in his day with the same
+_vraisemblance_ which we have noticed in _The Spectator_. These were
+afterwards collected and published in a volume entitled _The Citizen of
+the World_. And besides the pleasure of biography, and the humor of the
+presentment, his _Life of Beau Nash_ introduces us to Bath and its
+frequenters with historical power. The life at the Spring is one and a
+very valuable phase of English society.
+
+As a dramatist, he was more than equalled by Sheridan; but his two plays,
+_The Good-Natured Man_ and _She Stoops to Conquer_, are still favorites
+upon the stage.
+
+The irregularities of Goldsmith's private life seem to have been rather
+defects in his character than intentional wrong-doings. Generous to a
+fault, squandering without thought what was due to his creditors, losing
+at play, he lived in continual pecuniary embarrassment, and died unhappy,
+with a debt of L1000, the existence of which led Johnson to ejaculate,
+"Was ever poet so trusted before?" He lived a bachelor; and the conclusion
+seems forced upon us that had he married a woman who could have controlled
+him, he, would have been a happier and more respectable man, but perhaps
+have done less for literature than he did.
+
+While Goldsmith was a type and presenter of his age, and while he took no
+high flights in the intellectual realms, he so handled what the age
+presented that he must be allowed the claim of originality, both in his
+poems and in the _Vicar_; and he has had, even to the present day, hosts
+of imitators. Poems on college gala-days were for a long time faint
+reflections of his _Traveller_, and simple, causal stories of quiet life
+are the teeming progeny of the _Vicar_, in spite of the Whistonian
+controversy, and the epitaph of his living wife.
+
+A few of his ballads and songs display great lyric power, but the most of
+his poetry is not lyric; it is rather a blending of the pastoral and epic
+with rare success. His minor poems are few, but favorites. Among these is
+the beautiful ballad entitled _Edwin and Angelina_, or _The Hermit_, which
+first appeared in _The Vicar of Wakefield_, but which has since been
+printed separately among his poems. Of its kind and class it has no
+superior. _Retaliation_ is a humorous epitaph upon his friends and
+co-literati, hitting off their characteristics with truth and point; and
+_The Haunch of Venison_--upon which he did not dine--is an amusing
+incident which might have happened to any Londoner like himself, but which
+no one could have related so well as he.
+
+He died in 1774, at the age of forty-five; but his fame--his better
+life--is more vigorous than ever. Washington Irving, whose writings are
+similar in style to those of Goldsmith, has extended and perpetuated his
+reputation in America by writing his Biography; a charming work, many
+touches of which seem almost autobiographical, as displaying the
+resemblance between the writer and his subject.
+
+
+MACKENZIE.--From Sterne and Goldsmith we pass to Mackenzie, who, if not a
+conscious imitator of the former, is, at least, unconsciously formed upon
+the model of Sterne, without his genius, but also without his coarseness:
+in the management of his narrative, he is a medium between Sterne and
+Walter Scott; indeed, from his long life, he saw the period of both these
+authors, and his writings partake of the characteristics of both.
+
+Henry Mackenzie was born at Edinburgh, in August, 1745, and lived until
+1831, to the ripe age of eighty-six. He was educated at the University of
+Edinburgh, and afterwards studied law. He wrote some strong political
+pamphlets in favor of the Pitt government, for which he was rewarded with
+the office of comptroller of the taxes, which he held to the day of his
+death.
+
+
+THE MAN OF FEELING.--In 1771 the world was equally astonished and
+delighted by the appearance of his first novel, _The Man of Feeling_. In
+this there are manifest tokens of his debt to Sterne's _Sentimental
+Journey_, in the journey of Harley, in the story of the beggar and his
+dog, and in somewhat of the same forced sensibility in the account of
+Harley's death.
+
+In 1773 appeared his _Man of the World_ which was in some sort a sequel to
+the _Man of Feeling_, but which wearies by the monotony of the plot.
+
+In 1777 he published _Julia de Roubigne_, which, in the opinion of many,
+shares the palm with his first novel: the plot is more varied than that of
+the second, and the language is exceedingly harmonious--elegiac prose. The
+story is plaintive and painful: virtue is extolled, but made to suffer, in
+a domestic tragedy, which all readers would be glad to see ending
+differently.
+
+At different times Mackenzie edited _The Mirror_ and _The Lounger_, and he
+has been called the restorer of the Essay. His story of the venerable _La
+Roche_, contributed to _The Mirror_, is perhaps the best specimen of his
+powers as a sentimentalist: it portrays the influence of Christianity, as
+exhibited in the very face of infidelity, to support the soul in the
+sorest of trials--the death of an only and peerless daughter.
+
+His contributions to the above-named periodicals were very numerous and
+popular.
+
+The name of his first novel was applied to himself as a man. He was known
+as the _man of feeling_ to the whole community. This was a misnomer: he
+was kind and affable; his evening parties were delightful; but he had
+nothing of the pathetic or sentimental about him. On the contrary, he was
+humorous, practical, and worldly-wise; very fond of field sports and
+athletic exercises. His sentiment--which has been variously criticized, by
+some as the perfection of moral pathos, and by others as lackadaisical and
+canting--may be said to have sprung rather from his observations of life
+and manners than to have welled spontaneously from any source within his
+own heart.
+
+Sterne and Goldsmith will be read as long as the English language lasts,
+and their representative characters will be quoted as models and standards
+everywhere: Mackenzie is fast falling into an oblivion from which he will
+only be resuscitated by the historian of English Literature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE HISTORICAL TRIAD IN THE SCEPTICAL AGE.
+
+
+   The Sceptical Age. David Hume. History of England. Metaphysics. Essay
+   on Miracles. Robertson. Histories. Gibbon. The Decline and Fall.
+
+
+
+THE SCEPTICAL AGE.
+
+
+History presents itself to the student in two forms: The first is
+_chronicle_, or a simple relation of facts and statistics; and the second,
+_philosophical history_, in which we use these facts and statistics in the
+consideration of cause and effect, and endeavor to extract a moral from
+the actions and events recorded. From pregnant causes the philosophic
+historian traces, at long distances, the important results; or,
+conversely, from the present condition of things--the good and evil around
+him--he runs back, sometimes remotely, to the causes from which they have
+sprung. Chronicle is very pleasing to read, and the reader may be, to some
+extent, his own philosopher; but the importance of history as a study is
+found in its philosophy.
+
+As far down as the eighteenth century, almost everything in history
+partakes of the nature of chronicle. In that century, in obedience to the
+law of human progress, there sprang up in England and on the Continent the
+men who first made chronicle material for philosophy, and used philosophy
+to teach by example what to imitate and what to shun.
+
+What were the circumstances which led, in the eighteenth century, to the
+simultaneous appearance of Hume, Gibbon, and Robertson, as the originators
+of a new school of history? Some of them have been already mentioned in
+treating of the antiquarian age. We have endeavored to show how the
+English literati--novelists, essayists, and poets--have been in part
+unconscious historians. It will also appear that the professed historians
+themselves have been, in a great measure, the creatures of English
+history. The _fifteenth_ century was the period when the revival of
+letters took place, and a great spur was given to mental activity; but the
+world, like a child, was again learning rudiments, and finding out what it
+was, and what it possessed at that present time: it received the new
+classical culture presented to it at the fall of the lower empire, and was
+content to learn the existing, without endeavoring to create the new, or
+even to recompose the scattered fragments of the past. The _eighteenth_
+century saw a new revival: the world had become a man; great progress was
+reported in arts, in inventions, and in discoveries; science began to
+labor at the arduous but important task of classification; new theories of
+government and laws were propounded; the past was consulted that its
+experience might be applied; the partisan chronicles needed to be united
+and compared that truth might be elicited; the philosophic historian was
+required, and the people were ready to learn, and to criticize, what he
+produced.
+
+I have ventured to call this the Sceptical Age. It had other
+characteristics: this was one. We use the word sceptical in its
+etymological sense: it was an age of inquiry, of doubt to be resolved.
+Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, D'Alembert, and Diderot had founded a new
+school of universal inquiry, and from their bold investigations and
+startling theories sprang the society of the _illuminati_, and the race of
+thinkers. They went too far: they stabbed the truth as it lay in the grasp
+of error. From thinkers they became free-thinkers: from philosophers they
+became infidels, and some of them atheists. This was the age which
+produced "the triumvirate of British historians who," in the words of
+Montgomery, "exemplified in their very dissimilar styles the triple
+contrast of simplicity, elegance, and splendor."
+
+Imbued with this spirit of the time, Hume undertook to write a _History of
+England_, which, with all its errors and faults, still ranks among the
+best efforts of English historians. Like the French philosophers, Hume was
+an infidel, and his scepticism appears in his writings; but, unlike
+them--for they were stanch reformers in government as well as infidels in
+faith--he who was an infidel was also an aristocrat in sentiment, and a
+consistent Tory his life long. In his history, with all the artifices of a
+philosopher, he takes the Jacobite side in the civil war.
+
+
+HUME.--David Hume was born in Edinburgh on the 26th of April (O.S.), 1711.
+His life was without many vicissitudes of interest, but his efforts to
+achieve an enduring reputation on the most solid grounds, mark him as a
+notable example of patient industry, study, and economy. He led a
+studious, systematic, and consistent life.
+
+Although of good family,--being a descendant of the Earl of Home,--he was
+in poor circumstances, and after some study of the law, and some
+unsuccessful literary ventures, he was obliged to seek employment as a
+means of livelihood. Thus he became tutor or keeper to the young Marquis
+of Annandale, who was insane. Abandoning this position in disgust, he was
+appointed secretary to General St. Clair in various embassies,--to Paris,
+Vienna, and Turin; everywhere hoarding his pay, until he became
+independent, "though," he says, "most of my friends were inclined to smile
+when I said so; in short, I was master of a thousand pounds."
+
+His earliest work was a _Treatise on Human Nature_, published in 1738,
+which met with no success. Nothing discouraged thereat, in 1741 he issued
+a volume of _Essays Moral and Political_, the success of which emboldened
+him to publish, in 1748, his _Inquiry Concerning the Human Understanding_.
+These and other works were preparing his pen for its greater task, the
+material for which he was soon to find.
+
+In 1752 he was appointed librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, not for
+the emolument, but with the real purpose of having entire control of the
+books and material in the library; and then he determined to write the
+_History of England_.
+
+
+HISTORY OF ENGLAND.--He began with the accession of the Stuarts, in 1603,
+the period when the popular element, so long kept tranquil by the power
+and sex of Queen Elizabeth, was ready first to break out into open
+assertion. Hume's self-deception must have been rudely discovered to him;
+for he tells us, in an autobiography fortunately preserved, that he
+expected so dispassionately to steer clear of all existent parties, or,
+rather, to be so just to all, that he should gain universal approbation.
+"Miserable," he adds, "was my disappointment. I was assailed by one cry of
+reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation. English, Scotch, Irish,
+Whig and Tory, churchman and sectary, free-thinker and religionist,
+patriot and courtier, united, in their rage, against the man who had
+presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl
+of Strafford." How far, too, this was ignorant invective, may be judged
+from the fact that in twelve months only forty-five copies of his work
+were sold.
+
+However, he patiently continued his labor. The first volume, containing
+the reigns of James I. and Charles I, had been issued in 1754; his second,
+published in 1756, and containing the later history of the Commonwealth,
+of Charles II., and James II., and concluding with the revolution of 1688,
+was received with more favor, and "helped to buoy up its unfortunate
+brother." Then he worked backward: in 1759 he produced the reigns of the
+house of Tudor; and in 1761, the earlier history, completing his work,
+from the earliest times to 1688. The tide had now turned in his favor; the
+sales were large, and his pecuniary rewards greater than any historian had
+yet received.
+
+The Tory character of his work is very decided: he not only sheds a
+generous tear for the fate of Charles I., but conceals or glosses the
+villanies of Stuarts far worse than Charles. The liberties of England
+consist, in his eyes, of wise concessions made by the sovereign, rather
+than as the inalienable birthright of the English man.
+
+He has also been charged with want of industry and honesty in the use of
+his materials--taking things at second-hand, without consulting original
+authorities which were within his reach, and thus falling into many
+mistakes, while placing in his marginal notes the names of the original
+authors. This charge is particularly just with reference to the
+Anglo-Saxon period, since so picturesquely described by Sharon Turner.
+
+The first in order of the philosophical historians, he is rather a
+collector of facts than a skilful diviner with them. His style is sonorous
+and fluent, but not idiomatic. Dr. Johnson said, "His style is not
+English; the structure of his sentences is French,"--an opinion concurred
+in by the eminent critic, Lord Jeffrey.
+
+But whatever the criticism, the _History_ of Hume is a great work. He did
+what was never done before. For a long time his work stood alone; and even
+now it has the charm of a clear, connected narrative, which is still
+largely consulted by many who are forewarned of its errors and faults. And
+however unidiomatic his style, it is very graceful and flowing, and lends
+a peculiar charm to his narrative.
+
+
+METAPHYSICS.--Of Hume as a philosopher, we need not here say much. He was
+acute, intelligent, and subtle; he was, in metaphysical language, "a
+sceptical nihilist." And here a distinction must be made between his
+religious tenets and his philosophical views,--a distinction so happily
+stated by Sir William Hamilton, that we present it in his words: "Though
+decidedly opposed to one and all of Hume's theological conclusions, I have
+no hesitation in asserting of his philosophical scepticism, that this was
+not only beneficial in its results, but, in the circumstances of the
+period, even a necessary step in the progress of Philosophy towards
+Truth." And again he says, "To Hume we owe the philosophy of Kant, and
+therefore also, in general, the later philosophy of Germany." "To Hume, in
+like manner, we owe the philosophy of Reid, and, consequently, what is now
+distinctively known in Europe as the Philosophy of the Scottish School."
+Great praise this from one of the greatest Christian philosophers of this
+century, and it shows Hume to have been more original as a philosopher
+than as an historian.
+
+He is also greatly commended by Lord Brougham as a political economist.
+"His _Political Discourses_," says his lordship, "combine almost every
+excellence which can belong to such a performance.... Their great merit is
+their originality, and the new system of politics and political economy
+which they unfold."
+
+
+MIRACLES.--The work in which is most fairly set forth his religious
+scepticism is his _Essay on Miracles_. In it he adopts the position of
+Locke, who had declared "that men should not believe any proposition that
+is contrary to reason, on the authority either of inspiration or of
+miracle; for the reality of the inspiration or of the miracle can only be
+established by reason." Before Hume, assaults on the miracles recorded in
+Scripture were numerous and varied. Spinoza and the Pantheistic School had
+started the question, "Are miracles possible?" and had taken the negative.
+Hume's question is, "Are miracles credible?" And as they are contrary to
+human experience, his answer is essentially that it must be always more
+probable that a miracle is false than that it is true; since it is not
+contrary to experience that witnesses are false or deceived. With him it
+is, therefore, a question of the preponderance of evidence, which he
+declares to be always against the miracle. This is not the place to
+discuss these topics. Archbishop Whately has practically illustrated the
+fallacy of Hume's reasoning, in a little book called _Historic Doubts,
+relative to Napoleon Bonaparte_, in which, with Hume's logic, he has
+proved, that the great emperor never lived; and Whately's successor in the
+archbishopric of Dublin, Dr. Trench, has given us some thoughtful words on
+the subject: "So long as we abide in the region of nature, miraculous and
+improbable, miraculous and incredible may be allowed to remain convertible
+terms; but once lift up the whole discussion into a higher region, once
+acknowledge aught higher than nature--_a kingdom of God_, and men the
+intended denizens of it--and the whole argument loses its strength and the
+force of its conclusions."
+
+Hume's death occurred on the 25th of August, 1776. His scepticism, or
+philosophy as he called it, remained with him to the end. He even diverted
+himself with the prospect of the excuses he would make to Charon as he
+reached the fatal river, and is among the few doubters who have calmly
+approached the grave without that concern which the Christian's hope alone
+is generally able to dispel.
+
+
+WILLIAM ROBERTSON.--the second of the great historians of the eighteenth
+century, although very different from the others in his personal life and
+in his creed,--was, like them, a representative and creature of the age.
+They form, indeed, a trio in literary character as well as in period; and
+we have letters from each to the others on the appearance of their works,
+showing that they form also what in the present day is called a "Mutual
+Admiration Society." They were above common envy: they recognized each
+other's excellence, and forbore to speak of each other's faults. As a
+philosopher, Hume was the greatest of the three; as an historian, the palm
+must be awarded to Gibbon. But Robertson surprises us most from the fact
+that a quiet Scotch pastor, who never travelled, should have attempted,
+and so gracefully treated, subjects of such general interest as those he
+handled.
+
+William Robertson was the son of a Scottish minister, and was born at
+Borthwick, in Scotland, on September 19th, in the year 1721. He was a
+precocious child, and, after attending school at Dalkeith, he entered the
+University of Edinburgh at the age of twelve. At the age of twenty he was
+licensed to preach. He published, in 1755, a sermon on _The Situation of
+the World at the Time of Christ's Appearance_, which attracted attention;
+but he astonished the world by issuing, in 1759, his _History of Scotland
+During the Reigns of Queen Mary, and of James VI. until his Accession to
+the Crown of England_. This is undoubtedly his best work, but not of such
+general interest as his others. His materials were scanty, and he did not
+consult such as were in his reach with much assiduity. The invaluable
+records of the archives of Simancas were not then opened to the world, but
+he lived among the scenes of his narrative, and had the advantage of
+knowing all the traditions and of hearing all the vehement opinions _pro_
+and _con_ upon the subjects of which he treated. The character of Queen
+Mary is drawn with a just but sympathetic hand, and his verdict is not so
+utterly denunciatory as that of Mr. Froude. Such was the popularity of
+this work, that in 1764 its author was appointed to the honorable office
+of Historiographer to His Majesty for Scotland. In 1769 he published his
+_History of Charles V._ Here was a new surprise. Whatever its faults, as
+afterwards discerned by the critics, it opened a new and brilliant page to
+the uninitiated reader, and increased his reputation very greatly. The
+history is preceded by a _View of the Progress of Society in Europe from
+the Subversion of the Roman Empire to the Beginning of the Sixteenth
+Century_. The best praise that can be given to this _View_ is, that
+students have since used it as the most excellent summary of that kind
+existing. Of the history itself it may be said that, while it is greatly
+wanting in historic material in the interest of the narrative and the
+splendor of the pageantry of the imperial court, it marked a new era in
+historical delineations.
+
+
+HISTORY OF AMERICA.--In 1777 appeared the first eight books of his
+_History of America_, to which, in 1778, he appended additions and
+corrections. The concluding books, the ninth and tenth, did not appear
+until 1796, when, three years after his death, they were issued by his
+son. As a connected narrative of so great an event in the world's history
+as the discovery of America, it stood quite alone. If, since that time,
+far better and fuller histories have appeared, we should not withhold our
+meed of praise from this excellent forerunner of them all. One great
+defect of this and the preceding work was his want of knowledge of the
+German and Spanish historians, and of the original papers then locked up
+in the archives of Simancas; later access to which has given such great
+value to the researches of Irving and Prescott and Sterling. Besides,
+Robertson lacked the life-giving power which is the property of true
+genius. His characters are automata gorgeously arrayed, but without
+breath; his style is fluent and sometimes sparkling, but in all respects
+he has been superseded, and his works remain only as curious
+representatives of the age to the literary student. One other work remains
+to be mentioned, and that is his _Historical Disquisition Concerning the
+Knowledge which the Ancients had of India, and the Progress of Trade with
+that Country Prior to the Discovery of the Passage to it by the Cape of
+Good Hope_. This is chiefly of value as it indicates the interest felt in
+England at the rise of the English Empire in India; but for real facts it
+has no value at all.
+
+
+GIBBON.--Last in order of time, though far superior as an historian to
+Hume and Robertson, stands Edward Gibbon, the greatest historian England
+has produced, whether we regard the dignity of his style--antithetic and
+sonorous; the range of his subject--the history of a thousand years; the
+astonishing fidelity of his research in every department which contains
+historic materials; or the symmetry and completeness of his colossal work.
+
+Like Hume, he has left us a sketch of his own life and labors, simple and
+dispassionate, from which it appears that he was born in London on the
+27th of April, 1737; and, being of a good family, he had every advantage
+of education. Passing a short time at the University of Oxford, he stands
+in a small minority of those who can find no good in their _Alma Mater_.
+"To the University of Oxford," he says, "I acknowledge no obligation, and
+she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son as I am willing to disclaim
+her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College. They proved
+to be fourteen of the most idle and unprofitable months of my whole life."
+This singular experience may be contrasted with that of hundreds, but may
+be most fittingly illustrated by stating that of Dr. Lowth, a venerable
+contemporary of the historian. He speaks enthusiastically of the place
+where the student is able "to breathe the same atmosphere that had been
+breathed by Hooker and Chillingworth and Locke; to revel in its grand and
+well-ordered libraries; to form part of that academic society where
+emulation without envy, ambition without jealousy, contention without
+animosity, incited industry and awakened genius."
+
+Gibbon, while still in his boyhood, had read with avidity ancient and
+modern history, and had written a juvenile paper on _The Age of
+Sesostris_, which was, at least, suggested by Voltaire's _Siecle de Louis
+XIV_.
+
+Early interested, too, in the history of Christianity, his studies led him
+to become a Roman Catholic; but his belief was by no means stable. Sent by
+his father to Lausanne, in Switzerland, to be under the religious training
+of a Protestant minister, he changed his opinions, and became again a
+Protestant. His convictions, however, were once more shaken, and, at the
+last, he became a man of no creed, a sceptic of the school of Voltaire, a
+creature of the age of illumination. Many passages of his history display
+a sneering unbelief, which moves some persons more powerfully than the
+subtlest argument. This modern Platonist, beginning with sensation,
+evolves his philosophy from within,--from the finite mind; whereas human
+history can only be explained in the light of revelation, which gives to
+humanity faith, but which educes all science from the infinite--the mind
+of God.
+
+The history written by Gibbon, called _The Decline and Fall of the Roman
+Empire_, begins with that empire in its best days, under Hadrian, and
+extends to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, under Mohammed II.,
+in 1453.
+
+And this marvellous scope he has treated with a wonderful equality of
+research and power;--the world-absorbing empire, the origin and movements
+of the northern tribes and the Scythian marauders, the fall of the Western
+Empire, the history of the civil law, the establishment of the Gothic
+monarchies, the rise and spread of Mohammedanism, the obscurity of the
+middle age deepening into gloom, the crusades, the dawning of letters, and
+the inauguration of the modern era after the fall of Constantinople,--the
+detailed history of a thousand years. It is difficult to conceive that any
+one should suggest such a task to himself; it is astonishing to think
+that, with a dignified, self-reliant tenacity of purpose, it should have
+been completely achieved. It was an historic period, in which, in the
+words of Corneille, "_Un grand destin commence un grand destin s'acheve_."
+In many respects Gibbon's work stands alone; the general student must
+refer to Gibbon, because there is no other work to which he can refer. It
+was translated by Guizot into French, the first volume by Wenck into
+German (he died before completing it); and it was edited by Dean Milman in
+England.
+
+The style of Gibbon is elegant and powerful; at first it is singularly
+pleasing, but as one reads it becomes too sonorous, and fatigues, as the
+crashing notes of a grand march tire the ear. His periods are antithetic;
+each contains a surprise and a witty point. His first two volumes have
+less of this stately magnificence, but in his later ones, in seeking to
+vindicate popular applause, he aims to shine, and perpetually labors for
+effect. Although not such a philosopher as Hume, his work is quite as
+philosophical as Hume's history, and he has been more faithful in the use
+of his materials. Guizot, while pointing out his errors, says he was
+struck, after "a second and attentive perusal," with "the immensity of his
+researches, the variety of his knowledge, and, above all, with that truly
+philosophical discrimination which judges the past as it would judge the
+present."
+
+The danger to the unwary reader is from the sceptical bias of the author,
+which, while he states every important fact, leads him, by its manner of
+presentation, to warp it, or put it in a false light. Thus, for example,
+he has praise for paganism, and easy absolution for its sins; Mohammed
+walks the stage with a stately stride; Alaric overruns Europe to a grand
+quickstep; but Christianity awakens no enthusiasm, and receives no
+eulogium, although he describes its early struggles, its martyrdoms, its
+triumphs under Constantine, its gentle radiance during the dark ages, and
+its powerful awakening. Because he cannot believe, he cannot even be just.
+
+In his special chapter on the rise and spread of Christianity, he gives a
+valuable summary of its history, and of the claims of the papacy, with
+perhaps a leaning towards the Latin Church. Gibbon finished his work at
+Lausanne on the 27th of June, 1787.
+
+Its conception had come to his mind as he sat one evening amid the ruins
+of the Capitol at Rome, and heard the barefooted friars singing vespers in
+the Temple of Jupiter. He had then thought of writing the decline and fall
+of the city of Rome, but soon expanded his view to the empire. This was in
+1764. Nearly thirteen years afterwards, he wrote the last line of the last
+page in his garden-house at Lausanne, and reflected joyfully upon his
+recovered freedom and his permanent fame. His second thought, however,
+will fitly close this notice with a moral from his own lips: "My pride was
+soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea
+that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion,
+and that whatever might be the future fate of my history, the life of the
+historian must be short and precarious."
+
+
+
+OTHER CONTRIBUTORS TO HISTORY.
+
+
+_James Boswell_, 1740-1795: he was the son of a Scottish judge called Lord
+Auchinleck, from his estate. He studied law, and travelled, publishing, on
+his return, _Journal of a Tour in Corsica_. He appears to us a
+simple-hearted and amiable man, inquisitive, and exact in details. He
+became acquainted with Dr. Johnson in 1763, and conceived an immense
+admiration for him. In numerous visits to London, and in their tour to the
+Hebrides together, he noted Johnson's speech and actions, and, in 1791,
+published his life, which has already been characterized as the greatest
+biography ever written. Its value is manifold; not only is it a faithful
+portrait of the great writer, but, in the detailed record of his life, we
+have the wit, dogmatism, and learning of his hero, as expressing and
+illustrating the history of the age, quite as fully as the published works
+of Johnson. In return for this most valuable contribution to history and
+literature, the critics, one and all, have taxed their ingenuity to find
+strong words of ridicule and contempt for Boswell, and have done him great
+injustice. Because he bowed before the genius of Johnson, he was not a
+toady, nor a fool; at the worst, he was a fanatic, and a not always wise
+champion. Johnson was his king, and his loyalty was unqualified.
+
+
+_Horace Walpole_, the Right Honorable, and afterwards Earl of Orford,
+1717-1797: he was a wit, a satirist, and a most accomplished writer, who,
+notwithstanding, affected to despise literary fame. His paternity was
+doubted; but he enjoyed wealth and honors, and, by the possession of three
+sinecures, he lived a life of elegant leisure. He transformed a small
+house on the bank of the Thames, at Twickenham, into a miniature castle,
+called _Strawberry Hill_, which he filled with curiosities. He held a very
+versatile pen, and wrote much on many subjects. Among his desultory works
+are: _Anecdotes of Painting in England_, and _AEdes Walpoliana_, a
+description of the pictures at Houghton Hall, the seat of Sir Robert
+Walpole. He also ranks among the novelists, as the author of _The Castle
+of Otranto_, in which he deviates from the path of preceding writers of
+fiction--a sort of individual reaction from their portraitures of existing
+society to the marvellous and sensational. This work has been variously
+criticized; by some it has been considered a great flight of the
+imagination, but by most it is regarded as unnatural and full of
+"pasteboard machinery." He had immediate followers in this vein, among
+whom are Mrs. Aphra Behn, in her _Old English Baron_; and Ann Radcliffe,
+in _The Romance of the Forest_, and _The Mysteries of Udolpho_. Walpole
+also wrote a work entitled _Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of
+Richard III_. But his great value as a writer is to be found in his
+_Memoirs_ and varied _Correspondence_, in which he presents photographs of
+the society in which he lives. Scott calls him "the best letter-writer in
+the language." Among the series of his letters, those of the greatest
+historical importance are those addressed to Sir Horace Mann, between 1760
+and 1785. Of this series, Macaulay, who is his severest critic, says: "It
+forms a connected whole--a regular journal of what appeared to Walpole the
+most important transactions of the last twenty years of George II.'s
+reign. It contains much new information concerning the history of that
+time, the portion of English history of which common readers know the
+least."
+
+
+_John Lord Hervey_, 1696-1743: he is known for his attempts in poetry, and
+for a large correspondence, since published; but his chief title to rank
+among the contributors to history is found in his _Memoirs of the Court of
+George II. and Queen Caroline_, which were not published until 1848. They
+give an unrivalled view of the court and of the royal household; and the
+variety of the topics, combined with the excellence of description, render
+them admirable as aids to understanding the history.
+
+
+_Sir William Blackstone_, 1723-1780: a distinguished lawyer, he was an
+unwearied student of the history of the English statute law, and was on
+that account made Professor of Law in the University of Oxford. Some time
+a member of Parliament, he was afterwards appointed a judge. He edited
+_Magna Charta_ and _The Forest Charter_ of King John and Henry III. But
+his great work, one that has made his name famous, is _The Commentaries on
+the Laws of England_. Notwithstanding much envious criticism, it has
+maintained its place as a standard work. It has been again and again
+edited, and perhaps never better than by the Hon. George Sharswood, one of
+the Judges of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
+
+
+_Adam Smith_, 1723-1790: this distinguished writer on political economy,
+the intelligent precursor of a system based upon the modern usage of
+nations, was educated at Glasgow and Oxford, and became in turn Professor
+of Logic and of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow. His lecture
+courses in Moral Science contain the germs of his two principal works: 1.
+_The Theory of Moral Sentiments_, and 2. _An Enquiry into the Nature and
+Causes of the Wealth of Nations_. The theory of the first has been
+superseded by the sounder views of later writers; but the second has
+conferred upon him enduring honor. In it he establishes as a principle
+that _labor_ is the source of national wealth, and displays the value of
+division of labor. This work--written in clear, simple language, with
+copious illustrations--has had a wonderful influence upon the legislation
+and the commercial system of all civilized states since its issue, and has
+greatly conduced to the happiness of the human race. He wrote it in
+retirement, during a period of ten years. He astonished and instructed his
+period by presenting it with a new and necessary science.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+SAMUEL JOHNSON AND HIS TIMES.
+
+
+   Early Life and Career. London. Rambler and Idler. The Dictionary. Other
+   Works. Lives of the Poets. Person and Character. Style. Junius.
+
+
+
+EARLY LIFE AND CAREER.
+
+
+Doctor Samuel Johnson was poet, dramatist, essayist, lexicographer,
+dogmatist, and critic, and, in this array of professional characters,
+played so distinguished a part in his day that he was long regarded as a
+prodigy in English literature. His influence has waned since his
+personality has grown dim, and his learning been superseded or
+overshadowed; but he still remains, and must always remain, the most
+prominent literary figure of his age; and this is in no small measure due
+to his good fortune in having such a champion and biographer as James
+Boswell. Johnson's Life by Boswell is without a rival among biographies:
+in the words of Macaulay: "Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic
+poets; Shakspeare is not more decidedly the first of dramatists;
+Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of orators, than Boswell is
+the first of biographers;" and Burke has said that Johnson appears far
+greater in Boswell's book than in his own. We thus know everything about
+Johnson, as we do not know about any other literary man, and this
+knowledge, due to his biographer, is at least one of the elements of
+Johnson's immense reputation.
+
+He was born at Lichfield on the 18th of September, 1709. His father was a
+bookseller; and after having had a certain amount of knowledge "well
+beaten into him" by Mr. Hunter, young Johnson was for two years an
+assistant in his father's shop. But such was his aptitude for learning,
+that he was sent in 1728 to Pembroke College, Oxford. His youth was not a
+happy one: he was afflicted with scrofula, "which disfigured a countenance
+naturally well formed, and hurt his visual nerves so much that he did not
+see at all with one of his eyes." He had a morbid melancholy,--fits of
+dejection which made his life miserable. He was poor; and when, in 1731,
+his father died insolvent, he was obliged to leave the university without
+a degree. After fruitless attempts to establish a school, he married, in
+1736, Mrs. Porter, a widow, who had L800. Rude and unprepossessing to
+others, she was sincerely loved by her husband, and deeply lamented when
+she died. In 1737 Johnson went to London in company with young Garrick,
+who had been one of his few pupils, and who was soon to fill the English
+world with his theatrical fame.
+
+
+LONDON.--Johnson soon began to write for Cave's _Gentleman's Magazine_,
+and in 1738 he astonished Pope and the artificial poets by producing, in
+their best vein, his imitation of the third Satire of Juvenal, which he
+called _London_. This was his usher into the realm of literature. But he
+did not become prominent until he had reached his fiftieth year; he
+continued to struggle with gloom and poverty, too proud to seek patronage
+in an age when popular remuneration had not taken its place. In 1740 he
+was a reporter of the debates in parliament for Cave; and it is said that
+many of the indifferent speakers were astonished to read the next day the
+fine things which the reporter had placed in their mouths, which they had
+never uttered.
+
+In 1749 he published his _Vanity of Human Wishes_, an imitation of the
+tenth Satire of Juvenal, which was as heartily welcomed as _London_ had
+been. It is Juvenal applied to English and European history. It contains
+many lines familiar to us all; among them are the following:
+
+    Let observation with extended view
+    Survey mankind from China to Peru.
+
+In speaking of Charles XII., he says:
+
+    His fall was destined to a barren strand,
+    A petty fortress and a dubious hand;
+    He left a name at which the world grew pale,
+    To point a moral or adorn a tale.
+
+    From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow,
+    And Swift expires a driveller and a show.
+
+In the same year he published his tragedy of _Irene_, which,
+notwithstanding the friendly efforts of Garrick, who was now manager of
+Drury Lane Theatre, was not successful. As a poet, Johnson was the
+perfection of the artificial school; and this very technical perfection
+was one of the causes of the reaction which was already beginning to sweep
+it away.
+
+
+RAMBLER AND IDLER.--In 1750 he commenced _The Rambler_, a periodical like
+_The Spectator_, of which he wrote nearly all the articles, and which
+lived for two years. Solemn, didactic, and sonorous, it lacked the variety
+and genial humor which had characterized Addison and Steele. In 1758 he
+started _The Idler_, in the same vein, which also ran its respectable
+course for two years. In 1759 his mother died, and, in order to defray the
+expenses of her funeral, he wrote his story of _Rasselas_ in the evenings
+of one week, for two editions of which he received L125. Full of moral
+aphorisms and instruction, this "Abyssinian tale" is entirely English in
+philosophy and fancy, and has not even the slight illusion of other
+Eastern tales in French and English, which were written about the same
+time, and which are very similar in form and matter. Of _Rasselas_,
+Hazlitt says: "It is the most melancholy and debilitating moral
+speculation that was ever put forth."
+
+
+THE DICTIONARY.--As early as 1747 he had begun to write his English
+Dictionary, which, after eight years of incessant and unassisted labor,
+appeared in 1755. It was a noble thought, and produced a noble work--a
+work which filled an original vacancy. In France, a National Academy had
+undertaken a similar work; but this English giant had accomplished his
+labors alone. The amount of reading necessary to fix and illustrate his
+definitions was enormous, and the book is especially valuable from the apt
+and varied quotations from English authors. He established the language,
+as he found it, on a firm basis in signification and orthography. He laid
+the foundation upon which future lexicographers were to build; but he was
+ignorant of the Teutonic languages, from which so much of the structure
+and words of the English are taken, and thus is signally wanting in the
+scientific treatment of his subject. This is not to his discredit, for the
+science of language has had its origin in a later and modern time.
+
+Perhaps nothing displays more fully the proud, sturdy, and self-reliant
+character of the man, than the eight years of incessant and unassisted
+labor upon this work.
+
+His letter to Lord Chesterfield, declining his tardy patronage, after
+experiencing his earlier neglect, is a model of severe and yet respectful
+rebuke, and is to be regarded as one of the most significant events in his
+history. In it he says: "The notice you have been pleased to take of my
+labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I
+am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart
+it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical
+asperity not to confess obligation when no benefit has been received, or
+to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a
+patron which Providence has enabled me to do for myself." Living as he did
+in an age when the patronage of the great was wearing out, and public
+appreciation beginning to reward an author's toils, this manly letter gave
+another stab to the former, and hastened the progress of the latter.
+
+
+OTHER WORKS.--The fame of Johnson was now fully established, and his
+labors were rewarded, in 1762, by the receipt of a pension of L300 from
+the government, which made him quite independent. It was then, in the very
+heyday of his reputation, that, in 1763, he became acquainted with James
+Boswell, to whom he at once became a Grand Lama; who took down the words
+as they dropped from his lips, and embalmed his fame.
+
+In 1764 he issued his edition of Shakspeare, in eight octavo volumes, of
+which the best that can be said is, that it is not valuable as a
+commentary. A commentator must have something in common with his author;
+there was nothing congenial between Shakspeare and Johnson.
+
+It was in 1773, that, urged by Boswell, he made his famous _Journey to the
+Hebrides_, or Western Islands of Scotland, of which he gave delightful
+descriptions in a series of letters to his friend Mrs. Thrale, which he
+afterwards wrote out in more pompous style for publication. The letters
+are current, witty, and simple; the published work is stilted and
+grandiloquent.
+
+It is well known that he had no sympathy with the American colonies in
+their struggle against British oppression. When, in 1775, the Congress
+published their _Resolutions_ and _Address_, he answered them in a
+prejudiced and illogical paper entitled _Taxation no Tyranny_.
+Notwithstanding its want of argument, it had the weight of his name and of
+a large party; but history has construed it by the _animus_ of the writer,
+who had not long before declared of the colonists that they were "a race
+of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of
+hanging."
+
+As early as 1744 he had published a Life of the gifted but unhappy
+Savage, whom in his days of penury he had known, and with whom he had
+sympathized; but in 1781 appeared his _Lives of the English Poets, with
+Critical Observations on their Works_, and _Lives of Sundry Eminent
+Persons_.
+
+
+LIVES OF THE POETS.--These comprise fifty-two poets, most of them little
+known at the present day, and thirteen _eminent persons_. Of historical
+value, as showing us the estimate of an age in which Johnson was an usher
+to the temple of Fame, they are now of little other value; those of his
+own school and coterie he could understand and eulogize. To Milton he
+accorded carefully measured praise, but could not do him full justice,
+from entire want of sympathy; the majesty of blank verse pentameters he
+could not appreciate, and from Milton's puritanism he recoiled with
+disgust.
+
+Johnson died on the 13th of December, 1784, and was buried in Westminster
+Abbey; a flat stone with an inscription was placed over his grave: it was
+also designed to erect his monument there, but St. Paul's Cathedral was
+afterwards chosen as the place. There, a colossal figure represents the
+distinguished author, and a Latin epitaph, written by Dr. Parr, records
+his virtues and his achievements in literature.
+
+
+PERSON AND CHARACTER.--A few words must suffice to give a summary of his
+character, and will exhibit some singular contrarieties. He had varied but
+not very profound learning; was earnest, self-satisfied, overbearing in
+argument, or, as Sir Walter Scott styles it, _despotic_. As distinguished
+for his powers of conversation as for his writings, he always talked _ex
+cathedra_, and was exceedingly impatient of opposition. Brutal in his word
+attacks, he concealed by tone and manner a generous heart. Grandiloquent
+in ordinary matters, he "made little fishes talk like whales."
+
+Always swayed by religious influences, he was intolerant of the sects
+around him; habitually pious, he was not without superstition; he was not
+an unbeliever in ghostly apparitions, and had a great fear of death; he
+also had the touching mania--touching every post as he walked along the
+street, thereby to avoid some unknown evil.
+
+Although of rural origin, he became a thorough London cockney, and his
+hatred of Scotchmen and dissenters is at once pitiful and ludicrous. His
+manners and gestures were uncouth and disagreeable. He devoured rather
+than eat his food, and was a remarkable tea-drinker; on one occasion,
+perhaps for bravado, taking twenty-five cups at a sitting.
+
+Massive in figure, seamed with scrofulous scars and marks, seeing with but
+one eye, he had convulsive motions and twitches, and his slovenly dress
+added to the uncouthness and oddity of his appearance. In all respects he
+was an original, and even his defects and peculiarities seemed to conduce
+to make him famous.
+
+Considered the first among the critics of his own day, later judgments
+have reversed his decisions; many of those whom he praised have sunk into
+obscurity, and those whom he failed to appreciate have been elevated to
+the highest pedestals in the literary House of Fame.
+
+
+STYLE.--His style is full-sounding and antithetic, his periods are
+carefully balanced, his manner eminently respectable and good; but his
+words, very many of them of Latin derivation, constitute what the later
+critics have named _Johnsonese_, which is certainly capable of translation
+into plainer Saxon English, with good results. Thus, in speaking of
+Addison's style, he says: "It is pure without scrupulosity, and exact
+without apparent elaboration; ... he seeks no ambitious ornaments, and
+tries no hazardous innovations; his page is always luminous, but never
+blazes in unexpected splendor." Very numerous examples might be given of
+sentences most of the words in which might be replaced by simpler
+expressions with great advantage to the sound and to the sense.
+
+As a critic, his word was law: his opinion was clearly and often severely
+expressed on literary men and literary subjects, and no great writer of
+his own or a past age escaped either his praise or his censure. Authors
+wrote with the fear of his criticism before their eyes; and his pompous
+diction was long imitated by men who, without this influence, would have
+written far better English. But, on the other hand, his honesty, his
+scholarship, his piety, and his championship of what was good and true, as
+depicted in his writings, made him a blessing to his time, and an honored
+and notable character in the noble line of English authors.
+
+
+JUNIUS.--Among the most significant and instructive writings to the
+student of English history, in the earlier part of the reign of George
+III., is a series of letters written by a person, or by several persons in
+combination, whose _nom de plume_ was Junius. These letters specified the
+errors and abuses of the government, were exceedingly bold in denunciation
+and bitter in invective. The letters of Junius were forty-four in number,
+and were addressed to Mr. Woodfall, the proprietor of _The Public
+Advertiser_, a London newspaper, in which they were published. Fifteen
+others in the same vein were signed Philo-Junius; and there are besides
+sixty-two notes addressed by Junius to his publisher.
+
+The principal letters signed Junius were addressed to ministers directly,
+and the first, on the _State of the Nation_, was a manifesto of the
+grounds of his writing and his purpose. It was evident that a bold censor
+had sprung forth; one acquainted with the secret movements of the
+government, and with the foibles and faults of the principal statesmen:
+they writhed under his lash. Some of the more gifted attempted to answer
+him, and, as in the case of Sir William Draper, met with signal
+discomfiture. Vigorous efforts were made to discover the offender, but
+without success; and as to his first patriotic intentions he soon added
+personal spite, the writer found that his life would not be safe if his
+secret were discovered. The rage of parties has long since died away, and
+the writer or writers have long been in their graves, but the curious
+secret still remains, and has puzzled the brains of students to the
+present day. Allibone gives a list of forty-two persons to whom the
+letters were in whole or in part ascribed, among whom are Colonel Barre,
+Burke, Lord Chatham, General Charles Lee, Horne Tooke, Wilkes, Horace
+Walpole, Lord Lyttleton, Lord George Sackville, and Sir Philip Francis.
+Pamphlets and books have been written by hundreds upon this question of
+authorship, and it is not yet by any means definitely settled. The
+concurrence of the most intelligent investigators is in favor of Sir
+Philip Francis, because of the handwriting being like his, but slightly
+disguised; because he and Junius were alike intimate with the government
+workings in the state department and in the war department, and took notes
+of speeches in the House of Lords; because the letters came to an end just
+before Francis was sent to India; and because, indecisive as these claims
+are, they are stronger than those of any other suspected author. Macaulay
+adds to these: "One of the strongest reasons for believing that Francis
+was Junius is the _moral_ resemblance between the two men."
+
+It is interesting to notice that the ministry engaged Dr. Johnson to
+answer the _forty-second_ letter, in which the king is especially
+arraigned. Johnson's answer, published in 1771, is entitled _Thoughts on
+the Late Transactions respecting Falkland's Islands_. Of Junius he says:
+"He cries havoc without reserve, and endeavors to let slip the dogs of
+foreign and civil war, ignorant whither they are going, and careless what
+maybe their prey." "It is not hard to be sarcastic in a mask; while he
+walks like Jack the giant-killer, in a coat of darkness, he may do much
+mischief with little strength." "Junius is an unusual phenomenon, on which
+some have gazed with wonder and some with terror; but wonder and terror
+are transitory passions. He will soon be more closely viewed, or more
+attentively examined, and what folly has taken for a comet, that from its
+flaming hair shook pestilence and war, inquiry will find to be only a
+meteor formed by the vapors of putrefying democracy, and kindled into
+flame by the effervescence of interest struggling with conviction, which,
+after having plunged its followers into a bog, will leave us inquiring why
+we regarded it."
+
+Whatever the moral effect of the writings of Junius, as exhibited by
+silent influence in the lapse of years, the schemes he proposed and the
+party he championed alike failed of success. His farewell letter to
+Woodfall bears date the 19th of January, 1773. In that letter he declared
+that "he must be an idiot to write again; that he had meant well by the
+cause and the public; that both were given up; that there were not ten men
+who would act steadily together on any question."[35] But one thing is
+sure: he has enriched the literature with public letters of rare sagacity,
+extreme elegance of rhetoric and great logical force, and has presented a
+problem always curious and interesting for future students,--not yet
+solved, in spite of Mr. Chabot's recent book,[36] and every day becoming
+more difficult of solution,--_Who was Junius_?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THE LITERARY FORGERS IN THE ANTIQUARIAN AGE.
+
+
+   The Eighteenth Century. James Macpherson. Ossian. Thomas Chatterton.
+   His Poems. The Verdict. Suicide. The Cause.
+
+
+
+THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+
+The middle of the eighteenth century is marked as a period in which, while
+other forms of literature flourished, there arose a taste for historic
+research. Not content with the _actual_ in poetry and essay and pamphlet,
+there was a looking back to gather up a record of what England had done
+and had been in the past, and to connect, in logical relation, her former
+with her latter glory. It was, as we have seen, the era of her great
+historians, Hume, Gibbon, and Robertson, who, upon the chronicles, and the
+abundant but scattered material, endeavored to construct philosophic
+history; it was the day of her greatest moralists, Adam Smith, Tucker, and
+Paley, and of research in metaphysics and political economy. In this
+period Bishop Percy collected the ancient English ballads, and also
+historic poems from the Chinese and the Runic; in it Warton wrote his
+history of poetry. Dr. Johnson, self-reliant and laborious, was producing
+his dictionary, and giving limits and coherence to the language. Mind was
+on the alert, not only subsidizing the present, but looking curiously into
+the past. I have ventured to call it the antiquarian age. In 1751, the
+Antiquarian Society of London was firmly established; men began to collect
+armor and relics: in this period grew up such an antiquary as Mr. Oldbuck,
+who curiously sought out every relic of the Roman times,--armor, fosses,
+and _praetoria_,--and found, with much that was real, many a fraud or
+delusion. It was an age which, in the words of old Walter Charleton,
+"despised the present as an innovation, and slighted the future, like the
+madman who fell in love with Cleopatra."
+
+There was manifestly a great temptation to adventurous men--with
+sufficient learning, and with no high notion of honor--to creep into the
+distant past; to enact, in mask and domino, its literary parts, and
+endeavor to deceive an age already enthusiastic for antiquity.
+
+Thus, in the third century, if we may believe the Scotch and Irish
+traditions, there existed in Scotland a great chieftain named Fion na
+Gael--modernized into Fingal--who fought with Cuthullin and the Irish
+warriors, and whose exploits were, as late as the time of which we have
+been speaking, the theme of rude ballads among the highlands and islands
+of Scotland. To find and translate these ballads was charming and
+legitimate work for the antiquarian; to counterfeit them, and call them by
+the name of a bard of that period, was the great temptation to the
+literary forger. Of such a bard, too, there was a tradition. As brave as
+were the deeds of Fingal, their fame was not so great as that of his son
+Ossian, who struck a lofty harp as he recounted his father's glory. Could
+the real poems be found, they would verify the lines:
+
+    From the barred visor of antiquity
+    Reflected shines the eternal light of Truth
+    As from a mirror.
+
+And if they could not be found, they might be counterfeited. This was
+undertaken by Doctor James Macpherson. Catering to the spirit of the age,
+he reproduced the songs of Ossian and the lofty deeds of Fingal.
+
+Again, we have referred, in an early part of this work, to the almost
+barren expanse in the highway of English literature from the death of
+Chaucer to the middle of the sixteenth century; this barrenness was due,
+as we saw, to the turbulence of those years--civil war, misgovernment, a
+time of bloody action rather than peaceful authorship. Here, too, was a
+great temptation for some gifted but oblique mind to supply a partial
+literature for that bare period; a literature which, entirely fabricated,
+should yet bear all the characteristics of the history, language, customs,
+manners, and religion of that time.
+
+This attempt was made by Thomas Chatterton, an obscure, ill-educated lad,
+without means or friends, but who had a master-mind, and would have
+accomplished some great feat in letters, had he not died, while still very
+young, by his own hand.
+
+Let us examine these frauds in succession: we shall find them of double
+historic value, as literary efforts in one age designed to represent the
+literature of a former age.
+
+
+JAMES MACPHERSON.--James Macpherson was born at Ruthven, a village in
+Inverness-shire, in 1738. Being intended for the ministry, he received a
+good preliminary education, and became early interested in the ancient
+Gaelic ballads and poetic fragments still floating about the Highlands of
+Scotland. By the aid of Mr. John Home, the author of _Douglas_, and his
+friends Blair and Ferguson, he published, in 1760, a small volume of sixty
+pages entitled, _Fragments of Ancient Poetry translated from the Gaelic or
+Erse Language_. They were heroic and harmonious, and were very well
+received: he had catered to the very spirit of the age. At first, there
+seemed to be no doubt as to their genuineness. It was known to tradition
+that this northern Fingal had fought with Severus and Caracalla, on the
+banks of the Carun, and that blind Ossian had poured forth a flood of song
+after the fight, and made the deeds immortal. And now these songs and
+deeds were echoing in English ears,--the thrumming of the harp which told
+of "the stream of those olden years, where they have so long hid, in their
+mist, their many-colored sides." (_Cathloda_, Duan III.)
+
+So enthusiastically were these poems received, that a subscription was
+raised to enable Macpherson to travel in the Highlands, and collect more
+of this lingering and beautiful poetry.
+
+Gray the poet, writing to William Mason, in 1760, says: "These poems are
+in everybody's mouth in the Highlands; have been handed down from father
+to son. We have therefore set on foot a subscription of a guinea or two
+apiece, in order to enable Mr. Macpherson to recover this poem (Fingal),
+and other fragments of antiquity."
+
+
+FINGAL.--On his return, in 1762, he published _Fingal_, and, in the same
+volume, some smaller poems. This Fingal, which he calls "an ancient epic
+poem" in six duans or books, recounts the deliverance of Erin from the
+King of Lochlin. The next year, 1763, he published _Temora_. Among the
+earlier poems, in all which Fingal is the hero, are passages of great
+beauty and touching pathos. Such, too, are found in _Carricthura and
+Carthon, the War of Inis-thona_, and the _Songs of Selma_. After reading
+these, we are pleasantly haunted with dim but beautiful pictures of that
+Northern coast where "the blue waters rolled in light," "when morning rose
+In the east;" and again with ghostly moonlit scenes, when "night came down
+on the sea, and Rotha's Bay received the ship." "The wan, cold moon rose
+in the east; sleep descended upon the youths; their blue helmets glitter
+to the beam; the fading fire decays; but sleep did not rest on the king;
+he rode in the midst of his arms, and slowly ascended the hill to behold
+the flame of Sarno's tower. The flame was dim and distant; the moon hid
+her red face in the east. A blast came from the mountain; on its wings was
+the spirit of Loda." In _Carthon_ occurs that beautiful address to the
+Sun, which we are fortunate in knowing, from other sources than
+Macpherson, is a tolerably correct translation of a real original. If we
+had that alone, it would be a revelation of the power of Ossian, and of
+the aptitudes of a people who could enjoy it. It is not within our scope
+to quote from the veritable Ossian, or to expose the bombast and fustian,
+tumid diction and swelling sound of Macpherson, of which the poems contain
+so much.
+
+As soon as a stir was made touching the authenticity of the poems, a
+number of champions sprang up on both sides: among those who favored
+Macpherson, was Dr. Hugh Blair, who wrote the critical dissertation
+usually prefixed to the editions of Ossian, and who compares him favorably
+to Homer. First among the incredulous, as might be expected, was Dr.
+Samuel Johnson, who, in his _Journey to the Hebrides_, lashes Macpherson
+for his imposture, and his insolence in refusing to show the original.
+Johnson was threatened by Macpherson with a beating, and he answered: "I
+hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat by the
+menaces of a ruffian ... I thought your book an imposture; I think it an
+imposture still ... Your rage I defy ... You may print this if you will."
+
+Proofs of the imposture were little by little discovered by the critics.
+There were some real fragments in his first volume; but even these he had
+altered, and made symmetrical, so as to disguise their original character.
+Ossian would not have known them. As for Fingal, in its six duans, with
+captional arguments, it was made up from a few fragments, and no such poem
+ever existed. It was Macpherson's from beginning to end.
+
+The final establishment of the forgery was not simply by recourse to
+scholars versed in the Celtic tongues, but the Highland Society appointed
+a committee in 1767, whose duty it was to send to the Highland pastors a
+circular, inquiring whether they had heard in the original the poems of
+Ossian, said to be translated by Macpherson; if so, where and by whom they
+had been written out or repeated: whether similar fragments still existed,
+and whether there were persons living who could repeat them; whether, to
+their knowledge, Macpherson had obtained such poems in the Highlands; and
+for any information concerning the personality of Fingal and Ossian.
+
+
+CRITICISM.--The result was as follows: Certain Ossianic poems did exist,
+and some manuscripts of ancient ballads and bardic songs. A few of these
+had formed the foundation of Macpherson's so-called translations of the
+earlier pieces; but he had altered and added to them, and joined them with
+his own fancies in an arbitrary manner.
+
+_Fingal_ and _Temora_ were also made out of a few fragments; but in their
+epic and connected form not only did not exist, but lack the bardic
+character and construction entirely.
+
+Now that the critics had the direction of the chase made known, they
+discovered that Macpherson had taken his imagery from the Bible, of which
+Ossian was ignorant; from classic authors, of whom he had never heard; and
+from modern sources down to his own day.
+
+Then Macpherson's Ossian--which had been read with avidity and translated
+into many languages, while it was considered an antique gem only reset in
+English--fell into disrepute, and was unduly despised when known to be a
+forgery.
+
+It is difficult to conceive why he did not produce the work as his own,
+with a true story of its foundation: it is not so difficult to understand
+why, when he was detected, he persisted in the falsehood. For what it
+really is, it must be partially praised; and it will remain not only as a
+literary curiosity, but as a work of unequal but real merit. It was
+greatly admired by Napoleon and Madame de Stael, and, in endeavoring to
+consign it to oblivion, the critics are greatly in the wrong.
+
+Macpherson resented any allusion to the forgery, and any leading question
+concerning it. He refused, at first, to produce the originals; and when he
+did say where they might be found, the world had decided so strongly
+against him, that there was no curiosity to examine them. He at last
+maintained a sullen silence; and, dying suddenly, in 1796, left no papers
+which throw light upon the controversy. The subject is, however, still
+agitated. Later writers have endeavored to reverse the decision of his
+age, without, however, any decided success. For much information
+concerning the Highland poetry, the reader is referred to _A Summer in
+Skye_, by Alexander Smith.
+
+
+OTHER WORKS.--His other principal work was a _Translation of the Iliad of
+Homer_ in the Ossianic style, which was received with execration and
+contempt. He also wrote _A History of Great Britain from the Restoration
+to the Accession of the House of Hanover_, which Fox--who was, however,
+prejudiced--declared to be full of impudent falsehoods.
+
+Of his career little more need be said: he was too shrewd a man to need
+sympathy; he took care of himself. He was successful in his pecuniary
+schemes; as agent of the Nabob of Arcot, he had a seat in parliament for
+ten years, and was quite unconcerned what the world thought of his
+literary performances. He had achieved notoriety, and enjoyed it.
+
+But, unfortunately, his forgery did fatal injury by its example; it
+inspired Chatterton, the precocious boy, to make another attempt on public
+credulity. It opened a seductive path for one who, inspired by the
+adventure and warned by the causes of exposure, might make a better
+forgery, escape detection, and gain great praise in the antiquarian world.
+
+
+THOMAS CHATTERTON.--With this name, we accost the most wonderful story of
+its kind in any literature; so strange, indeed, that we never take it up
+without trying to discover some new meaning in it. We hope, against hope,
+that the forgery is not proved.
+
+Chatterton was born in Bristol, on the Avon, in 1752, of poor parents, but
+early gave signs of remarkable genius, combined with a prurient ambition.
+A friend who wished to present him with an earthen-ware cup, asked him
+what device he would have upon it. "Paint me," he answered, "an angel with
+wings and a trumpet, to trumpet my name over the world." He learned his
+alphabet from an old music-book; at eight years of age he was sent to a
+charity-school, and he spent his little pocket-money at a circulating
+library, the books of which he literally devoured.
+
+At the early age of eleven he wrote a piece of poetry, and published it in
+the _Bristol Journal_ of January 8, 1763; it was entitled _On the last
+Epiphany, or Christ coming to Judgment_, and the next year, probably, a
+_Hymn to Christmas-day_, of which the following lines will give an idea:
+
+    How shall we celebrate his name,
+    Who groaned beneath a life of shame,
+      In all afflictions tried?
+    The soul is raptured to conceive
+    A truth which being must believe;
+      The God eternal died.
+
+    My soul, exert thy powers, adore;
+    Upon Devotion's plumage soar
+      To celebrate the day.
+    The God from whom creation sprung
+    Shall animate my grateful tongue,
+      From Him I'll catch the lay.
+
+Some member of the Chatterton family had, for one hundred and fifty years,
+held the post of sexton in the church of St. Mary Redcliffe at Bristol;
+and at the time of which we write his uncle was sexton. In the
+muniment-room of the church were several coffers, containing old papers
+and parchments in black letter, some of which were supposed to be of
+value. The chests were examined by order of the vestry; the valuable
+papers were removed, and of the rest, as perquisites of the sexton, some
+fell into the hands of Chatterton's father. The boy, who had been, upon
+leaving school, articled to an attorney, and had thus become familiar with
+the old English text, caught sight of these, and seemed then to have first
+formed the plan of turning them to account, as _The Rowlie papers_.
+
+
+OLD MANUSCRIPTS.--If he could be believed, he found a variety of material
+in this old collection. To a credulous and weak acquaintance, Mr. Burgum,
+he went, beaming with joy, to present the pedigree and illuminated arms of
+the de Bergham family--tracing the honest mechanic's descent to a noble
+house which crossed the Channel with William the Conqueror. The delighted
+Burgum gave him a crown, and Chatterton, pocketing the money, lampooned
+his credulity thus:
+
+    Gods! what would Burgum give to get a name,
+    And snatch his blundering dialect from shame?
+    What would he give to hand his memory down
+    To time's remotest boundary? a crown!
+    Would you ask more, his swelling face looks blue--
+    Futurity he rates at two pound two!
+
+In September, 1768, the inauguration or opening of the new bridge across
+the Avon took place; and, taking advantage of the temporary interest it
+excited, Chatterton, then sixteen, produced in the _Bristol Journal_ a
+full description of the opening of the old bridge two hundred years
+before, which he said he found among the old papers: "A description of the
+Fryers first passing over the old bridge, taken from an ancient
+manuscript," with details of the procession, and the Latin sermon preached
+on the occasion by Ralph de Blundeville; ending with the dinner, the
+sports, and the illumination on Kynwulph Hill.
+
+This paper, which attracted general interest, was traced to Chatterton,
+and when he was asked to show the original, it was soon manifest that
+there was none, but that the whole was a creation of his fancy. The
+question arises,--How did the statements made by Chatterton compare with
+the known facts of local history?
+
+There was in the olden time in Bristol a great merchant named William
+Canynge, who was remembered for his philanthropy; he had altered and
+improved the church of St. Mary, and had built the muniment-room: the
+reputed poems, some of which were said to have been written by himself,
+and others by the monk Rowlie, Chatterton declared he had found in the
+coffers. Thomas Rowlie, "the gode preeste," appears as a holy and learned
+man, poet, artist, and architect. Canynge and Rowlie were strong friends,
+and the latter was supposed to have addressed many of the poems to the
+former, who was his good patron.
+
+The principal of the Rowlie poems is the _Bristowe_ (Bristol) _Tragedy_,
+or _Death of Sir Charles Bawdin_. This Bawdin, or Baldwin, a real
+character, had been attainted by Edward IV. of high treason, and brought
+to the block. The poem is in the finest style of the old English ballad,
+and is wonderfully dramatic. King Edward sends to inform Bawdin of his
+fate:
+
+    Then with a jug of nappy ale
+    His knights did on him waite;
+    "Go tell the traitor that to daie
+    He leaves this mortal state."
+
+Sir Charles receives the tidings with bold defiance. Good Master Canynge
+goes to the king to ask the prisoner's life as a boon.
+
+    "My noble liege," good Canynge saide,
+      "Leave justice to our God;
+    And lay the iron rule aside,
+      Be thine the olyve rodde."
+
+The king is inexorable, and Sir Charles dies amid tears and loud weeping
+around the scaffold.
+
+Among the other Rowlie poems are the _Tragical Interlude of Ella_, "plaied
+before Master Canynge, and also before Johan Howard, Duke of Norfolk;"
+_Godwin_, a short drama; a long poem on _The Battle of Hastings_, and _The
+Romaunt of the Knight_, modernized from the original of John de Bergham.
+
+
+THE VERDICT.--These poems at once became famous, and the critics began to
+investigate the question of their authenticity. From this investigation
+Chatterton did not shrink. He sent some of them with letters to Horace
+Walpole, and, as Walpole did not immediately answer, he wrote to him quite
+impertinently. Then they were submitted to Mason and Gray. The opinion of
+those who examined them was almost unanimous that they were forgeries: he
+could produce no originals; the language is in many cases not that of the
+period, and the spelling and idioms are evidently factitious. A few there
+were who seemed to have committed themselves, at first, to their
+authenticity; but Walpole, the Wartons, Dr. Johnson, Gibbon the historian,
+Sheridan, and most other literary men, were clear as to their forgery. The
+forged manuscripts which he had the hardihood afterwards to present, were
+totally unlike those of Edward the Fourth's time; he was entirely at fault
+in his heraldry; words were used out of their meaning; and, in his poem on
+_The Battle of Hastings_, he had introduced the modern discoveries
+concerning Stone Henge. He uses the possessive case _yttes_, which did not
+come into use until long after the Rowlie period. Add to these that
+Chatterton's reputation for veracity was bad.
+
+The truth was, that he had found some curious scraps, which had set his
+fancy to work, and the example of Macpherson had led to the cheat he was
+practising upon the public. To some friends he confessed the deception,
+denying it again, violently, soon after; and he had been seen smoking
+parchment to make it look old. The lad was crazy.
+
+
+HIS SUICIDE.--Keeping up appearances, he went to London, and tried to get
+work. At one time he was in high spirits, sending presents to his mother
+and sisters, and promising them better days; at another, he was in want,
+in the lowest depression, no hope in the world. He only asks for work; he
+is entirely unconcerned for whom he writes or what party he eulogizes; he
+wants money and a name, and when these seem unattainable, he takes refuge
+from "the whips and scorns of time," the burning fever of pride, the
+gnawings of hunger, in suicide. He goes to his little garret
+room,--refusing, as he goes, a dinner from his landlady, although he is
+gaunt with famine,--mixes a large dose of arsenic in water, and--"jumps
+the life to come." He was just seventeen years and nine months old! When
+his room was forced open, it was found that he had torn up most of his
+papers, and had left nothing to throw light upon his deception.
+
+The verdict of literary criticism is that of the medical art--he was
+insane; and to what extent this mania acted as a monomania, that is, how
+far he was himself deceived, the world can never know. One thing, at
+least; it redeems all his faults. Precocious beyond any other known
+instance of precocity; intensely haughty; bold in falsehood; working best
+when the moon was at the full, he stands in English literature as the most
+singular of its curiosities. His will is an awful jest; his declaration of
+his religious opinions a tissue of contradictions and absurdities: he
+bequeathes to a clergyman his humility; to Mr. Burgum his prosody and
+grammar, with half his modesty--the other half to any young lady that
+needs it; his abstinence--a fearful legacy--to the aldermen of Bristol at
+their annual feast! to a friend, a mourning ring--"provided he pays for it
+himself"--with the motto, "Alas, poor Chatterton!" Fittest ending to his
+biography--"Alas, poor Chatterton!"
+
+And yet it is evident that the crazy Bristol boy and the astute Scotchman
+were alike the creatures of the age and the peculiar circumstances in
+which they lived. No other age of English history could have produced
+them. In an earlier period, they would have found no curiosity in the
+people to warrant their attempts; and in a later time, the increase in
+antiquarian studies would have made these efforts too easy of detection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+POETRY OF THE TRANSITION SCHOOL.
+
+
+   The Transition Period. James Thomson. The Seasons. The Castle of
+   Indolence. Mark Akenside. Pleasures of the Imagination. Thomas Gray.
+   The Elegy. The Bard. William Cowper. The Task. Translation of Homer.
+   Other Writers.
+
+
+
+THE TRANSITION PERIOD.
+
+
+The poetical standards of Dryden and Pope, as poetic examples and
+arbiters, exercised tyrannical sway to the middle of the eighteenth
+century, and continued to be felt, with relaxing influence, however, to a
+much later period. Poetry became impatient of too close a captivity to
+technical rules in rhythm and in subjects, and began once again to seek
+its inspiration from the worlds of nature and of feeling. While seeking
+this change, it passed through what has been properly called the period of
+transition,--a period the writers of which are distinctly marked as
+belonging neither to the artificial classicism of Pope, nor to the simple
+naturalism of Wordsworth and the Lake school; partaking, indeed, in some
+degree of the former, and preparing the way for the latter.
+
+The excited condition of public feeling during the earlier period,
+incident to the accession of the house of Hanover and the last struggles
+of the Jacobites, had given a political character to every author, and a
+political significance to almost every literary work. At the close of this
+abnormal condition of things, the poets of the transition school began
+their labors; untrammelled by the court and the town, they invoked the
+muse in green fields and by babbling brooks; from materialistic
+philosophy in verse they appealed through the senses to the hearts of men;
+and appreciation and popularity rewarded and encouraged them.
+
+
+JAMES THOMSON.--The first distinguished writer of this school was Thomson,
+the son of a Scottish minister. He was born on the 11th of September,
+1700, at Ednam in Roxburghshire. While a boy at school in Jedburgh, he
+displayed poetical talent: at the University of Edinburgh he completed his
+scholastic course, and studied divinity; which, however, he did not pursue
+as a profession. Being left, by his father's death, without means, he
+resolved to go to the great metropolis to try his fortunes. He arrived in
+London in sorry plight, without money, and with ragged shoes; but through
+the assistance of some persons of station, he procured occupation as tutor
+to a lord's son, and thus earned a livelihood until the publication of his
+first poem in 1726. That poem was _Winter_, the first of the series called
+_The Seasons_: it was received with unusual favor. The first edition was
+speedily exhausted, and with the publication of the second, his position
+as a poet was assured. In 1727 he produced the second poem of the series,
+_Summer_, and, with it, a proposal for issuing the _Four Seasons_, with a
+_Hymn_ on their succession. In 1728 his _Spring_ appeared, and in the next
+year an unsuccessful tragedy called _Sophonisba_, which owed its immediate
+failure to the laughter occasioned by the line,
+
+    O Sophonisba, Sophonisba O!
+
+This was parodied by some wag in these words:
+
+    O Jemmie Thomson, Jemmie Thomson O!
+
+and the ridicule was so potent that the play was ruined.
+
+The last of the seasons, _Autumn_, and the _Hymn_, were first printed in a
+complete edition of _The Seasons_, in 1730. It was at once conceded that
+he had gratified the cravings of the day, In producing a real and
+beautiful English pastoral. The reputation which he thus gained caused him
+to be selected as the mentor and companion of the son of Sir Charles
+Talbot in a tour through France and Italy in 1730 and 1731.
+
+In 1734 he published the first part of a poem called _Liberty_, the
+conclusion of which appeared in 1736. It is designed to trace the progress
+of Liberty through Italy, Greece, and Rome, down to her excellent
+establishment in Great Britain, and was dedicated to Frederick, Prince of
+Wales.
+
+His tragedies _Agamemnon_ and _Edward and Eleanora_ are in the then
+prevailing taste. They were issued in 1738-39. The latter is of political
+significance, in that Edward was like Frederick the Prince of Wales--heir
+apparent to the crown; and some of the passages are designed to strengthen
+the prince in the favor of the people.
+
+The personal life of Thomson is not of much interest. From his first
+residence in London, he supported, with his slender means, a brother, who
+died young of consumption, and aided two maiden sisters, who kept a small
+milliner-shop in Edinburgh. This is greatly to his praise, as he was at
+one time so poor that he was arrested for debt and committed to prison. As
+his reputation increased, his fortunes were ameliorated. In 1745 his play
+_Tancred and Sigismunda_ was performed. It was founded upon a story
+universally popular,--the same which appears in the episode of _The Fatal
+Marriage_ in Gil Bias, and in one of the stories of Boccaccio. He enjoyed
+for a short time a pension from the Prince of Wales, of which, however, he
+was deprived without apparent cause; but he received the office of
+Surveyor-General of the Leeward Islands, the duties of which he could
+perform by deputy; after that he lived a lazy life at his cottage near
+Richmond, which, if otherwise reprehensible, at least gave him the power
+to write his most beautiful poem, _The Castle of Indolence_. It appeared
+in 1748, and was universally admired; it has a rhetorical harmony similar
+and quite equal to that of the _Lotos Eaters_ of Tennyson. The poet, who
+had become quite plethoric, was heated by a walk from London, and, from a
+check of perspiration, was thrown into a high fever, a relapse of which
+caused his death on the 27th of August, 1748. His friend Lord Lyttleton
+wrote the prologue to his play of _Coriolanus_, which was acted after the
+poet's death, in which he says:
+
+    "--His chaste Muse employed her heaven-taught lyre
+    None but the noblest missions to inspire,
+    Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,
+    _One line which, dying, he could wish to blot_."
+
+The praise accorded him in this much-quoted line is justly his due: it is
+greater praise that he was opening a new pathway in English Literature,
+and supplying better food than the preceding age had given. His _Seasons_
+supplied a want of the age: it was a series of beautiful pastorals. The
+descriptions of nature will always be read and quoted with pleasure; the
+little episodes, if they affect the unity, relieve the monotony of the
+subject, and, like figures introduced by the painter into his landscape,
+take away the sense of loneliness, and give us a standard at once of
+judgment, of measurement, and of sympathetic enjoyment; they display, too,
+at once the workings of his own mind in his production, and the manners
+and sentiments of the age in which he wrote. It was fitting that he who
+had portrayed for us such beautiful gardens of English nature, should
+people them instead of leaving them solitary.
+
+
+THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.--This is an allegory, written after the manner of
+Spenser, and in the Spenserian stanza. He also employs archaic words, as
+Spenser did, to give it greater resemblance to Spenser's poem. The
+allegorical characters are well described, and the sumptuous adornings and
+lazy luxuries of the castle are set forth _con amore_. The spell that
+enchants the castle is broken by the stalwart knight _Industry_; but the
+glamour of the poem remains, and makes the reader in love with
+_Indolence_.
+
+
+MARK AKENSIDE.--Thomson had restored or reproduced the pastoral from
+Nature's self; Akenside followed in his steps. Thomson had invested blank
+verse with a new power and beauty; Akenside produced it quite as
+excellent. But Thomson was the original, and Akenside the copy. The one is
+natural, the other artificial.
+
+Akenside was the son of a butcher, and was born at New Castle, in 1721.
+Educated at the University of Edinburgh, he studied medicine, and
+received, at different periods, lucrative and honorable professional
+appointments. His great work, and the only one to which we need refer, is
+his _Pleasures of the Imagination_. Whether his view of the imagination is
+always correct or not, his sentiments are always elevated; his language
+high sounding but frequently redundant, and his versification correct and
+pleasing. His descriptions of nature are cold but correct; his standard of
+humanity is high but mortal. Grand and sonorous, he constructs his periods
+with the manner of a declaimer; his ascriptions and apostrophes are like
+those of a high-priest. The title of his poem, if nothing more, suggested
+_The Pleasures-of Hope_ to Campbell, and _The Pleasures of Memory_ to
+Rogers. As a man, Akenside was overbearing and dictatorial; as a hospital
+surgeon, harsh in his treatment of poor patients. His hymn to the Naiads
+has been considered the most thoroughly and correctly classical of
+anything in English. He died on the 23rd of June, 1770.
+
+
+THOMAS GRAY.--Among those who form a link between the school of Pope and
+that of the modern poets, Gray occupies a distinguished place, both from
+the excellence of his writings, and from the fact that, while he
+unconsciously conduced to the modern, he instinctively resisted its
+progress. He was in taste and intention an extreme classicist. Thomas Gray
+was born in London on the 26th December, 1716. His father was a money
+scrivener, and, to his family at least, a bad man; his mother, forced to
+support herself, kept a linen-draper shop; and to her the poet owed his
+entire education. He was entered at Eton College, and afterwards at
+Cambridge, and found in early life such friendships as were of great
+importance to him later in his career. Among his college friends were
+Horace Walpole, West, the son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and
+William Mason, who afterwards wrote the poet's life. After completing his
+college course, he travelled on the continent with Walpole; but, on
+account of incompatibility of temper, they quarrelled and parted, and Gray
+returned home. Although Walpole took the blame upon himself, it would
+appear that Gray was a somewhat captious person, whose serious tastes
+interfered with the gayer pleasures of his friend. On his return, Gray
+went to Cambridge, where he led the life of a retired student, devoting
+himself to the ancient authors, to poetry, botany, architecture, and
+heraldry. He was fastidious as to his own productions, which were very
+few, and which he kept by him, pruning, altering, and polishing, for a
+long time before he would let them see the light. His lines entitled _A
+Distant Prospect of Eton College_ appeared in 1742, and were received with
+great applause.
+
+It was at this time that he also began his _Elegy in a Country
+Churchyard_; which, however, did not appear until seven or eight years
+later, and which has made him immortal. The grandeur of its language, the
+elevation of its sentiments, and the sympathy of its pathos, commend it to
+all classes and all hearts; and of its kind of composition it stands alone
+in English literature.
+
+The ode on the progress of poetry appeared in 1755. Like the _Elegy_, his
+poem of _The Bard_ was for several years on the literary easel, and he was
+accidentally led to finish it by hearing a blind harper performing on a
+Welsh harp.
+
+On the death of Cibber, Gray was offered the laureate's crown, which he
+declined, to avoid its conspicuousness and the envy of his brother poets.
+In 1762, he applied for the professorship of modern history at Cambridge,
+but failed to obtain the position. He was more fortunate in 1768, when it
+again became vacant; but he held it as a sinecure, doing none of its
+duties. He died in 1770, on the 3d of July, of gout in the stomach. His
+habits were those of a recluse; and whether we agree or not, with Adam
+Smith, in saying that nothing is wanting to render him perhaps the first
+poet in the English language, but to have written a little more, it is
+astonishing that so great and permanent a reputation should have been
+founded on so very little as he wrote. Gray has been properly called the
+finest lyric poet in the language; and his lyric power strikes us as
+intuitive and original; yet he himself, adhering strongly to the
+artificial school, declared, if there was any excellence in his own
+numbers, he had learned it wholly from Dryden. His archaeological tastes
+are further shown by his enthusiastic study of heraldry, and by his
+surrounding himself with old armor and other curious relics of the past.
+Mr. Mitford, in a curious dissection of the _Elegy_, has found numerous
+errors of rhetoric, and even of grammar.
+
+His _Bard_ is founded on a tradition that Edward I., when he conquered
+Wales, ordered all the bards to be put to death, that they might not, by
+their songs, excite the Welsh people to revolt. The last one who figures
+in his story, sings a lament for his brethren, prophesies the downfall of
+the usurper, and then throws himself over the cliff:
+
+    "Be thine despair and sceptered care,
+    To triumph and to die are mine!"
+    He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height,
+    Deep in the roaring tide, he plunged to endless night.
+
+
+WILLIAM COWPER.--Next in the catalogue of the transition school occurs the
+name of one who, like Gray, was a recluse, but with a better reason and a
+sadder one. He was a gentle hypochondriac, and, at intervals, a maniac,
+who literally turned to poetry, like Saul to the harper, for relief from
+his sufferings. William Cowper, the eldest son of the Rector of
+Berkhampsted in Hertfordshire, was born on the 15th of November, 1731. He
+was a delicate and sensitive child, and was seriously affected by the loss
+of his mother when he was six years old. At school, he was cruelly treated
+by an older boy, which led to his decided views against public schools,
+expressed in his poem called _Tirocinium_. His morbid sensitiveness
+increased upon him as he grew older, and interfered with his legal studies
+and advancement. His depression of spirits took a religious turn; and we
+are glad to think that religion itself brought the balm which gave him
+twelve years of unclouded mind, devoted to friendship and to poetry. He
+was offered, by powerful friends, eligible positions connected with the
+House of Lords, in 1762; but as the one of these which he accepted was
+threatened with a public examination, he abandoned it in horror; not,
+however, before the fearful suspense had unsettled his brain, so that he
+was obliged to be placed, for a short time, in an asylum for the insane.
+When he left this asylum, he went to Huntingdon, where he became
+acquainted with the Rev. William Unwin, who, with his wife and son, seem
+to have been congenial companions to his desolate heart. On the death of
+Mr. Unwin, in 1767, he removed with the widow to Olney, and there formed
+an intimate acquaintance with another clergyman, the Rev. William Newton.
+Here, and in this society, the remainder of the poet's life was passed in
+writing letters, which have been considered the best ever written in
+England; in making hymns, in conjunction with Mr. Newton, which have ever
+since been universal favorites; and in varied poetic attempts, which give
+him high rank in the literature of the day. The first of his larger pieces
+was a poem entitled, _The Progress of Error_, which appeared in 1783, when
+the author had reached the advanced age of 52. Then followed _Truth_ and
+_Expostulation_, which, according to the poet himself, did much towards
+diverting his melancholy thoughts. These poems would not have fixed his
+fame; but Lady Austen, an accomplished woman with whom he became
+acquainted in 1781, deserves our gratitude for having proposed to him the
+subjects of those poems which have really made him famous, namely, _The
+Task, John Gilpin_, and the translation of _Homer_. Before, however,
+undertaking these, he wrote poems on _Hope_, _Charity_, _Conversation_ and
+_Retirement_. The story of _John Gilpin_--a real one as told him by Lady
+Austen--made such an impression upon him, that he dashed off the ballad at
+a sitting.
+
+
+THE TASK.--The origin of _The Task_ is well known. In 1783, Lady Austen
+suggested to him to write a poem in blank verse: he said he would, if she
+would suggest the subject. Her answer was, "Write on _this sofa_." The
+poem thus begun was speedily expanded into those beautiful delineations of
+varied nature, domestic life, and religious sentiment which rivalled the
+best efforts of Thomson. The title that connects them is _The Task.
+Tirocinium_ or _the Review of Schools_, appeared soon after, and excited
+considerable attention in a country where public education has been the
+rule of the higher social life. Cowper began the translation of Homer in
+1785, from a feeling of the necessity of employment for his mind. His
+translations of both Iliad and Odyssey, which occupied him for five years,
+and which did not entirely keep off his old enemy, were published in 1791.
+They are correct in scholarship and idiom, but lack the nature and the
+fire of the old Grecian bard.
+
+The rest of his life was busy, but sad--a constant effort to drive away
+madness by incessant labor. The loss of his friend, Mrs. Unwin, in 1796,
+affected him deeply, and the clouds settled thicker and thicker upon his
+soul. In the year before his death, he published that painfully touching
+poem, _The Castaway_, which gives an epitome of his own sufferings in the
+similitude of a wretch clinging to a spar in a stormy night upon the
+Atlantic.
+
+His minor and fugitive poems are very numerous; and as they were
+generally inspired by persons and scenes around him, they are truly
+literary types of the age in which he lived. In his _Task_, he resembles
+Thomson and Akenside; in his didactic poems, he reminds us of the essays
+of Pope; in his hymns he catered successfully to the returning piety of
+the age; in his translations of Homer and of Ovid, he presented the
+ancients to moderns in a new and acceptable dress; and in his Letters he
+sets up an epistolary model, which may be profitably studied by all who
+desire to express themselves with energy, simplicity, and delicate taste.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE TRANSITION SCHOOL.
+
+
+_James Beattie_, 1735-1803: he was the son of a farmer, and was educated
+at Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he was afterwards professor of
+natural philosophy. For four years he taught a village school. His first
+poem, _Retirement_, was not much esteemed; but in 1771 appeared the first
+part of _The Minstrel_, a poem at once descriptive, didactic, and
+romantic. This was enthusiastically received, and gained for him the favor
+of the king, a pension of L200 per annum, and a degree from Oxford. The
+second part was published in 1774. _The Minstrel_ is written in the
+Spenserian stanza, and abounds in beautiful descriptions of nature,
+marking a very decided progress from the artificial to the natural school.
+The character of Edwin, the young minstrel, ardent in search for the
+beautiful and the true, is admirably portrayed; as is also that of the
+hermit who instructs the youth. The opening lines are very familiar:
+
+    Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb
+    The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar;
+
+and the description of the morning landscape has no superior in the
+language:
+
+    But who the melodies of morn can tell?
+      The wild brook babbling down the mountain side;
+    The lowing herd; the sheepfold's simple bell;
+      The pipe of early shepherd dim descried
+        In the lone valley.
+
+Beattie wrote numerous prose dissertations and essays, one of which was in
+answer to the infidel views of Hume--_Essay on the Nature and
+Immutability of Truth, in Opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism_. Beattie
+was of an excitable and sensitive nature, and his polemical papers are
+valued rather for the beauty of their language, than for acuteness of
+logic.
+
+
+_William Falconer_, 1730-1769: first a sailor in the merchant service, he
+afterwards entered the navy. He is chiefly known by his poem _The
+Shipwreck_, and for its astonishing connection with his own fortunes and
+fate. He was wrecked off Cape Colonna, on the coast of Greece, before he
+was eighteen; and this misfortune is the subject of his poem. Again, in
+1760, he was cast away in the Channel. In 1769, the Aurora frigate, of
+which he was the purser, foundered in Mozambique Channels, and he, with
+all others on board, went down with her. The excellence of his nautical
+directions and the vigor of his descriptions establish the claims of his
+poem; but it has the additional interest attaching to his curious
+experience--it is his autobiography and his enduring monument. The picture
+of the storm is very fine; but in the handling of his verse there is more
+of the artificial than of the romantic school.
+
+
+_William Shenstone_, 1714-1763: his principal work is _The
+Schoolmistress_, a poem in the stanza of Spenser, which is pleasing from
+its simple and sympathizing description of the village school, kept by a
+dame; with the tricks and punishment of the children, and many little
+traits of rural life and character. It is pitched in so low a key that it
+commends itself to the world at large. Shenstone is equally known for his
+mania in landscape gardening, upon which he spent all his means. His
+place, _The Leasowes_ in Shropshire, has gained the greater notoriety
+through the descriptions of Dodsley and Goldsmith. The natural simplicity
+of _The Schoolmistress_ allies it strongly to the romantic school, which
+was now about to appear.
+
+
+_William Collins_, 1720-1756: this unfortunate poet, who died at the early
+age of thirty-six, deserves particular mention for the delicacy of his
+fancy and the beauty of his diction. His _Ode on the Passions_ is
+universally esteemed for its sudden and effective changes from the
+bewilderment of Fear, the violence of Anger, and the wildness of Despair
+to the rapt visions of Hope, the gentle dejection of Pity, and the
+sprightliness of Mirth and Cheerfulness. His _Ode on the Death of Thomson_
+is an exquisite bit of pathos, as is also the _Dirge on Cymbeline_.
+Everybody knows and admires the short ode beginning
+
+    How sleep the brave who sink to rest
+    By all their country's wishes blest!
+
+His _Oriental Eclogues_ please by the simplicity of the colloquies, the
+choice figures of speech, and the fine descriptions of nature. But of all
+his poems, the most finished and charming is the _Ode to Evening_. It
+contains thirteen four-lined stanzas of varied metre, and in blank verse
+so full of harmony that rhyme would spoil it. It presents a series of
+soft, dissolving views, and stands alone in English poetry, with claims
+sufficient to immortalize the poet, had he written nothing else. The
+latter part of his life was clouded by mental disorders, not unsuggested
+to the reader by the pathos of many of his poems. Like Gray, he wrote
+little, but every line is of great merit.
+
+
+_Henry Kirke White_, 1785-1806: the son of a butcher, this gifted youth
+displayed, in his brief life, such devotion to study, and such powers of
+mind, that his friends could not but predict a brilliant future for him,
+had he lived. Nothing that he produced is of the highest order of poetic
+merit, but everything was full of promise. Of a weak constitution, he
+could not bear the rigorous study which he prescribed to himself, and
+which hastened his death. With the kind assistance of Mr. Capel Lofft and
+the poet Southey, he was enabled to leave the trade to which he had been
+apprenticed and go to Cambridge. His poems have most of them a strongly
+devotional cast. Among them are _Gondoline_, _Clifton Grove_, and the
+_Christiad_, in the last of which, like the swan, he chants his own
+death-song. His memory has been kept green by Southey's edition of his
+_Remains_, and by the beautiful allusion of Byron to his genius and his
+fate in _The English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. His sacred piece called
+_The Star of Bethlehem_ has been a special favorite:
+
+    When marshalled on the nightly plain
+      The glittering host bestud the sky,
+    One star alone of all the train
+      Can fix the sinner's wandering eye.
+
+
+_Bishop Percy_, 1728-1811: Dr. Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore, deserves
+particular notice in a sketch of English Literature not so much for his
+own works,--although he was a poet,--as for his collection of ballads,
+made with great research and care, and published in 1765. By bringing
+before the world these remains of English songs and idyls, which lay
+scattered through the ages from the birth of the language, he showed
+England the true wealth of her romantic history, and influenced the
+writers of the day to abandon the artificial and reproduce the natural,
+the simple, and the romantic. He gave the impulse which produced the
+minstrelsy of Scott and the simple stories of Wordsworth. Many of these
+ballads are descriptive of the border wars between England and Scotland;
+among the greatest favorites are _Chevy Chase, The Battle of Otterburne,
+The Death of Douglas_, and the story of _Sir Patrick Spens_.
+
+
+_Anne Letitia Barbauld_, 1743-1825: the hymns and poems of Mrs. Barbauld
+are marked by an adherence to the artificial school in form and manner;
+but something of feminine tenderness redeems them from the charge of being
+purely mechanical. Her _Hymns in Prose for Children_ have been of value in
+an educational point of view; and the tales comprised in _Evenings at
+Home_ are entertaining and instructive. Her _Ode to Spring_, which is an
+imitation of Collins's _Ode to Evening_, in the same measure and
+comprising the same number of stanzas, is her best poetic effort, and
+compares with Collins's piece as an excellent copy compares with the
+picture of a great master.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THE LATER DRAMA.
+
+
+   The Progress of the Drama. Garrick. Foote. Cumberland. Sheridan. George
+   Colman. George Colman, the Younger. Other Dramatists and Humorists.
+   Other Writers on Various Subjects.
+
+
+
+THE PROGRESS OF THE DRAMA.
+
+
+The latter half of the eighteenth century, so marked, as we have seen, for
+manifold literary activity, is, in one phase of its history, distinctly
+represented by the drama. It was a very peculiar epoch in English annals.
+The accession of George III., in 1760, gave promise, from the character of
+the king and of his consort, of an exemplary reign. George III. was the
+first monarch of the house of Hanover who may be justly called an English
+king in interest and taste. He and his queen were virtuous and honest; and
+their influence was at once felt by a people in whom virtue and honesty
+are inherent, and whose consciences and tastes had been violated by the
+evil examples of the former reigns.
+
+In 1762 George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales, was born; and as soon
+as he approached manhood, he displayed the worst features of his ancestral
+house: he was extravagant and debauched; he threw himself into a violent
+opposition to his father: with this view he was at first a Whig, but
+afterwards became a Tory. He had also peculiar opportunities for exerting
+authority during the temporary fits of insanity which attacked the king in
+1764, in 1788, and in 1804. At last, in 1810, the king was so disabled
+from attending to his duties that the prince became regent, and assumed
+the reins of government, not to resign them again during his life.
+
+In speaking of the drama of this period, we should hardly, therefore, be
+wrong in calling it the Drama of the Regency. It held, however, by
+historic links, following the order of historic events, to the earlier
+drama. Shakspeare and his contemporaries had established the dramatic art
+on a firm basis. The frown of puritanism, in the polemic period, had
+checked its progress: with the restoration of Charles II, it had returned
+to rival the French stage in wicked plots and prurient scenes. With the
+better morals of the Revolution, and the popular progress which was made
+at the accession of the house of Hanover, the drama was modified: the
+older plays were revived in their original freshness; a new and better
+taste was to be catered to; and what of immorality remained was chiefly
+due to the influence of the Prince of Wales. Actors, so long despised,
+rose to importance as great artists. Garrick and Foote, and, later,
+Kemble, Kean, and Mrs. Siddons, were social personages in England. Peers
+married actresses, and enduring reputation was won by those who could
+display the passions and the affections to the life, giving flesh and
+blood and mind and heart to the inimitable creations of Shakspeare.
+
+It must be allowed that this power of presentment marks the age more
+powerfully than any claims of dramatic authorship. The new play-writers
+did not approach Shakspeare; but they represented their age, and
+repudiated the vices, in part at least, of their immediate predecessors.
+In them, too, is to be observed the change from the artificial to the
+romantic and natural, The scenes and persons in their plays are taken from
+the life around them, and appealed to the very models from which they were
+drawn.
+
+
+DAVID GARRICK.--First among these purifiers of the drama is David Garrick,
+who was born in Lichfield, in 1716. He was a pupil of Dr. Johnson, and
+came up with that distinguished man to London, in 1735. The son of a
+captain in the Royal army, but thrown upon his own exertions, he first
+tried to gain a livelihood as a wine merchant; but his fondness for the
+stage led him to become an actor, and in taking this step he found his
+true position. A man of respectable parts and scholarship, he wrote many
+agreeable pieces for the stage; which, however, owed their success more to
+his accurate knowledge of the _mise en scene_, and to his own
+representation of the principal characters, than to their intrinsic
+merits. His mimetic powers were great: he acted splendidly in all casts,
+excelling, perhaps, in tragedy; and he, more than any actor before or
+since, has made the world thoroughly acquainted with Shakspeare. Dramatic
+authors courted him; for his appearance in any new piece was almost an
+assurance of its success.
+
+Besides many graceful prologues, epigrams, and songs, he wrote, or
+altered, forty plays. Among these the following have the greatest merit:
+_The Lying Valet_, a farce founded on an old English comedy; _The
+Clandestine Marriage_, in which he was aided by the elder Colman; (the
+character of _Lord Ogleby_ he wrote for himself to personate;) _Miss in
+her Teens_, a very clever and amusing farce. He was charmingly natural in
+his acting; but he was accused of being theatrical when off the stage. In
+the words of Goldsmith:
+
+    On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;
+    'Twas only that when he was off, he was acting.
+
+Garrick married a dancer, who made him an excellent wife. By his own
+exertions he won a highly respectable social position, and an easy fortune
+of L140,000, upon which he retired from the stage. He died in London in
+1779.
+
+In 1831-2 his _Private Correspondence with the Most Celebrated Persons of
+his Time_ was published, and opened a rich field to the social historian.
+Among his correspondents were Dr. Johnson, Boswell, Goldsmith, Gibber,
+Sheridan, Burke, Wilkes, Junius, and Dr. Franklin. Thus Garrick catered
+largely to the history of his period, as an actor and dramatic author,
+illustrating the stage; as a reviver of Shakspeare, and as a correspondent
+of history.
+
+
+SAMUEL FOOTE.--Among the many English actors who have been distinguished
+for great powers of versatility in voice, feature, and manner, there is
+none superior to Foote. Bold and self-reliant, he was a comedian in
+every-day life; and his ready wit and humor subdued Dr. Johnson, who had
+determined to dislike him. He was born in 1722, at Truro, and educated at
+Oxford: he studied law, but his peculiar aptitudes soon led him to the
+stage, where he became famous as a comic actor. Among his original pieces
+are _The Patron_, _The Devil on Two Stilts_, _The Diversions of the
+Morning_, _Lindamira_, and _The Slanderer_. But his best play, which is a
+popular burlesque on parliamentary elections, is _The Mayor of Garrat_. He
+died in 1777, at Dover, while on his way to France for the benefit of his
+health. His plays present the comic phase of English history in his day.
+
+
+RICHARD CUMBERLAND.--This accomplished man, who, in the words of Walter
+Scott, has given us "many powerful sketches of the age which has passed
+away," was born in 1732, and lived to the ripe age of seventy-nine, dying
+in 1811. After receiving his education at Cambridge, he became secretary
+to Lord Halifax. His versatile pen produced, besides dramatic pieces,
+novels and theological treatises, illustrating the principal topics of the
+time. In his plays there is less of immorality than in those of his
+contemporaries. _The West Indian_, which was first put upon the stage in
+1771, and which is still occasionally presented, is chiefly noticeable in
+that an Irishman and a West Indian are the principal characters, and that
+he has not brought them into ridicule, as was common at the time, but has
+exalted them by their merits. The best of his other plays are _The Jew,
+The Wheel of Fortune_, and _The Fashionable Lover_. Goldsmith, in his poem
+_Retaliation_, says of Cumberland, referring to his greater morality and
+his human sympathy,
+
+    Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts,
+    The Terence of England, the mender of hearts;
+    A flattering painter, who made it his care
+    To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
+
+
+RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.--No man represents the Regency so completely as
+Sheridan. He was a statesman, a legislator, an orator, and a dramatist;
+and in social life a wit, a gamester, a spendthrift, and a debauchee. His
+manifold nature seemed to be always in violent ebullition. He was born in
+September, 1751, and was the son of Thomas Sheridan, the actor and
+lexicographer, His mother, Frances Sheridan, was also a writer of plays
+and novels. Educated at Harrow, he was there considered a dunce; and when
+he grew to manhood, he plunged into dissipation, and soon made a stir in
+the London world by making a runaway match with Miss Linley, a singer, who
+was noted as one of the handsomest women of the day. A duel with one of
+her former admirers was the result.
+
+As a dramatist, he began by presenting _A Trip to Scarborough_, which was
+altered from Vanbrugh's _Relapse_; but his fame was at once assured by his
+production, in 1775, of _The Duenna_ and _The Rivals_. The former is
+called an opera, but is really a comedy containing many songs: the plot is
+varied and entertaining; but it is far inferior to _The Rivals_, which is
+based upon his own adventures, and is brimming with wit and humor. Mrs.
+Malaprop, Bob Acres, Sir Lucius O'Trigger, and the Absolutes, father and
+son, have been prime favorites upon the stage ever since.
+
+In 1777 he produced _The School for Scandal_, a caustic satire on London
+society, which has no superior in genteel comedy. It has been said that
+the characters of Charles and Joseph Surface were suggested by the Tom
+Jones and Blifil of Fielding; but, if this be true, the handling is so
+original and natural, that they are in no sense a plagiarism. Without the
+rippling brilliancy of _The Rivals, The School for Scandal_ is better
+sustained in scene and colloquy; and in spite of some indelicacy, which is
+due to the age, the moral lesson is far more valuable. The satire is
+strong and instructive, and marks the great advance in social decorum over
+the former age.
+
+In 1779 appeared _The Critic_, a literary satire, in which the chief
+character is that of Sir Fretful Plagiary.
+
+Sheridan sat in parliament as member for Stafford. His first effort in
+oratory was a failure; but by study he became one of the most effective
+popular orators of his day. His speeches lose by reading: he abounded in
+gaudy figures, and is not without bombast; but his wonderful flow of words
+and his impassioned action dazzled his audience and kept it spellbound.
+His oratory, whatever its faults, gained also the unstinted praise of his
+colleagues and rivals in the art. Of his great speech in the trial of
+Warren Hastings, in 1788, Fox declared that "all he had ever heard, all he
+had ever read, when compared with it, dwindled into nothing, and vanished
+like vapor before the sun." Burke called it "the most astonishing effort
+of eloquence, argument, and wit united, of which there was any record or
+tradition;" and Pitt said "that it surpassed all the eloquence of ancient
+or modern times."
+
+Sheridan was for some time the friend and comrade of the Prince Regent, in
+wild courses which were to the taste of both; but this friendship was
+dissolved, and the famous dramatist and orator sank gradually in the
+social scale, until he had sounded the depths of human misery. He was
+deeply in debt; he obtained money under mean and false pretences; he was
+drunken and debauched; and even death did not bring rest. He died in July,
+1816. His corpse was arrested for debt, and could not be buried until the
+debt was paid. In his varied brilliancy and in his fatal debauchery, his
+character stands forth as the completest type of the period of the
+Regency. Many memoirs have been written, among which those of his friend
+Moore, and his granddaughter the Hon. Mrs. Norton, although they unduly
+palliate his faults, are the best.
+
+
+GEORGE COLMAN.--Among the respectable dramatists of this period who
+exerted an influence in leading the public taste away from the witty and
+artificial schools of the Restoration, the two Colmans deserve mention.
+George Colman, the elder, was born in Florence in 1733, but began his
+education at Westminster School, from which he was removed to Oxford.
+After receiving his degree he studied law; but soon abandoned graver study
+to court the comic muse. His first piece, _Polly Honeycomb_, was produced
+in 1760; but his reputation was established by _The Jealous Wife_,
+suggested by a scene in Fielding's _Tom Jones_. Besides many humorous
+miscellanies, most of which appeared in _The St. James' Chronicle_,--a
+magazine of which he was the proprietor,--he translated Terence, and
+produced more than thirty dramatic pieces, some of which are still
+presented upon the stage. The best of these is _The Clandestine Marriage_,
+which was the joint production of Garrick and himself. Of this play,
+Davies says "that no dramatic piece, since the days of Beaumont and
+Fletcher, had been written by two authors, in which wit, fancy, and humor
+were so happily blended." In 1768 he became one of the proprietors of the
+Covent Garden Theatre: in 1789 his mind became affected, and he remained a
+mental invalid until his death in 1794.
+
+
+GEORGE COLMAN. THE YOUNGER.--This writer was the son of George Colman, and
+was born in 1762. Like his father, he was educated at Westminster and
+Oxford; but he was removed from the university before receiving his
+degree, and was graduated at King's College, Aberdeen. He inherited an
+enthusiasm for the drama and considerable skill as a dramatic author. In
+1787 he produced _Inkle and Yarico_, founded upon the pathetic story of
+Addison, in _The Spectator_. In 1796 appeared _The Iron Chest_; this was
+followed, in 1797,. by _The Heir at Law_ and _John Bull_. To him the world
+is indebted for a large number of stock pieces which still appear at our
+theatres. In 1802 he published a volume entitled _Broad Grins_, which was
+an expansion of a previous volume of comic scraps. This is full of frolic
+and humor: among the verses in the style of Peter Pindar are the
+well-known sketches _The Newcastle Apothecary_, (who gave the direction
+with his medicine, "When taken, to be well shaken,") and _Lodgings for
+Single Gentlemen_.
+
+The author's fault is his tendency to farce, which robs his comedies of
+dignity. He assumed the cognomen _the younger_ because, he said, he did
+not wish his father's memory to suffer for his faults. He died in 1836.
+
+
+
+OTHER HUMORISTS AND DRAMATISTS OF THE PERIOD.
+
+
+_John Wolcot_, 1738-1819: his pseudonym was _Peter Pindar_. He was a
+satirist as well as a humorist, and was bold in lampooning the prominent
+men of his time, not even sparing the king. The world of literature knows
+him best by his humorous poetical sketches, _The Apple-Dumplings and the
+King, The Razor-Seller, The Pilgrims and the Peas_, and many others.
+
+
+_Hannah More_, 1745-1833: this lady had a flowing, agreeable style, but
+produced no great work. She wrote for her age and pleased it; but
+posterity disregards what she has written. Her principal plays are:
+_Percy_, presented in 1777, and a tragedy entitled _The Fatal Falsehood_.
+She was a poet and a novelist also; but in neither part did she rise above
+mediocrity. In 1782 appeared her volume of _Sacred Dramas_. Her best novel
+is entitled _Caelebs in Search of a Wife, comprehending Observations on
+Domestic Habits and Manners, Religion and Morals_. Her greatest merit is
+that she always inculcated pure morals and religion, and thus aided in
+improving the society of her age. Something of her fame is also due to the
+rare appearance, up to this time, of women in the fields of literature; so
+that her merits are indulgently exaggerated.
+
+
+_Joanna Baillie_, 1762-1851: this lady, the daughter of a Presbyterian
+divine, wrote graceful verses, but is principally known by her numerous
+plays. Among these, which include thirteen _Plays on the Passions_, and
+thirteen _Miscellaneous Plays_, those best known are _De Montfort_ and
+_Basil_--both tragedies, which have received high praise from Sir Walter
+Scott. Her _Ballads_ and _Metrical Legends_ are all spirited and
+excellent; and her _Hymns_ breathe the very spirit of devotion. Very
+popular during her life, and still highly estimated by literary critics,
+her works have given place to newer and more favorite authors, and have
+already lost interest with the great world of readers.
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS.
+
+
+_Thomas Warton_, 1728-1790: he was Professor of Poetry and of Ancient
+History at Oxford, and, for the last five years of his life,
+poet-laureate. The student of English Literature is greatly indebted to
+him for his _History of English Poetry_, which he brings down to the early
+part of the seventeenth century. No one before him had attempted such a
+task; and, although his work is rather a rare mass of valuable materials
+than a well articulated history, it is of great value for its collected
+facts, and for its suggestions as to where the scholar may pursue his
+studies farther.
+
+
+_Joseph Warton_, 1722-1800: a brother of Thomas Warton; he published
+translations and essays and poems. Among the translations was that of the
+_Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil_, which is valued for its exactness and
+perspicuity.
+
+
+_Frances Burney_, (Madame D'Arblay,) 1752-1840: the daughter of Dr.
+Burney, a musical composer. While yet a young girl, she astonished herself
+and the world by her novel of _Evelina_, which at once took rank among the
+standard fictions of the day. It is in the style of Richardson, but more
+truthful in the delineation of existing manners, and in the expression of
+sentiment. She afterwards published _Cecilia_ and several other tales,
+which, although excellent, were not as good as the first. She led an
+almost menial life, as one of the ladies in waiting upon Queen Charlotte;
+but the genuine fame achieved by her writings in some degree relieved the
+sense of thraldom, from which she happily escaped with a pension. The
+novels of Madame D'Arblay are the intermediate step between the novels of
+Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett, and the Waverly novels of Walter
+Scott. They are entirely free from any taint of immorality; and they were
+among the first feminine efforts that were received with enthusiasm: thus
+it is that, without being of the first order of merit, they mark a
+distinct era in English letters.
+
+
+_Edmund Burke_, 1730-1797: he was born in Dublin, and educated at Trinity
+College. He studied law, but soon found his proper sphere in public life.
+He had brilliant literary gifts; but his fame is more that of a statesman
+and an orator, than an author. Prominent in parliament, he took noble
+ground in favor of American liberty in our contest with the mother
+country, and uttered speeches which have remained as models of forensic
+eloquence. His greatest oratorical efforts were his famous speeches as one
+of the committee of impeachment in the case of Warren Hastings,
+Governor-General of India. Whatever may be thought of Hastings and his
+administration, the famous trial has given to English oratory some of its
+noblest specimens; and the people of England learned more of their empire
+in India from the learned, brilliant, and exhaustive speeches of Burke,
+than they could have learned in any other way. The greatest of his written
+works is: _Reflections on the Revolution in France_, written to warn
+England to avoid the causes of such colossal evil. In 1756 he had
+published his _Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and
+Beautiful_. This has been variously criticized; and, although written with
+vigor of thought and brilliancy of style, has now taken its place among
+the speculations of theory, and not as establishing permanent canons of
+aesthetical science. His work entitled _The Vindication of Natural Society,
+by a late noble writer_, is a successful attempt to overthrow the infidel
+system of Lord Bolingbroke, by applying it to civil society, and thus
+showing that it proved too much--"that if the abuses of or evils sometimes
+connected with religion invalidate its authority, then every institution,
+however beneficial, must be abandoned." Burke's style is peculiar, and, in
+another writer, would be considered pompous and pedantic; but it so
+expresses the grandeur and dignity of the man, that it escapes this
+criticism. His learning, his private worth, his high aims and
+incorruptible faith in public station, the dignity of his statesmanship,
+and the power of his oratory, constitute Mr. Burke as one of the noblest
+characters of any English period; and, although his literary reputation is
+not equal to his political fame, his accomplishments in the field of
+letters are worthy of admiration and honorable mention.
+
+
+_Hugh Blair_, 1718-1800: a Presbyterian divine in Edinburgh, Dr. Blair
+deserves special mention for his lectures on _Rhetoric and
+Belles-Lettres_, which for a long time constituted the principal text-book
+on those subjects in our schools and colleges. A better understanding of
+the true scope of rhetoric as a science has caused this work to be
+superseded by later text-books. Blair's lectures treat principally of
+style and literary criticism, and are excellent for their analysis of some
+of the best authors, and for happy illustrations from their works. Blair
+wrote many eloquent sermons, which were published, and was one of the
+strong champions of Macpherson, in the controversy concerning the poems of
+Ossian. He occupied a high place as a literary critic during his life.
+
+
+_William Paley_, 1743-1805: a clergyman of the Established Church, he rose
+to the dignity of Archdeacon and Chancellor of Carlisle. At first
+thoughtless and idle, he was roused from his unprofitable life by the
+earnest warnings of a companion, and became a severe student and a
+vigorous writer on moral and religious subjects. Among his numerous
+writings, those principally valuable are: _Horae Paulinae_, and _A View of
+the Evidences of Christianity_--the former setting forth the life and
+character of St. Paul, and the latter being a clear exposition of the
+truth of Christianity, which has long served as a manual of academic
+instruction. His treatise on _Natural Theology_ is, in the words of Sir
+James Mackintosh, "the wonderful work of a man who, after sixty, had
+studied anatomy in order to write it." Later investigations of science
+have discarded some of his _facts_; but the handling of the subject and
+the array of arguments are the work of a skilful and powerful hand. He
+wrote, besides, a work on _Moral and Political Philosophy_, and numerous
+sermons. His theory of morals is, that whatever is expedient is right; and
+thus he bases our sense of duty upon the ground of the production of the
+greatest amount of happiness. This low view has been successfully refuted
+by later writers on moral science.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY: SCOTT.
+
+
+   Walter Scott. Translations and Minstrelsy. The Lay of the Last
+   Minstrel. Other Poems. The Waverly Novels. Particular Mention.
+   Pecuniary Troubles. His Manly Purpose. Powers Overtasked. Fruitless
+   Journey. Return and Death. His Fame.
+
+
+
+The transition school, as we have seen, in returning to nature, had
+redeemed the pastoral, and had cultivated sentiment at the expense of the
+epic. As a slight reaction, and yet a progress, and as influenced by the
+tales of modern fiction, and also as subsidizing the antiquarian lore and
+taste of the age, there arose a school of poetry which is best represented
+by its _Tales in verse_;--some treating subjects of the olden time, some
+laying their scenes in distant countries, and some describing home
+incidents of the simplest kind. They were all minor epics: such were the
+poetic stories of Scott, the _Lalla Rookh_ of Moore, _The Bride_ and _The
+Giaour_ of Byron, and _The Village_ and _The Borough_ of Crabbe; all of
+which mark the taste and the demand of the period.
+
+
+WALTER SCOTT.--First in order of the new romantic poets was Scott, alike
+renowned for his _Lays_ and for his wonderful prose fictions; at once the
+most equable and the most prolific of English authors.
+
+Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, on the 15th of August, 1771. His
+father was a writer to the signet; his mother was Anne Rutherford, the
+daughter of a medical professor in the University of Edinburgh. His
+father's family belonged to the clan Buccleugh. Lame from his early
+childhood, and thus debarred the more active pleasures of children, his
+imagination was unusually vigorous; and he took special pleasure in the
+many stories, current at the time, of predatory warfare, border forays,
+bogles, warlocks, and second sight. He spent some of his early days in the
+country, and thus became robust and healthy; although his lameness
+remained throughout life. He was educated in Edinburgh, at the High School
+and the university; and, although not noted for excellence as a scholar,
+he exhibited precocity in verse, and delighted his companions by his
+readiness in reproducing old stories or improving new ones. After leaving
+the university he studied law, and ranged himself in politics as a
+Conservative or Tory.
+
+Although never an accurate classical scholar, he had a superficial
+knowledge of several languages, and was an industrious collector of old
+ballads and relics of the antiquities of his country. He was, however,
+better than a scholar;--he had genius, enthusiasm, and industry: he could
+create character, adapt incident, and, in picturesque description, he was
+without a rival.
+
+During the rumors of the invasion of Scotland by the French, which he has
+treated with such comical humor in _The Antiquary_, his lameness did not
+prevent his taking part with the volunteers, as quartermaster--a post
+given him to spare him the fatigue and rough service of the ranks. The
+French did not come; and Scott returned to his studies with a budget of
+incident for future use.
+
+
+TRANSLATIONS AND MINSTRELSY.--The study of the German language was then
+almost a new thing, even among educated people in England; and Scott made
+his first public essay in the form of translations from the German. Among
+these were versions of the _Erl Koenig_ of Goethe, and the _Lenore_ and
+_The Wild Huntsman_ of Buerger, which appeared in 1796. In 1797 he rendered
+into English _Otho of Wittelsbach_ by Steinburg, and in 1799 Goethe's
+tragedy, _Goetz von Berlichingen_. These were the trial efforts of his
+"'prentice hand," which predicted a coming master.
+
+On the 24th of December, 1797, he married Miss Carpenter, or Charpentier,
+a lady of French parentage, and retired to a cottage at Lasswade, where he
+began his studies, and cherished his literary aspirations in earnest and
+for life.
+
+In 1799 he was so fortunate as to receive the appointment of Sheriff of
+Selkirkshire, with a salary of L300 per annum. His duties were not
+onerous: he had ample time to scour the country, ostensibly in search of
+game, and really in seeking for the songs and traditions of Scotland,
+border ballads, and tales, and in storing his fancy with those picturesque
+views which he was afterwards to describe so well in verse and prose. In
+1802 he was thus enabled to present to the world his first considerable
+work, _The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, containing many new ballads
+which he had collected, with very valuable local and historical notes.
+This was followed, in 1804, by the metrical romance _of Sir Tristrem_, the
+original of which was by Thomas of Ercildoune, of the thirteenth century,
+known as _Thomas the Rhymer_: it was he who dreamed on Huntley bank that
+he met the Queen of Elfland,
+
+    And, till seven years were gone and past,
+    True Thomas on earth was never seen.
+
+The reputation acquired by these productions led the world to expect
+something distinctly original and brilliant from his pen; a hope which was
+at once realized.
+
+
+THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.--In 1805 appeared his first great poem, _The
+Lay of the Last Minstrel_, which immediately established his fame: it was
+a charming presentation of the olden time to the new. It originated in a
+request of the Countess of Dalkeith that he would write a ballad on the
+legend of Gilpin Horner. The picture of the last minstrel, "infirm and
+old," fired by remembrance as he begins to tell an old-time story of
+Scottish valor, is vividly drawn. The bard is supposed to be the last of
+his fraternity, and to have lived down to 1690. The tale, mixed of truth
+and fable, is exceedingly interesting. The octo-syllabic measure, with an
+occasional line of three feet, to break the monotony, is purely
+minstrelic, and reproduces the effect of the _troubadours and trouveres_.
+The wizard agency of Gilpin Horner's brood, and the miracle at the tomb of
+Michael Scott, are by no means out of keeping with the minstrel and the
+age of which he sings. The dramatic effects are good, and the descriptions
+very vivid. The poem was received with great enthusiasm, and rapidly
+passed through several editions. One element of its success is modestly
+and justly stated by the author in his introduction to a later edition:
+"The attempt to return to a more simple and natural style of poetry was
+likely to be welcomed at a time when the public had become tired of heroic
+hexameters, with all the buckram and binding that belong to them in modern
+days."
+
+With an annual income of L1000, and an honorable ambition, Scott worked
+his new literary mine with great vigor. He saw not only fame but wealth
+within his reach. He entered into a silent partnership with the publisher,
+James Ballantyne, which was for a long time lucrative, by reason of the
+unprecedented sums he received for his works. In 1806 he was appointed to
+the reversion--on the death of the incumbent--of the clerkship of the
+Court of Sessions, a place worth L1300 per annum.
+
+
+OTHER POEMS.--In 1808, before _The Lay_ had lost its freshness, _Marmion_
+appeared: it was kindred in subject and form, and was received with equal
+favor. _The Lady of the Lake_, the most popular of these poems, was
+published in 1810; and with it his poetical talent culminated. The later
+poems were not equal to any of those mentioned, although they were not
+without many beauties and individual excellences.
+
+_The Vision of Don Roderick_, which appeared in 1811, is founded upon the
+legend of a visit made by one of the Gothic kings of Spain to an enchanted
+cavern near Toledo. _Rokeby_ was published in 1812; _The Bridal of
+Triermain_ in 1813; _The Lord of the Isles_, founded upon incidents in the
+life of Bruce, in 1815; and _Harold the Dauntless_ in 1817. With the
+decline of his poetic power, manifest to himself, he retired from the
+field of poetry, but only to appear upon another and a grander field with
+astonishing brilliancy: it was the domain of the historical romance. Such,
+however, was the popular estimate of his poetry, that in 1813 the Prince
+Regent offered him the position of poet-laureate, which was gratefully and
+wisely declined.
+
+Just at this time the new poets came forth, in his own style, and actuated
+by his example and success. He recognized in Byron, Moore, Crabbe, and
+others, genius and talent; and, with his generous spirit, exaggerated
+their merits by depreciating his own, which he compared to cairngorms
+beside the real jewels of his competitors. The mystics, following the lead
+of the Lake poets, were ready to increase the depreciation. It soon became
+fashionable to speak of _The Lay_, and _Marmion_, and _The Lady of the
+Lake_ as spirited little stories, not equal to Byron's, and not to be
+mentioned beside the occult philosophy of _Thalaba_ and gentle egotism of
+_The Prelude_. That day is passed: even the critical world returns to its
+first fancies. In the words of Carlyle, a great balance-striker of
+literary fame, speaking in 1838: "It were late in the day to write
+criticisms on those metrical romances; at the same time, the great
+popularity they had seems natural enough. In the first place, there was
+the indisputable impress of worth, of genuine human force in them ...
+Pictures were actually painted and presented; human emotions conceived and
+sympathized with. Considering that wretched Dellacruscan and other
+vamping up of wornout tattlers was the staple article then, it may be
+granted that Scott's excellence was superior and supreme." Without
+preferring any claim to epic grandeur, or to a rank among the few great
+poets of the first class, Scott is entitled to the highest eminence in
+minstrelic power. He is the great modern troubadour. His descriptions of
+nature are simple and exquisite. There is nothing in this respect more
+beautiful than the opening of _The Lady of the Lake_. His battle-pieces
+live and resound again: what can be finer than Flodden field in _Marmion_,
+and The Battle of Beal and Duine in _The Lady of the Lake_?
+
+His love scenes are at once chaste, impassioned, and tender; and his harp
+songs and battle lyrics are unrivalled in harmony. And, besides these
+merits, he gives us everywhere glimpses of history, which, before his day,
+were covered by the clouds of ignorance, and which his breath was to sweep
+away.
+
+Such are his claims as the first of the new romantic poets. We might here
+leave him, to consider his prose works in another connection; but it seems
+juster to his fame to continue and complete a sketch of his life, because
+all its parts are of connected interest. The poems were a grand proem to
+the novels.
+
+While he was achieving fame by his poetry, and reaping golden rewards as
+well as golden opinions, he was also ambitious to establish a family name
+and estate. To this end, he bought a hundred acres of land on the banks of
+the Tweed, near Melrose Abbey, and added to these from time to time by the
+purchase of adjoining properties. Here he built a great mansion, which
+became famous as Abbotsford: he called it one of his air-castles reduced
+to solid stone and mortar. Here he played the part of a feudal proprietor,
+and did the honors for Scotland to distinguished men from all quarters:
+his hospitality was generous and unbounded.
+
+
+THE WAVERLEY NOVELS.--As early as 1805, while producing his beautiful
+poems, he had tried his hand upon a story in prose, based upon the
+stirring events in 1745, resulting in the fatal battle of Culloden, which
+gave a death-blow to the cause of the Stuarts, and to their attempts to
+regain the crown. Dissatisfied with the effort, and considering it at that
+time less promising than poetry, he had thrown the manuscript aside in a
+desk with some old fishing-tackle. There it remained undisturbed for eight
+years. With the decline of his poetic powers, he returned to the former
+notion of writing historical fiction; and so, exhuming his manuscript, he
+modified and finished it, and presented it anonymously to the world in
+1814. He had at first proposed the title of _Waverley, or 'Tis Fifty Years
+Since_, which was afterwards altered to '_Tis Sixty Years Since_. This,
+the first of his splendid series of fictions, which has given a name to
+the whole series, is by no means the best; but it was good and novel
+enough to strike a chord in the popular heart at once. Its delineations of
+personal characters already known to history were masterly; its historical
+pictures were in a new and striking style of art. There were men yet
+living to whom he could appeal--men who had _been out_ in the '45, who had
+seen Charles Edward and many of the originals of the author's heroes and
+heroines. In his researches and wanderings, he had imbibed the very spirit
+of Scottish life and history; and the Waverley novels are among the most
+striking literary types and expounders of history.
+
+
+PARTICULAR MENTION.--In 1815, before half the reading world had delighted
+themselves with _Waverley_, his rapid pen had produced _Guy Mannering_, a
+story of English and Scottish life, superior to Waverley in its original
+descriptions and more general interest. He is said to have written it in
+six weeks at Christmas time. The scope of this volume will not permit a
+critical examination of the Waverley novels. The world knows them almost
+by heart. In _The Antiquary_, which appeared in 1816, we have a rare
+delineation of local manners, the creation of distinct characters, and a
+humorous description of the sudden arming of volunteers in fear of
+invasion by the French. _The Antiquary_ was a free portrait or sketch of
+Mr. George Constable, filled in perhaps unconsciously from the author's
+own life; for he, no less than his friend, delighted in collecting relics,
+and in studying out the lines, praetoria, and general castrametation of the
+Roman armies. Andrew Gemmels was the original of that Edie Ochiltree who
+was bold enough to dispute the antiquary's more learned assertions.
+
+In the same year, 1816, was published the first series of _The Tales of my
+Landlord_, containing _The Black Dwarf_ and _Old Mortality_, both valuable
+as contributions to Scottish history. The former is not of much literary
+merit; and the author was so little pleased with it, that he brought it to
+a hasty conclusion; the latter is an extremely animated sketch of the
+sufferings of the Covenanters at the hands of Grahame of Claverhouse, with
+a fairer picture of that redoubted commander than the Covenanters have
+drawn. _Rob Roy_, the best existing presentation of Highland life and
+manners, appeared in 1817. Thus Scott's prolific pen, like nature,
+produced annuals. In 1818 appeared _The Heart of Mid-Lothian_, that
+touching story of Jeanie and Effie Deans, which awakens the warmest
+sympathy of every reader, and teaches to successive generations a moral
+lesson of great significance and power.
+
+In 1819 he wrote _The Bride of Lammermoor_, the story of a domestic
+tragedy, which warns the world that outraged nature will sometimes assert
+herself in fury; a story so popular that it has been since arranged as an
+Italian opera. With that came _The Legend of Montrose_, another historic
+sketch of great power, and especially famous for the character of Major
+Dugald Dalgetty, soldier of fortune and pedant of Marischal College,
+Aberdeen. The year 1819 also beheld the appearance of _Ivanhoe_, which
+many consider the best of the series. It describes rural England during
+the regency of John, the romantic return of Richard Lion-heart, the
+glowing embers of Norman and Saxon strife, and the story of the Templars.
+His portraiture of the Jewess Rebecca is one of the finest in the Waverley
+Gallery.
+
+The next year, 1820, brought forth _The Monastery_, the least popular of
+the novels thus far produced; and, as Scott tells us, on the principle of
+sending a second arrow to find one that was lost, he wrote _The Abbot_, a
+sequel, to which we are indebted for a masterly portrait of Mary Stuart in
+her prison of Lochleven. The _Abbot_, to some extent, redeemed and
+sustained its weaker brother. In this same year Scott was created a
+baronet, in recognition of his great services to English Literature and
+history. The next five years added worthy companion-novels to the
+marvellous series. _Kenilworth_ is founded upon the visit of Queen
+Elizabeth to her favorite Leicester, in that picturesque palace in
+Warwickshire, and contains that beautiful and touching picture of Amy
+Robsart. _The Pirate_ is a story the scene of which is laid in Shetland,
+and the material for which he gathered in a pleasure tour among those
+islands. In _The Fortunes of Nigel_, London life during the reign of James
+I. is described; and it contains life-like portraits of that monarch, of
+his unfortunate son, Prince Charles, and of Buckingham. _Peveril of the
+Peak_ is a story of the time of Charles II., which is not of equal merit
+with the other novels. _Quentin Durward_, one of the very best, describes
+the strife between Louis XI. of France and Charles the Bold of Burgundy,
+and gives full-length historic portraits of these princes. The scene of
+_St. Ronan's Well_ is among the English lakes in Cumberland, and the story
+describes the manners of the day at a retired watering-place. _Red
+Gauntlet_ is a curious narrative connected with one of the latest attempts
+of Charles Edward--abortive at the outset--to effect a rising in
+Scotland. In 1825 appeared his _Tales of the Crusaders_, comprising _The
+Betrothed_ and _The Talisman_, of which the latter is the more popular, as
+it describes with romantic power the deeds of Richard and his comrades in
+the second crusade.
+
+A glance at this almost tabular statement will show the scope and
+versatility of his mind, the historic range of his studies, the fertility
+of his fancy, and the rapidity of his pen. He had attained the height of
+fame and happiness; his success had partaken of the miraculous; but
+misfortune came to mar it all, for a time.
+
+
+PECUNIARY TROUBLES.--In the financial crash of 1825-6, he was largely
+involved. As a silent partner in the publishing house of the Ballantynes,
+and as connected with them in the affairs of Constable & Co., he found
+himself, by the failure of these houses, legally liable to the amount of
+L117,000. To relieve himself, he might have taken the benefit of the
+_bankrupt law_; or, such was his popularity, that his friends desired to
+raise a subscription to cover the amount of his indebtedness; but he was
+now to show by his conduct that, if the author was great, the man was
+greater. He refused all assistance, and even rejected general sympathy. He
+determined to relieve himself, to pay his debts, or die in the effort. He
+left Abbotsford, and took frugal lodgings in Edinburgh; curtailed all his
+expenses, and went to work--which was over-work--not for fame, but for
+guineas; and he gained both.
+
+His first novel after this, and the one which was to test the
+practicability of his plan, was _Woodstock_, a tale of the troublous times
+of the Civil War, in the last chapter of which he draws the picture of the
+restored Charles coming in peaceful procession to his throne. This he
+wrote in three months; and for it he received upwards of L8000. With this
+and the proceeds of his succeeding works, he was enabled to pay over to
+his creditors the large sum of L70,000; a feat unparalleled in the history
+of literature. But the anxiety and the labor were too much even for his
+powerful constitution: he died in his heroic attempt.
+
+
+HIS MANLY PURPOSE.--More for money than for reputation, he compiled
+hastily, and from partial and incomplete material, a _Life of Napoleon
+Bonaparte_, which appeared in 1827. The style is charming and the work
+eminently readable; but it contains many faults, is by no means
+unprejudiced, and, as far as pure truth is concerned, is, in parts, almost
+as much of a romance as any of the Waverley novels; but, for the first two
+editions, he received the enormous sum of L18,000. The work was
+accomplished in the space of one year. Among the other _task-work_ books
+were the two series of _The Chronicles of the Canongate_ (1827 and 1828),
+the latter of which contains the beautiful story of _St. Valentine's Day_,
+or _The Fair Maid of Perth_. It is written in his finest vein, especially
+in those chapters which describe the famous Battle of the Clans. In 1829
+appeared _Anne of Geierstein_, another story presenting the figure of
+Charles of Burgundy, and his defeat and death in the battle with the Swiss
+at Nancy.
+
+
+POWERS OVERTASKED.--And now new misfortunes were to come upon him. In 1826
+he had lost his wife: his sorrows weighed upon him, and his superhuman
+exertions were too much for his strength. In 1829 he was seized with a
+nervous attack, accompanied by hemorrhages of a peculiar kind. In
+February, 1830, a slight paralysis occurred, from which he speedily
+recovered; this was soon succeeded by another; and it was manifest that
+his mind was giving way. His last novel, _Count Robert of Paris_, was
+begun in 1830, as one of a fourth series of _The Tales of My Landlord_: it
+bears manifest marks of his failing powers, but is of value for the
+historic stores which it draws from the Byzantine historians, and
+especially from the unique work of Anna Comnena: "I almost wish," he said,
+"I had named it Anna Comnena." A slight attack of apoplexy in November,
+1830, was followed by a severer one in the spring of 1831. Even then he
+tried to write, and was able to produce _Castle Dangerous_. With that the
+powerful pen ended its marvellous work. The manly spirit still chafed that
+his debts were not paid, and could not be, by the labor of his hands.
+
+
+FRUITLESS JOURNEY.--In order to divert his mind, and, as a last chance for
+health, a trip to the Mediterranean was projected. The Barham frigate was
+placed by the government at his disposal; and he wandered with a party of
+friends to Malta, Naples, Pompeii, Paestum, and Rome. But feeling the end
+approaching, he exclaimed, "Let us to Abbotsford:" for the final hour he
+craved the _grata quies patriae_; to which an admiring world has added the
+remainder of the verse--_sed et omnis terra sepulchrum_. It was not a
+moment too soon: he travelled northward to the Rhine, down that river by
+boat, and reached London "totally exhausted;" thence, as soon as he could
+be moved, he was taken to Abbotsford.
+
+
+RETURN AND DEATH.--There he lingered from July to September, and died
+peacefully on the 21st of the latter month, surrounded by his family and
+lulled to repose by the rippling of the Tweed. Among the noted dead of
+1832, including Goethe, Cuvier, Crabbe, and Mackintosh, he was the most
+distinguished; and all Scotland and all the civilized world mourned his
+loss.
+
+
+HIS FAME.--At Edinburgh a colossal monument has been erected to his
+memory, within which sits his marble figure. Numerous other memorial
+columns are found in other cities, but all Scotland is his true monument,
+every province and town of which he has touched with his magic pen.
+Indeed, Scotland may be said to owe to him a new existence. In the words
+of Lord Meadowbank,--who presided at the Theatrical Fund dinner in 1827,
+and who there made the first public announcement of the authorship of the
+Waverley novels,--Scott was "the mighty magician who rolled back the
+current of time, and conjured up before our living senses the men and
+manners of days which have long since passed away ... It is he who has
+conferred a new reputation on our national character, and bestowed on
+Scotland an imperishable name."
+
+Besides his poetry and novels, he wrote very much of a miscellaneous
+character for the reviews, and edited the works of the poets with valuable
+introductions and congenial biographies. Most of his fictions are
+historical in plot and personages; and those which deal with Scottish
+subjects are enriched by those types of character, those descriptions of
+manners--national and local--and those peculiarities of language, which
+give them additional and more useful historical value. It has been justly
+said that, by his masterly handling of historical subjects, he has taught
+the later historians how to write, how to give vivid and pictorial effects
+to what was before a detail of chronology or a dry schedule of philosophy.
+His critical powers may be doubted: he was too kind and genial for a
+critic; and in reading contemporary authors seems to have endued their
+inferior works with something of his own fancy.
+
+The _Life of Scott_, by his son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart, is one of the most
+complete and interesting biographies in the language. In it the student
+will find a list of all his works, with the dates of their production; and
+will wonder that an author who was so rapid and so prolific could write so
+much that was of the highest excellence. If not the greatest genius of his
+age, he was its greatest literary benefactor; and it is for this reason
+that we have given so much space to the record of his life and works.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY: BYRON AND MOORE.
+
+
+   Early Life of Byron. Childe Harold and Eastern Tales. Unhappy Marriage.
+   Philhellenism and Death. Estimate of his Poetry. Thomas Moore.
+   Anacreon. Later Fortunes. Lalla Rookh. His Diary. His Rank as Poet.
+
+
+
+In immediate succession after Scott comes the name of Byron. They were
+both great lights of their age; but the former may be compared to a planet
+revolving in regulated and beneficent beauty through an unclouded sky;
+while the latter is more like a comet whose lurid light came flashing upon
+the sight in wild and threatening career.
+
+Like Scott, Byron was a prolific poet; and he owes to Scott the general
+suggestion and much of the success of his tales in verse. His powers of
+description were original and great: he adopted the new romantic tone,
+while in his more studied works he was an imitator and a champion of a
+former age, and a contemner of his own.
+
+
+EARLY LIFE OF BYRON.--The Honorable George Gordon Byron, afterwards Lord
+Byron, was born in London on the 22d of January, 1788. While he was yet an
+infant, his father--Captain Byron--a dissipated man, deserted his mother;
+and she went with her child to live upon a slender pittance at Aberdeen.
+She was a woman of peculiar disposition, and was unfortunate in the
+training of her son. She alternately petted and quarrelled with him, and
+taught him to emulate her irregularities of temper. On account of an
+accident at his birth, he had a malformation in one of his feet, which,
+producing a slight limp in his gait through life, rendered his sensitive
+nature quite unhappy, the signs of which are to be discerned in his drama,
+_The Deformed Transformed_. From the age of five years he went to school
+at Aberdeen, and very early began to exhibit traits of generosity,
+manliness, and an imperious nature: he also displayed great quickness in
+those studies which pleased his fancy.
+
+In 1798, when he was eleven years old, his grand-uncle, William, the fifth
+Lord Byron, died, and was succeeded in the title and estates by the young
+Gordon Byron, who was at once removed with his mother to Newstead Abbey.
+In 1801 he was sent to Harrow, where he was well esteemed by his comrades,
+but was not considered forward in his studies.
+
+He seems to have been of a susceptible nature, for, while still a boy, he
+fell in love several times. His third experience in this way was
+undoubtedly the strongest of his whole life. The lady was Miss Mary
+Chaworth, who did not return his affection. His last interview with her he
+has powerfully described in his poem called _The Dream_. From Harrow he
+went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he lived an idle and
+self-indulgent life, reading discursively, but not studying the prescribed
+course. As early as November, 1806, before he was nineteen, he published
+his first volume, _Poems on Various Occasions_, for private distribution,
+which was soon after enlarged and altered, and presented to the public as
+_Hours of Idleness, a Series of Poems Original and Translated, by George
+Gordon, Lord Byron, A Minor_. These productions, although by no means
+equal to his later poems, are not without merit, and did not deserve the
+exceedingly severe criticism they met with from the _Edinburgh Review_.
+The critics soon found that they had bearded a young lion: in his rage, he
+sprang out upon the whole literary craft in a satire, imitated from
+Juvenal, called _The English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, in which he
+ridicules and denounces the very best poets of the day furiously but most
+uncritically. That his conduct was absurd and unjust, he himself allowed
+afterwards; and he attempted to call in and destroy all the copies of this
+work.
+
+
+CHILDE HAROLD AND EASTERN TALES.--In March, 1809, he took his seat in the
+House of Lords, where he did not accomplish much. He took up his residence
+at Newstead Abbey, his ancestral seat, most of which was in a ruinous
+condition; and after a somewhat disorderly life there, he set out on his
+continental tour, spending some time at Lisbon, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Malta,
+and in Greece. On his return, after two years' absence, he brought a
+summary of his travels in poetical form,--the first part of _Childe
+Harold_; and also a more elaborated poem entitled _Hints from Horace_.
+Upon the former he set little value; but he thought the latter a noble
+work. The world at once reversed his decision. The satire in the Latin
+vein is scarcely read; while to the first cantos of _Childe Harold_ it was
+due that, in his own words, "he woke up one morning and found himself
+famous." As fruits of the eastern portion of his travels, we have the
+romantic tale, _The Giaour_, published in 1811, and _The Bride of Abydos_,
+which appeared in 1813. The popularity of these oriental stories was
+mainly due to their having been conceived on the spots they describe. In
+1814 he issued _The Corsair_, perhaps the best of these sensational
+stories; and with singular versatility, in the same year, inspired by the
+beauty of the Jewish history, he produced _The Hebrew Melodies_, some of
+which are fervent, touching, and melodious. Late in the same year _Lara_
+was published, in the same volume with Mr. Rogers's _Jacqueline_, which it
+threw completely into the shade. Thus closed one distinct period of his
+life and of his authorship. A change came over the spirit of his dream.
+
+
+UNHAPPY MARRIAGE.--In 1815, urged by his friends, and thinking it due to
+his position, he married Miss Milbanke; but the union was without
+affection on either side, and both were unhappy. One child, a daughter,
+was born to them; and a year had hardly passed when they were separated,
+by mutual consent and for reasons never truly divulged; and which, in
+spite of modern investigations, must remain mysterious. He was licentious,
+extravagant, of a violent temper: his wife was of severe morals, cold, and
+unsympathetic. We need not advance farther into the horrors recently
+suggested to the world. The blame has rested on Byron; and, at the time,
+the popular feeling was so strong, that it may be said to have driven him
+from England. It awoke in him a dark misanthropy which returned English
+scorn with an unnatural hatred. He sojourned at various places on the
+continent. At Geneva he wrote a third canto of _Childe Harold_, and the
+touching story of Bonnivard, entitled _The Prisoner of Chillon_, and other
+short poems.
+
+In 1817 he was at Venice, where he formed a connection with the Countess
+Guiccioli, to the disgrace of both. In Venice he wrote a fourth canto of
+_Childe Harold_, the story of _Mazeppa_, the first two cantos of _Don
+Juan_, and two dramas, _Marino Faliero_ and _The Two Foscari_.
+
+For two years he lived at Ravenna, where he wrote some of his other
+dramas, and several cantos of _Don Juan_. In 1821 he removed to Pisa;
+thence, after a short stay, to Genoa, still writing dramas and working at
+_Don Juan_.
+
+
+PHILHELLENISM: HIS DEATH.--The end of his misanthropy and his debaucheries
+was near; but his story was to have a ray of sunset glory--his death was
+to be connected with a noble effort and an exhibition of philanthropic
+spirit which seem in some degree to palliate his faults. Unlike some
+writers who find in his conduct only a selfish whim, we think that it
+casts a beautiful radiance upon the early evening of a stormy life. The
+Greeks were struggling for independence from Turkish tyranny: Byron threw
+himself heart and soul into the movement, received a commission from the
+Greek government, recruited a band of Suliotes, and set forth gallantly to
+do or die in the cause of Grecian freedom: he died, but not in battle. He
+caught a fever of a virulent type, from his exposure, and after very few
+days expired, on the 19th of April, 1824, amid the mourning of the nation.
+Of this event, Macaulay--no mean or uncertain critic--could say, in his
+epigrammatical style: "Two men have died within our recollection, who, at
+a time of life at which few people have completed their education, had
+raised themselves, each in his own department, to the height of glory. One
+of them died at Longwood; the other at Missolonghi."
+
+
+ESTIMATE OF HIS POETRY.--In giving a brief estimate of his character and
+of his works, we may begin by saying that he represents, in clear
+lineaments, the nobleman, the traveller, the poet, and the debauchee, of
+the beginning of the nineteenth century. In all his works he unconsciously
+depicts himself. He is in turn Childe Harold, Lara, the Corsair, and Don
+Juan. He affected to despise the world's opinion so completely that he has
+made himself appear worse than he really was--more profane, more
+intemperate, more licentious. It is equally true that this tendency, added
+to the fact that he was a handsome peer, had much to do with the immediate
+popularity of his poems. There was also a paradoxical vanity, which does
+not seem easily reconcilable with his misanthropy, that thus led him to
+reproduce himself in a new dress in his dramas and tales. He paraded
+himself as if, after all, he did value the world's opinion.
+
+That he was one of the new romantic poets, with, however, a considerable
+tincture of the transition school, may be readily discerned in his works:
+his earlier poems are full of the conceits of the artificial age. His
+_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_ reminds one of the _MacFlecknoe_ of
+Dryden and _The Dunciad_ of Pope, without being as good as either. When
+he began that original and splendid portrait of himself, and transcript
+of his travels, _Childe Harold_, he imitated Spenser in form and in
+archaism. But he was possessed by the muse: the man wrote as the spirit
+within dictated, as the Pythian priestess is fabled to have uttered her
+oracles. _Childe Harold_ is a stream of intuitive, irrepressible poetry;
+not art, but overflowing nature: the sentiments good and bad came welling
+forth from his heart. His descriptive powers are great but peculiar.
+Travellers find in _Childe Harold_ lightning glimpses of European scenery,
+art, and nature, needing no illustrations, almost defying them. National
+conditions, manners, customs, and costumes, are photographed in his
+verses:--the rapid rush to Waterloo; a bull-fight in Spain; the women of
+Cadiz or Saragossa; the Lion of St. Mark; the eloquent statue of the Dying
+Gladiator; "Fair Greece, sad relic of departed worth;" the address to the
+ocean; touches of love and hate; pictures of sorrow, of torture, of death.
+Everywhere thought and glance are powerfully concentrated, and we find the
+poem to be journal, history, epic, and autobiography. His felicity of
+expression is so great, that, as we come upon the happy conceptions
+exquisitely rendered, we are inclined to say of each, as he has said of
+the Egeria of Muna:
+
+                         ... whatsoe'er thy birth,
+    Thou wert a beautiful thought and softly bodied forth.
+
+Of his dramas which are founded upon history, we cannot say so much; they
+are dramatic only in form: some of them are spectacular, like
+_Sardanapalus_, which is still presented upon the stage on account of its
+scenic effects. In _Manfred_ we have a rare insight into his nature, and
+_Cain_ is the vehicle for his peculiar, dark sentiments on the subject of
+religion.
+
+_Don Juan_ is illustrative not only of the poet, but of the age; there was
+a generation of such men and women. But quite apart from its moral, or
+rather immoral, character, the poem is one of the finest in our
+literature: it is full of wonderful descriptions, and exhibits a splendid
+mastery of language, rhythm, and rhyme: a glorious epic with an inglorious
+hero, and that hero Byron himself.
+
+As a man he was an enigma to the world, and doubtless to himself: he was
+bad, but he was bold. If he was vindictive, he was generous; if he was
+misanthropic and sceptical, it was partly because he despised shams: in
+all his actions, we see that implicit working out of his own nature, which
+not only conceals nothing, but even exaggerates his own faults. His
+antecedents were bad;--his father was a villain; his grand-uncle a
+murderer; his mother a woman of violent temper; and himself, with all this
+legacy, a man of powerful passions. If evil is in any degree to be
+palliated because it is hereditary, those who most condemn it in the
+abstract, may still look with compassionate leniency upon the career of
+Lord Byron.
+
+
+THOMAS MOORE.--Emphatically the creature of his age, Moore wrote
+sentimental songs in melodious language to the old airs of Ireland, and
+used them as an instrument to excite the Irish people in the struggle they
+were engaged in against English misgovernment. But his songs were true
+neither to tradition nor to nature; they placed before the ardent Celtic
+fancy an Irish glory and grandeur entirely different from the reality. Nor
+had he in any degree caught the bardic spirit. His lyre was attuned to
+reach the ear rather than the heart; his scenes are in enchanted lands;
+his _dramatis personae_ tread theatrical boards; his thunder is a
+melo-dramatic roll; his lightning is pyrotechny; his tears are either
+hypocritical or maudlin; and his laughter is the perfection of genteel
+comedy.
+
+Thomas Moore was born in Dublin, on the 28th of May, 1779: he was a
+diminutive but precocious child, and was paraded by his father and mother,
+who were people in humble life, as a reciter of verse; and as an early
+rhymer also. His first poem was printed in a Dublin magazine, when he was
+fourteen years old. In 1794 he entered Trinity College, Dublin; and,
+although never considered a good scholar, he was graduated in 1798, when
+he was nineteen years old.
+
+
+ANACREON.--The first work which brought him into notice, and which
+manifests at once the precocity of his powers and the peculiarity of his
+taste, was his translation of the _Odes of Anacreon_. He had begun this
+work while at college, but it was finished and published in London,
+whither he had gone after leaving college, to enter the Middle Temple, in
+order to study law. With equal acuteness and adaptation to character, he
+dedicated the poems to the Prince of Wales, an anacreontic hero. As might
+be expected, with such a patron, the volume was a success. In 1801 he
+published another series of erotic poems, under the title _The Poetical
+Works of the late Thomas Little_. This gained for him, in Byron's line,
+the name of "the young Catullus of his day"; and, at the instance of Lord
+Moira, he was appointed poet-laureate, a post he filled only long enough
+to write one birthday ode. What seemed a better fortune came in the shape
+of an appointment as Registrar of the Admiralty Court of Bermuda. He went
+to the island; remained but a short time; and turned over the uncongenial
+duties of the post to a deputy, who subsequently became a defaulter, and
+involved Moore to a large amount. Returning from Bermuda, he travelled in
+the United States and Canada; not without some poetical record of his
+movements. In 1806 he published his _Epistles, Odes, and Other Poems_,
+which called down the righteous wrath of the Edinburgh Review: Jeffrey
+denounced the book as "a public nuisance," and "a corrupter of public
+morals." For this harsh judgment, Moore challenged him; but the duel was
+stopped by the police. This hostile meeting was turned to ridicule by
+Byron in the lines:
+
+    When Little's leadless pistols met his eye,
+    And Bow-street myrmidons stood laughing by.
+
+
+LATER FORTUNES.--Moore was now the favorite--the poet and the dependent of
+the nobility; and his versatile pen was principally employed to amuse and
+to please. He soon began that series of _Irish Melodies_ which he
+continued to augment with new pieces for nearly thirty years.
+
+Always of a theatrical turn, he acted well in private drama, in which the
+gentlemen were amateurs, and the female parts were personated by
+professional actresses. Thus playing in a cast with Miss Dyke, the
+daughter of an Irish actor, Moore fell in love with her, and married her
+on the 25th of March, 1811.
+
+With a foolish lack of judgment, he lost his hopes of preferment, by
+writing satires against the regent; but as a means of livelihood, he
+engaged to write songs for Powers, at a salary of L500 per annum, for
+seven years.
+
+
+LALLA ROOKH.--The most acceptable offering to fame, and the most
+successful pecuniary venture, was his _Lalla Rookh_. The East was becoming
+known to the English; and the fancy of the poet could convert the glimpses
+of oriental things into charming pictures. Long possessed with the purpose
+to write an Eastern story in verse, Moore set to work with laudable
+industry to read books of travels and history, in order to form a strong
+and sensible basis for his poetical superstructure. The work is a
+collection of beautiful poems, in a delicate setting of beautiful prose.
+The princess Lalla Rookh journeys, with great pomp, to become the bride of
+the youthful king of Bokkara, and finds among her attendants a handsome
+young poet, who beguiles the journey by singing to her these tales in
+verse. The dangers of the process became manifest--the king of Bokkara is
+forgotten, and the heart of the unfortunate princess is won by the beauty
+and the minstrelsy of the youthful poet. What is her relief and her joy to
+find on her arrival the unknown poet seated upon the throne as the king,
+who had won her heart as an humble bard!
+
+This beautiful and popular work was published in 1817; and for it Moore
+received from his publishers, the Longmans, L3000.
+
+In the same year Moore took a small cottage at Sloperton on the estate of
+the Marquis of Lansdowne, which, with some interruptions of travel, and a
+short residence in Paris, continued to be his residence during his life.
+Improvident in money matters, he was greatly troubled by his affairs in
+Bermuda;--the amount for which he became responsible by the defalcation of
+his deputy was L6000; which, however, by legal cleverness, was compromised
+for a thousand guineas.
+
+
+HIS DIARY.--It is very fortunate, for a proper understanding of Moore's
+life, that we have from this time a diary which is invaluable to the
+biographer. In 1820 he went to Paris, where he wasted his time and money
+in fashionable dissipation, and produced nothing of enduring value. Here
+he sketched an Egyptian story, versified in _Alciphron_, but enlarged in
+the prose romance called _The Epicurean_.
+
+On a short tour he visited Venice, where he received, as a gift from Lord
+Byron, his autobiographical memoirs, which contained so much that was
+compromising to others, that they were never published--at least in that
+form. They were withdrawn from the Murrays, in whose hands he had placed
+them, upon the death of Byron in 1824, and destroyed. A short visit to
+Ireland led to his writing the _Memoirs of Captain Rock_, a work which
+attained an unprecedented popularity in Ireland.
+
+In 1825 he published his _Life of Sheridan_, which is rather a friendly
+panegyric than a truthful biography.
+
+During three years--from 1827 to 1830--he was engaged upon the _Life of
+Byron_, which concealed more truth than it divulged. But in all these
+years, his chief dependence for daily bread was upon his songs and glees,
+squibs for newspapers and magazines, and review articles.
+
+In 1831 he made another successful hit in his _Life of Lord Edward
+Fitzgerald_, a rebel of '98, which was followed in 1833 by _The Travels of
+an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion_.
+
+In 1835, through the agency of Lord John Russel, the improvident poet
+received a pension of L300. It came in a time of need; for he was getting
+old, and his mind moved more sluggishly. His infirmities made him more
+domestic; but his greater trials were still before him. His sons were
+frivolous spendthrifts; one for whom he had secured a commission in the
+army behaved ill, and drew upon his impoverished father again and again
+for money: both died young. This cumulation of troubles broke him down; he
+had a cerebral attack in December, 1849, and lived helpless and broken
+until the 26th of February, 1852, when he expired without suffering.
+
+
+HIS POETRY.--In most cases, the concurrence of what an author has written
+will present to us the mental and moral features of the man. It is
+particularly true in the case of Moore. He appears to us in Protean
+shapes, indeed, but not without an affinity between them. Small in
+stature, of jovial appearance; devoted to the gayest society; not very
+earnest in politics; a Roman Catholic in name, with but little practical
+religion, he pandered at first to a frivolous public taste, and was even
+more corrupt than the public morals.
+
+Not so apparently as Pope an artificial poet, he had few touches of
+nature. Of lyric sentiment he has but little; but we must differ from
+those who deny to him rare lyrical expression, and happy musical
+adaptations. His songs one can hardly _read_; we feel that they must be
+sung. He has been accused, too violently, by Maginn of plagiarism: this,
+of course, means of phrases and ideas. In our estimate of Moore, it counts
+but little; his rare rhythm and exquisite cadences are not plagiarized;
+they are his own, and his chief merit.
+
+He abounds in imagery of oriental gorgeousness; and if, in personality,
+he may be compared to his own Peri, or one of "the beautiful blue damsel
+flies" of that poem, he has given to his unfriendly critics a judgment of
+his own style, in a criticism made by Fadladeen of the young poet's story
+to Lalla Rookh;--"it resembles one of those Maldivian boats--a slight,
+gilded thing, sent adrift without rudder or ballast, and with nothing but
+vapid sweets and faded flowers on board." "The effect of the whole," says
+one of his biographers, speaking of Lalla Rookh, "is much the same as that
+of a magnificent ballet, on which all the resources of the theatre have
+been lavished, and no expense spared in golden clouds, ethereal light,
+gauze-clad sylphs, and splendid tableaux."
+
+Moore has been felicitously called "the poet of all circles," a phrase
+which shows that he reflected the general features of his age. At no time
+could the license of _Anacreon_, or the poems of Little, have been so well
+received as when "the first gentleman in Europe" set the example of
+systematic impurity. At no time could _Irish Melodies_ have had such a
+_furore_ of adoption and applause, as when _Repeal_ was the cry, and the
+Irish were firing their minds by remembering "the glories of Brian the
+Brave;" that Brian Boroimhe who died in the eleventh century, after
+defeating the Danes in twenty-five battles.
+
+Moore's _Biographies_, with all their faults, are important social
+histories. _Lalla Rookh_ has a double historical significance: it is a
+reflection--like _Anastasius_ and _Vathek_, like _Thalaba_ and _The Curse
+of Kehama_, like _The Giaour_ and _The Bride of Abydos_--of English
+conquest, travel, and adventure in the East. It is so true to nature in
+oriental descriptions and allusions, that one traveller declared that to
+read it was like riding on a camel; but it is far more important to
+observe that the relative conditions of England and the Irish Roman
+Catholics are symbolized in the Moslem rule over the Ghebers, as
+delineated in _The Fire Worshippers_. In his preface to that poem, Moore
+himself says: "The cause of tolerance was again my inspiring theme; and
+the spirit that had spoken in the melodies of Ireland soon found itself at
+home in the East."
+
+In an historic view of English Literature, the works of Moore, touching
+almost every subject, must always be of great value to the student of his
+period: there he will always have his prominent place. But he is already
+losing his niche in public favor as a poet proper; better taste, purer
+morals, truer heart-songs, and more practical views will steadily supplant
+him, until, with no power to influence the present, he shall stand only as
+a charming relic of the past.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+THE NEW ROMANTIC POETRY (CONTINUED).
+
+
+   Robert Burns. His Poems. His Career. George Crabbe. Thomas Campbell.
+   Samuel Rogers. P. B. Shelley. John Keats. Other Writers.
+
+
+
+ROBERT BURNS.
+
+
+If Moore was, in the opinion of his age, an Irish prodigy, Burns is, for
+all time, a Scottish marvel. The one was polished and musical, but
+artificial and insidiously immoral; the other homely and simple, but
+powerful and effective to men of all classes in society. The one was the
+poet of the aristocracy; the other the genius whose sympathies were with
+the poor. One was most at home in the palaces of the great; and the other,
+in the rude Ayrshire cottage, or in the little sitting-room of the
+landlord in company with Souter John and Tam O'Shanter. As to most of his
+poems, Burns was really of no distinct school, but seems to stand alone,
+the creature of circumstance rather than of the age, in an unnatural and
+false position, compared by himself to the daisy he uprooted with his
+ploughshare:
+
+    Even thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate,
+    That fate is thine--no distant date;
+    Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate,
+                       Full on thy bloom,
+    Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight
+                       Shall be thy doom!
+
+His life was uneventful. He was the son of a very poor man who was
+gardener to a gentleman at Ayr. He was born in Alloway on the 25th of
+January, 1759. His early education was scanty; but he read with avidity
+the few books on which he could lay his hands, among which he particularly
+mentions, in his short autobiography, _The Spectator_, the poems of Pope,
+and the writings of Sterne and Thomson. But the work which he was to do
+needed not even that training: he drew his simple subjects from
+surrounding nature, and his ideas came from his heart rather than his
+head. Like Moore, he found the old tunes or airs of the country, and set
+them to new words--words full of sentiment and sense.
+
+
+HIS POEMS.--Most of his poems are quite short, and of the kind called
+fugitive, except that they will not fly away. _The Cotter's Saturday
+Night_ is for men of all creeds, a pastoral full of divine philosophy. His
+_Address to the Deil_ is a tender thought even for the Prince of Darkness,
+whom, says Carlyle, his kind nature could not hate with right orthodoxy.
+His poems on _The Louse, The Field-Mouse's Nest_, and _The Mountain
+Daisy_, are homely meditations and moral lessons, and contain counsels for
+all hearts. In _The Twa Dogs_ he contrasts, in fable, the relative
+happiness of rich and poor. In the beautiful song
+
+    Ye banks and braes of bonnie Doun,
+
+he expresses that hearty sympathy with nature which is one of the most
+attractive features of his character. His _Bruce's Address_ stirs the
+blood, and makes one start up into an attitude of martial advance. But his
+most famous poem--drama, comedy, epic, and pastoral--is _Tam o' Shanter_:
+it is a universal favorite; and few travellers leave Scotland without
+standing at the window of "Alloway's auld haunted kirk," walking over the
+road upon which Meg galloped, pausing over "the keystane of the brigg"
+where she lost her tail; and then returning, full of the spirit of the
+poem, to sit in Tam's chair, and drink ale out of the same silver-bound
+wooden bicker, in the very room of the inn where Tam and the poet used to
+get "unco fou," while praising "inspiring bold John Barley-corn." Indeed,
+in the words of the poor Scotch carpenter, met by Washington Irving at
+Kirk Alloway, "it seems as if the country had grown more beautiful since
+Burns had written his bonnie little songs about it."
+
+
+HIS CAREER.--The poet's career was sad. Gifted but poor, and doomed to
+hard work, he was given a place in the excise. He went to Edinburgh, and
+for a while was a great social lion; but he acquired a horrid thirst for
+drink, which shortened his life. He died in Dumfries, at the early age of
+thirty-seven. His allusions to his excesses are frequent, and many of them
+touching. In his praise of _Scotch Drink_ he sings _con amore_. In a
+letter to Mr. Ainslie, he epitomizes his failing: "Can you, amid the
+horrors of penitence, regret, headache, nausea, and all the rest of the
+hounds of hell that beset a poor wretch who has been guilty of the sin of
+drunkenness,--can you speak peace to a troubled soul."
+
+Burns was a great letter-writer, and thought he excelled in that art; but,
+valuable as his letters are, in presenting certain phases of his literary
+and personal character, they display none of the power of his poetry, and
+would not alone have raised him to eminence. They are in vigorous and
+somewhat pedantic English; while most of his poems are in that Lowland
+Scottish language or dialect which attracts by its homeliness and pleases
+by its _couleur locale_. It should be stated, in conclusion, that Burns is
+original in thought and presentation; and to this gift must be added a
+large share of humor, and an intense patriotism. Poverty was his grim
+horror. He declared that it killed his father, and was pursuing him to the
+grave. He rose above the drudgery of a farmer's toil, and he found no
+other work which would sustain him; and yet this needy poet stands to-day
+among the most distinguished Scotchmen who have contributed to English
+Literature.
+
+
+GEORGE CRABBE.--Also of the transition school; in form and diction
+adhering to the classicism of Pope, but, with Thomson, restoring the
+pastoral to nature, the poet of the humble poor;--in the words of Byron,
+"Pope in worsted stockings," Crabbe was the delight of his time; and Sir
+Walter Scott, returning to die at Abbotsford, paid him the following
+tribute: he asked that they would read him something amusing, "Read me a
+bit of Crabbe." As it was read, he exclaimed, "Capital--excellent--very
+good; Crabbe has lost nothing."
+
+George Crabbe was born on December 24th, 1754, at Aldborough, Suffolk. His
+father was a poor man; and Crabbe, with little early education, was
+apprenticed to a surgeon, and afterwards practised; but his aspirations
+were such that he went to London, with three pounds in his pocket, for a
+literary venture. He would have been in great straits, had it not been for
+the disinterested generosity of Burke, to whom, although an utter
+stranger, he applied for assistance. Burke aided him by introducing him to
+distinguished literary men; and his fortune was made. In 1781 he published
+_The Library_, which was well received. Crabbe then took orders, and was
+for a little time curate at Aldborough, his native place, while other
+preferment awaited him. In 1783 he appeared under still more favorable
+auspices, by publishing _The Village_, which had a decided success. Two
+livings were then given him; and he, much to his credit, married his early
+love, a young girl of Suffolk. In _The Village_ he describes homely scenes
+with great power, in pentameter verse. The poor are the heroes of his
+humble epic; and he knew them well, as having been of them. In 1807
+appeared _The Parish Register_, in 1810 _The Borough_, and in 1812 his
+_Tales in Verse_,--the precursor, in the former style, however, of
+Wordsworth's lyrical stories. All these were excellent and very popular,
+because they were real, and from his own experience. _The Tales of the
+Hall_, referring chiefly to the higher classes of society, are more
+artificial, and not so good. His pen was most at home in describing
+smugglers, gipsies, and humble villagers, and in delineating poverty and
+wretchedness; and thus opening to the rich and titled, doors through which
+they might exercise their philanthropy and munificence. In this way Crabbe
+was a reformer, and did great good; although his scenes are sometimes
+revolting, and his pathos too exacting. As a painter of nature, he is true
+and felicitous; especially in marine and coast views, where he is a
+pre-Raphaelite in his minuteness. Byron called him "Nature's sternest
+painter, but the best." He does not seem to write for effect, and he is
+without pretension; so that the critics were quite at fault; for what they
+mainly attack is not the poet's work so much as the consideration whether
+his works come up to his manifesto. Crabbe died in 1832, on the 3d of
+February, being one of the famous dead of that fatal year.
+
+Crabbe's poems mark his age. At an earlier time, when literature was for
+the fashionable few, his subjects would have been beneath interest; but
+the times had changed; education had been more diffused, and readers were
+multiplied. Goldsmith's _Deserted Village_ had struck a new chord, upon
+which Crabbe continued to play. Of his treatment of these subjects it must
+be said, that while he holds a powerful pen, and portrays truth vividly,
+he had an eye only for the sadder conditions of life, and gives pain
+rather than excites sympathy in the reader. Our meaning will be best
+illustrated by a comparison of _The Village_ of Crabbe with _The Deserted
+Village_ of Goldsmith, and the pleasure with which we pass from the
+squalid scenes of the former to the gentler sorrows and sympathies of the
+latter.
+
+
+THOMAS CAMPBELL.--More identified with his age than any other poet, and
+yet forming a link between the old and the new, was Campbell. Classical
+and correct in versification, and smothering nature with sonorous prosody,
+he still had the poetic fire, and an excellent power of poetic criticism.
+He was the son of a merchant, and was born at Glasgow on the 27th of July,
+1777. He thus grew up with the French revolution, and with the great
+progress of the English nation in the wars incident to it. He was
+carefully educated, and was six years at the University of Glasgow, where
+he received prizes for composition. He went later to Germany, after being
+graduated, to study Greek literature with Heyne. After some preliminary
+essays in verse, he published the _Pleasures of Hope_ in 1799, before he
+was twenty-two years old. It was one of the greatest successes of the age,
+and has always since been popular. His subject was one of universal
+interest; his verse was high-sounding; and his illustrations modern--such
+as the fall of Poland--_Finis Poloniae_; and although there is some
+turgidity, and some want of unity, making the work a series of poems
+rather than a connected one, it was most remarkable for a youth of his
+age. It was perhaps unfortunate for his future fame; for it led the world
+to expect other and better things, which were not forthcoming. Travelling
+on the continent in the next year, 1800, he witnessed the battle of
+Hohenlinden from the monastery of St. Jacob, and wrote that splendid,
+ringing battle-piece, which has been so often recited and parodied. From
+that time he wrote nothing in poetry worthy of note, except songs and
+battle odes, with one exception. Among his battle-pieces which have never
+been equalled are _Ye Mariners of England_, _The Battle of the Baltic_,
+and _Lochiel's Warning_. His _Exile of Erin_ has been greatly admired, and
+was suspected at the time of being treasonable; the author, however, being
+entirely innocent of such an intention, as he clearly showed.
+
+Besides reviews and other miscellanies, Campbell wrote _The Annals of
+Great Britain, from the Accession of George III. to the Peace of Amiens_,
+which is a graceful but not valuable work. In 1805 he received a pension
+of L200 per annum.
+
+In 1809 he published his _Gertrude of Wyoming_--the exception referred
+to--a touching story, written with exquisite grace, but not true to the
+nature of the country or the Indian character. Like _Rasselas_, it is a
+conventional English tale with foreign names and localities; but as an
+English poem it has great merit; and it turned public attention to the
+beautiful Valley of Wyoming, and the noble river which flows through it.
+
+As a critic, Campbell had great acquirements and gifts. These were
+displayed in his elaborate _Specimens of the British Poets_, published in
+1819, and in his _Lectures on Poetry_ before the Surrey Institution in
+1820. In 1827 he was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow; but
+afterwards his literary efforts were by no means worthy of his reputation.
+Few have read his _Pilgrim of Glencoe_; and all who have, are pained by
+its manifestation of his failing powers. In fact, his was an unfinished
+fame--a brilliant beginning, but no continuance. Sir Walter Scott has
+touched it with a needle, when he says, "Campbell is in a manner a bugbear
+to himself; the brightness of his early success is a detriment to all his
+after efforts. He is afraid of the shadow which his own fame casts before
+him." Byron placed him in the second category of the greatest living
+English poets; but Byron was no critic.
+
+He also published a _Life of Petrarch_, and a _Life of Frederick the
+Great_; and, in 1830, he edited the _New Monthly Magazine_. He died at
+Boulogne, June 15th, 1844, after a long period of decay in mental power.
+
+
+SAMUEL ROGERS.--Rogers was a companion or consort to Campbell, although
+the two men were very different personally. As Campbell had borrowed from
+Akenside and written _The Pleasures of Hope_, Rogers enriched our
+literature with _The Pleasures of Memory_, a poem of exquisite
+versification, more finished and unified than its pendent picture;
+containing neither passion nor declamation, but polish, taste, and
+tenderness.
+
+Rogers was born in a suburb of London, in 1762. His father was a banker;
+and, although well educated, the poet was designed to succeed him, as he
+did, being until his death a partner in the same banking-house. Early
+enamored of poetry by reading Beattie's _Minstrel_, Rogers devoted all his
+spare time to its cultivation, and with great and merited success.
+
+In 1786 he produced his _Ode to Superstition_, after the manner of Gray,
+and in 1792 his _Pleasures of Memory_, which was enthusiastically
+received, and which is polished to the extreme. In 1812 appeared a
+fragment, _The Voyage of Columbus_, and in 1814 _Jacqueline_, in the same
+volume with Byron's _Lara_. _Human Life_ was published in 1819. It is a
+poem in the old style, (most of his poems are in the rhymed pentameter
+couplet;) but in 1822 appeared his poem of _Italy_, in blank verse, which
+has the charm of originality in presentation, freshness of personal
+experience, picturesqueness in description, novelty in incident and story,
+scholarship, and taste in art criticism. In short, it is not only the best
+of his poems, but it has great merit besides that of the poetry. The story
+of Ginevra is a masterpiece of cabinet art, and is universally
+appreciated. With these works Rogers contented himself. Rich and
+distinguished, his house became a place of resort to men of distinction
+and taste in art: it was filled with articles of _vertu_; and Rogers the
+poet lived long as Rogers the _virtuoso_. His breakfast parties were
+particularly noted. His long, prosperous, and happy life was ended on the
+18th December, 1855, at the age of ninety-two.
+
+The position of Rogers may be best illustrated in the words of Sir J.
+Mackintosh, in which he says: "He appeared at the commencement of this
+literary revolution, without paying court to the revolutionary tastes, or
+seeking distinction by resistance to them." His works are not destined to
+live freshly in the course of literature, but to the historical student
+they mark in a very pleasing manner the characteristics of his age.
+
+
+PERCY B. SHELLEY.--Revolutions never go backward; and one of the greatest
+characters in this forward movement was a gifted, irregular, splendid,
+unbalanced mind, who, while taking part in it, unconsciously, as one of
+many, stands out also in a very singular individuality.
+
+Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on the 4th of August, 1792, at Fieldplace,
+in Sussex, England. He was the eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley, and of
+an ancient family, traced back, it is said, to Sir Philip Sidney. When
+thirteen years old he was sent to Eton, where he began to display his
+revolutionary tendencies by his resistance to the fagging system; and
+where he also gave some earnest in writing of his future powers. At the
+age of sixteen he entered University College, Oxford, and appeared as a
+radical in most social, political, and religious questions. On account of
+a paper entitled _The Necessity of Atheism_, he was expelled from the
+university and went to London. In 1811 he made a runaway match with Miss
+Harriet Westbrook, the daughter of the keeper of a coffee-house, which
+brought down on him the wrath of his father. After the birth of two
+children, a separation followed; and he eloped with Miss Godwin in 1814.
+His wife committed suicide in 1816; and then the law took away from him
+the control of his children, on the ground that he was an atheist.
+
+After some time of residence in England, he returned to Italy, where soon
+after he met with a tragical end. Going in an open boat from Leghorn to
+Spezzia, he was lost in a storm on the Mediterranean: his body was washed
+on shore near the town of Via Reggio, where his remains were burned in
+the presence of Lord Byron, Leigh Hunt, and others. The ashes were
+afterwards buried in the Protestant cemetery at Rome in July, 1822.
+
+Shelley's principles were irrational and dangerous. He was a
+transcendentalist of the extreme order, and a believer in the
+perfectability of human nature. His works are full of his principles. The
+earliest was _Queen Mab_, in which his profanity and atheism are clearly
+set forth. It was first privately printed, and afterwards published in
+1821. This was followed by _Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude_, in 1816.
+In this he gives his own experience in the tragical career of the hero.
+His longest and most pretentious poem was _The Revolt of Islam_, published
+in 1819. It is in the Spenserian stanza. Also, in the same year, he
+published _The Cenci_, a tragedy, a dark and gloomy story on what should
+be a forbidden subject, but very powerfully written. In 1820 he also
+published _The Prometheus Unbound_, which is full of his irreligious
+views. His remaining works were smaller poems, among which may be noted
+_Adonais_, and the odes _To the Skylark_ and _The Cloud_.
+
+In considering his character, we must first observe the power of his
+imagination; it was so strong and all-absorbing, that it shut out the real
+and the true. He was a man of extreme sensibility; and that sensibility,
+hurt by common contact with things and persons around him, made him morbid
+in morality and metaphysics. He was a polemic of the fiercest type; and
+while he had an honest desire for reform of the evils that he saw about
+him, it is manifest that he attacked existing institutions for the very
+love of controversy. Bold, retired, and proud, without a spice of vanity,
+if he has received harsh judgment from one half the critical world, who
+had at least the claim that they were supporting pure morals and true
+religion, his character has been unduly exalted by the other half, who
+have mistaken reckless dogmatism for true nobility of soul. The most
+charitable judgment is that of Moir, who says: "It is needless to disguise
+the fact--and it accounts for all--his mind was diseased; he never knew,
+even from boyhood, what it was to breathe the atmosphere of healthy
+life--to have the _mens sana in corpore sano_."
+
+But of his poetical powers we must speak in a different manner. What he
+has left, gives token that, had he lived, he would have been one of the
+greatest modern poets. Thoroughly imbued with the Greek poetry, his
+verse-power was wonderful, his language stately and learned without
+pedantry, his inspiration was that of nature in her grandest moods, his
+fancy always exalted; and he presents the air of one who produces what is
+within him from an intense love of his art, without regard to the opinion
+of the world around him,--which, indeed, he seems to have despised more
+thoroughly than any other poet has ever done. Byron affected to despise
+it; Shelley really did.
+
+We cannot help thinking that, had he lived after passing through the fiery
+trial of youthful passions and disordered imagination, he might have
+astonished the world with the grand spectacle of a convert to the good and
+true, and an apostle in the cause of both. Of him an honest thinker has
+said,--and there is much truth in the apparent paradox,--"No man who was
+not a fanatic, had ever more natural piety than he; and his supposed
+atheism is a mere metaphysical crotchet in which he was kept by the
+affected scorn and malignity of dunces."[37]
+
+
+JOHN KEATS.--Another singular illustration of eccentricity and abnormal
+power in verse is found in the brief career of John Keats, the son of the
+keeper of a livery-stable in London, who was born on the 29th October,
+1795.
+
+Keats was a sensitive and pugnacious youth; and in 1810, after a very
+moderate education, he was apprenticed to a surgeon; but the love of
+poetry soon interfered with the surgery, and he began to read, not without
+the spirit of emulation, the works of the great poets--Chaucer, Spenser,
+Shakspeare, and Milton. After the issue of a small volume which attracted
+little or no attention, he published his _Endymion_ in 1818, which, with
+some similarity in temperament, he inscribed to the memory of Thomas
+Chatterton. It is founded upon the Greek mythology, and is written in a
+varied measure. Its opening line has been a familiar quotation since:
+
+    A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
+
+It was assailed by all the critics; but particularly, although not
+unfairly, by Jeffrey, in the _Edinburgh Review_. An article in
+_Blackwood_, breathing the spirit of British caste, had the bad taste to
+tell the young apothecary to go back to his galley-pots. The excessive
+sensibility of Keats received a great shock from this treatment; but we
+cannot help thinking that too much stress has been laid upon this in
+saying that he was killed by it. This was more romantic than true. He was
+by inheritance consumptive, and had lost a brother by that disease. Add to
+this that his peculiar passions and longings took the form of fierce
+hypochondria.
+
+With a decided originality, he was so impressible that there are in his
+writings traces of the authors whom he was reading, if he did not mean to
+make them models of style.
+
+In 1820 he published a volume containing _Lamia_, _Isabella_, and _The Eve
+of St. Agnes_, and _Hyperion_, a fragment, which was received with far
+greater favor by the reviewers. Keats was self-reliant, and seems to have
+had something of that magnificent egotism which is not infrequently
+displayed by great minds.
+
+The judicious verdict at last pronounced upon him may be thus epitomized:
+he was a poet with fine fancy, original ideas, felicity of expression, but
+full of faults due to his individuality and his youth; and his life was
+not spared to correct these. In 1820 a hemorrhage of brilliant arterial
+blood heralded the end. He himself said, "Bring me a candle; let me see
+this blood;" and when it was brought, added, "I cannot be deceived in that
+color; that drop is my death-warrant: I must die." By advice he went to
+Italy, where he grew rapidly worse, and died on the 23d of February, 1821,
+having left this for his epitaph: "Here lies one whose name was writ in
+water." Thus dying at the age of twenty-four, he must be judged less for
+what he was, than as an earnest of what he would have been. _The Eve of
+St. Agnes_ is one of the most exquisite poems in any language, and is as
+essentially allied to the simplicity and nature of the modern school of
+poetry as his _Endymion_ is to the older school. Keats took part in what a
+certain writer has called "the reaction against the barrel-organ style,
+which had been reigning by a kind of sleepy, divine right for half a
+century."
+
+
+
+OTHER WRITERS OF THE PERIOD.
+
+
+In consonance with the Romantic school of Poetry, and as contributors to
+the prose fiction of the period of Scott, Byron, and Moore, a number of
+gifted women have made good their claim to the favor of the reading world,
+and have left to us productions of no mean value. First among these we
+mention Mrs. FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS, 1794-1835: early married to Captain
+Hemans, of the army, she was not happy in the conjugal state, and lived
+most of her after-life in retirement, separated from her husband. Her
+style is harmonious, and her lyrical power excellent; she makes melody of
+common-places; and the low key in which her poetry is pitched made her a
+favorite with the multitude. There is special fervor in her religious
+poems. Most of her writings are fugitive and occasional pieces. Among the
+longer poems are _The Forest Sanctuary_, _Dartmoor_, (a lyric poem,) and
+_The Restoration of the works of Art to Italy_. _The Siege of Valencia_
+and _The Vespers of Palermo_ are plays on historical subjects. There is a
+sameness in her poetry which tires; but few persons can be found who do
+not value highly such a descriptive poem as _Bernardo del Carpio_,
+conceived in the very spirit of the Spanish Ballads, and such a sad and
+tender moralizing as that found in _The Hour of Death_:
+
+    Leaves have their time to fall,
+      And flowers to wither, at the north-wind's breath,
+    And stars to set--but all,
+      Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!
+
+Such poems as these will live when the greater part of what she has
+written has been forgotten, because its ministry has been accomplished.
+
+_Mrs. Caroline Elizabeth Norton_, (born in 1808, still living:) she is the
+daughter of Thomas Sheridan, and the grand-daughter of the famous R. B.
+Sheridan. She married the Hon. Mr. Norton, and, like Mrs. Hemans, was
+unhappy in her union. As a poet, she has masculine gifts combined with
+feminine grace and tenderness. Her principal poems are _The Sorrows of
+Rosalie_, _The Undying One_, (founded on the legend of _The Wandering
+Jew_,) and _The Dream_. Besides these her facile pen has produced a
+multitude of shorter pieces, which have been at once popular. Her claims
+to enduring fame are not great, and she must be content with a present
+popularity.
+
+_Letitia Elizabeth Landon_, 1802-1839: more gifted, and yet not as well
+trained as either of the preceding, Miss Landon (L. E. L.) has given vent
+to impassioned sentiment in poetry and prose. Besides many smaller pieces,
+she wrote _The Improvisatrice_, _The Troubadour_, _The Golden Violet_, and
+several prose romances, among which the best are _Romance and Reality_,
+and _Ethel Churchill_. She wrote too rapidly to finish with elegance; and
+her earlier pieces are disfigured by this want of finish, and by a lack of
+cool judgment; but her later writings are better matured and more correct.
+She married Captain Maclean, the governor of Cape Coast Castle, in Africa,
+and died there suddenly, from an overdose of strong medicine which she was
+accustomed to take for a nervous affection.
+
+_Maria Edgeworth_, 1767-1849: she was English born, but resided most of
+her life in Ireland. Without remarkable genius, she may be said to have
+exercised a greater influence over her period than any other woman who
+lived in it. There is an aptitude and a practical utility in her stories
+which are felt in all circles. Her works for children are delightful and
+formative. Every one has read and re-read with pleasure the interesting
+and instructive stories contained in _The Parents' Assistant_. And what
+these are to the children, her novels are to those of larger growth. They
+are eighteen in number, and are illustrative of the society, fashion, and
+morals of the day; and always inculcate a good moral. Among them we may
+particularize _Forester_, _The Absentee_, and _The Modern Griselda_. All
+critics, even those who deny her great genius, agree in their estimate of
+the moral value of her stories, every one of which is at once a
+portraiture of her age and an instructive lesson to it. The feminine
+delicacy with which she offers counsel and administers reproof gives a
+great charm to, and will insure the permanent popularity of, her
+productions.
+
+_Jane Austen_, 1775-1817: as a novelist she occupied a high place in her
+day, but her stories are gradually sinking into an historic repose, from
+which the coming generations will not care to disturb them. _Pride and
+Prejudice_ and _Sense and Sensibility_ are perhaps the best of her
+productions, and are valuable as displaying the society and the nature
+around her with delicacy and tact.
+
+_Mary Ferrier_, 1782-1855: like Miss Austen, she wrote novels of existing
+society, of which _The Marriage_ and _The Inheritance_ are the best known.
+They were great favorites with Sir Walter Scott, who esteemed Miss
+Ferrier's genius highly: they are little read at the present time.
+
+_Robert Pollok_, 1799-1827: a Scottish minister, who is chiefly known by
+his long poem, cast in a Miltonic mould, entitled _The Course of Time_. It
+is singularly significant of religious fervor, delicate health, youthful
+immaturity, and poetic yearnings. It abounds in startling effects, which
+please at first from their novelty, but will not bear a calm, critical
+analysis. On its first appearance, _The Course of Time_ was immensely
+popular; but it has steadily lost favor, and its highest flights are
+"unearthly flutterings" when compared with the powerful soarings of
+Milton's imagination and the gentle harmonies of Cowper's religious muse.
+Pollok died early of consumption: his youth and his disease account for
+the faults and defects of his poem.
+
+_Leigh Hunt_, 1784-1859: a novelist, a poet, an editor, a critic, a
+companion of literary men, Hunt occupies a distinct position among the
+authors of his day. Wielding a sensible and graceful rather than a
+powerful pen, he has touched almost every subject in the range of our
+literature, and has been the champion and biographer of numerous literary
+friends. He was the companion of Byron, Shelley, Keats, Lamb, Coleridge,
+and many other authors. He edited at various times several radical
+papers--_The Examiner_, _The Reflector_, _The Indicator_, and _The
+Liberal_; for a satire upon the regent, published in the first, he was
+imprisoned for two years. Among his poems _The Story of Rimini_ is the
+best. His _Legend of Florence_ is a beautiful drama. There are few pieces
+containing so small a number of lines, and yet enshrining a full story,
+which have been as popular as his _Abou Ben Adhem_. Always cheerful,
+refined and delicate in style, appreciative of others, Hunt's place in
+English literature is enviable, if not very exalted; like the atmosphere,
+his writings circulate healthfully and quietly around efforts of greater
+poets than himself.
+
+_James Hogg_, 1770-1835: a self-taught rustic, with little early
+schooling, except what the shepherd-boy could draw from nature, he wrote
+from his own head and heart without the canons and the graces of the
+Schools. With something of the homely nature of Burns, and the Scottish
+romance of Walter Scott, he produced numerous poems which are stamped with
+true genius. He catered to Scottish feeling, and began his fame by the
+stirring lines beginning;
+
+    My name is Donald McDonald,
+    I live in the Highlands so grand.
+
+His best known poetical works are _The Queen's Wake_, containing seventeen
+stories in verse, of which the most striking is that of _Bonny Kilmeny_.
+He was always called "The Ettrick Shepherd." Wilson says of _The Queen's
+Wake_ that "it is a garland of fresh flowers bound with a band of rushes
+from the moor;" a very fitting and just view of the work of one who was at
+once poet and rustic.
+
+_Allan Cunningham_, 1785-1842; like Hogg, in that as a writer he felt the
+influence of both Burns and Scott, Cunningham was the son of a gardener,
+and a self-made man. In early life he was apprenticed to a mason. He wrote
+much fugitive poetry, among which the most popular pieces are, _A Wet
+Sheet and a Flowing Sea_, _Gentle Hugh Herries_, and _It's Hame and it's
+Hame_. Among his stories are _Traditional Tales of the Peasantry_, _Lord
+Roldan_, and _The Maid of Elwar_. His position for a time, as clerk and
+overseer of Chantrey's establishment, gave him the idea of writing _The
+Lives of Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects_. He was a
+voluminous author; his poetry is of a high lyrical order, and true to
+nature; but his prose will not retain its place in public favor: it is at
+once diffuse and obscure.
+
+_Thomas Hope_, 1770-1831: an Amsterdam merchant, who afterwards resided in
+London, and who illustrated the progress of knowledge concerning the East
+by his work entitled, _Anastasius, or Memoirs of a Modern Greek_.
+Published anonymously, it excited a great interest, and was ascribed by
+the public to Lord Byron. The intrigues and adventures of the hero are
+numerous and varied, and the book has great literary merit; but it is
+chiefly of historical value in that it describes persons and scenes in
+Greece and Turkey, countries in which Hope travelled at a time when few
+Englishmen visited them.
+
+_William Beckford_, 1760-1844: he was the son of an alderman, who became
+Lord Mayor of London. After a careful education, he found himself the
+possessor of a colossal fortune. He travelled extensively, and wrote
+sketches of his travels. His only work of importance is that called
+_Vathek_, in which he describes the gifts, the career, and the fate of the
+Caliph of that name, who was the grandson of the celebrated Haroun al
+Raschid. His palaces are described in a style of Oriental gorgeousness;
+his temptations, his lapses from virtue, his downward progress, are
+presented with dramatic power; and there is nothing in our literature more
+horribly real and terror-striking than the _Hall of Eblis_,--that hell
+where every heart was on fire, where "the Caliph Vathek, who, for the sake
+of empty pomp and forbidden power, had sullied himself with a thousand
+crimes, became a prey to grief without end and remorse without
+mitigation." Many of Beckford's other writings are blamed for their
+voluptuous character; the last scene in _Vathek_ is, on the other hand, a
+most powerful and influential sermon. Beckford was eccentric and unsocial:
+he lived for some time in Portugal, but returned to England, and built a
+luxurious palace at Bath.
+
+_William Roscoe_, 1753-1831: a merchant and banker of Liverpool. He is
+chiefly known by his _Life of Lorenzo de Medici_, and _The Life and
+Pontificate of Leo X._, both of which contained new and valuable
+information. They are written in a pleasing style, and with a liberal and
+charitable spirit as to religious opinions. Since they appeared, history
+has developed new material and established more exacting canons, and the
+studies of later writers have already superseded these pleasing works.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+WORDSWORTH, AND THE LAKE SCHOOL.
+
+
+   The New School. William Wordsworth. Poetical Canons. The Excursion and
+   Sonnets. An Estimate. Robert Southey. His Writings. Historical Value.
+   S. T. Coleridge. Early Life. His Helplessness. Hartley and H. N.
+   Coleridge.
+
+
+
+THE NEW SCHOOL.
+
+
+In the beginning of the year 1820 George III. died, after a very long--but
+in part nominal--reign of fifty-nine years, during a large portion of
+which he was the victim of insanity, while his son, afterwards George IV.,
+administered the regency of the kingdom.
+
+George III. did little, either by example or by generosity, to foster
+literary culture: his son, while nominally encouraging authors, did much
+to injure the tone of letters in his day. But literature was now becoming
+independent and self-sustaining: it needed to look no longer wistfully for
+a monarch's smile: it cared comparatively little for the court: it issued
+its periods and numbers directly to the English people: it wrote for them
+and of them; and when, in 1830, the last of the Georges died, after an
+ill-spent life, in which his personal pleasures had concerned him far more
+than the welfare of his people, former prescriptions and prejudices
+rapidly passed away; and the new epoch in general improvement and literary
+culture, which had already begun its course, received a marvellous
+impulsion.
+
+The great movement, in part unconscious, from the artificial rhetoric of
+the former age towards the simplicity of nature, was now to receive its
+strongest propulsion: it was to be preached like a crusade; to be reduced
+to a system, and set forth for the acceptance of the poetical world: it
+was to meet with criticism, and even opprobrium, because it had the
+arrogance to declare that old things had entirely passed away, and that
+all things must conform themselves to the new doctrine. The high-priest of
+this new poetical creed was Wordsworth: he proposed and expounded it; he
+wrote according to its tenets; he defended his illustrations against the
+critics by elaborate prefaces and essays. He boldly faced the clamor of a
+world in arms; and what there was real and valuable in his works has
+survived the fierce battle, and gathered around him an army of proselytes,
+champions, and imitators.
+
+
+WORDSWORTH.--William Wordsworth was the son of the law-agent to the Earl
+of Lonsdale; he was born at Cockermouth, Cumberland, in 1770. It was a
+gifted family. His brother, Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, was Master of
+Trinity College. Another, the captain of an East Indiaman, was lost at sea
+in his own ship. He had also a clever sister, who was the poet's friend
+and companion as long as she lived.
+
+Wordsworth and his companions have been called the Lake Poets, because
+they resided among the English lakes. Perhaps too much has been claimed
+for the Lake country, as giving inspiration to the poets who lived there:
+it is beautiful, but not so surpassingly so as to create poets as its
+children. The name is at once arbitrary and convenient.
+
+Wordsworth was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, which he entered
+in 1787; but whenever he could escape from academic restraints, he
+indulged his taste for pedestrian excursions: during these his ardent mind
+became intimate and intensely sympathetic with nature, as may be seen in
+his _Evening Walk_, in the sketch of the skater, and in the large
+proportion of description in all his poems.
+
+It is truer of him than perhaps of any other author, that the life of the
+man is the best history of the poet. All that is eventful and interesting
+in his life may be found translated in his poetry. Milton had said that
+the poet's life should be a grand poem. Wordsworth echoed the thought:
+
+    If thou indeed derive thy light from Heaven,
+    Then to the measure of that Heaven-born light,
+    Shine, Poet! in thy place, and be content.
+
+He was not distinguished at college; the record of his days there may be
+found in _The Prelude_, which he calls _The Growth of a Poet's Mind_. He
+was graduated in 1791, with the degree of B.A., and went over to France,
+where he, among others, was carried away with enthusiasm for the French
+Revolution, and became a thorough Radical. That he afterwards changed his
+political views, should not be advanced in his disfavor; for many ardent
+and virtuous minds were hoping to see the fulfilment of recent predictions
+in greater freedom to man. Wordsworth erred in a great company, and from
+noble sympathies. He returned to England in 1792, with his illusions
+thoroughly dissipated. The workings of his mind are presented in _The
+Prelude_.
+
+In the same year he published _Descriptive Sketches_, and _An Evening
+Walk_, which attracted little attention. A legacy of L900 left him by his
+friend Calvert, in 1795, enabled the frugal poet to devote his life to
+poetry, and particularly to what he deemed the emancipation of poetry from
+the fetters of the mythic and from the smothering ornaments of rhetoric.
+
+In Nov., 1797, he went to London, taking with him a play called _The
+Borderers_: it was rejected by the manager. In the autumn of 1798, he
+published his _Lyrical Ballads_, which contained, besides his own verses,
+a poem by an anonymous friend. The poem was _The Ancient Mariner_; the
+friend, Coleridge. In the joint operation, Wordsworth took the part based
+on nature; Coleridge illustrated the supernatural. The _Ballads_ were
+received with undisguised contempt; nor, by reason of its company, did
+_The Ancient Mariner_ have a much better hearing. Wordsworth preserved his
+equanimity, and an implicit faith in himself.
+
+After a visit to Germany, he settled in 1799 at Grasmere, in the Lake
+country, and the next year republished the _Lyrical Ballads_ with a new
+volume, both of which passed to another edition in 1802. With this
+edition, Wordsworth ran up his revolutionary flag and nailed it to the
+mast.
+
+
+POETICAL CANONS.--It would be impossible as well as unnecessary to attempt
+an analysis of even the principal poems of so voluminous a writer; but it
+is important to state in substance the poetical canons he laid down. They
+may be found in the prefaces to the various editions of his _Ballads_, and
+may be thus epitomized:
+
+I. He purposely chose his incidents and situations from common life,
+because in it our elementary feelings coexist in a state of simplicity.
+
+II. He adopts the _language_ of common life, because men hourly
+communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is
+originally derived; and because, being less under the influence of social
+vanity, they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated
+expressions.
+
+III. He asserts that the language of poetry is in no way different, except
+in respect to metre, from that of good prose. Poetry can boast of no
+celestial _ichor_ that distinguishes her vital juices from those of prose:
+the same human blood circulates through the veins of them both. In works
+of imagination and sentiment, in proportion as ideas and feelings are
+valuable, whether the composition be in prose or verse, they require and
+exact one and the same language.
+
+Such are the principal changes proposed by Wordsworth; and we find Herder,
+the German poet and metaphysician, agreeing with him in his estimate of
+poetic language. Having thus propounded his tenets, he wrote his earlier
+poems as illustrations of his views, affecting a simplicity in subject and
+diction that was sometimes simply ludicrous. It was an affected
+simplicity: he was simple with a purpose; he wrote his poems to suit his
+canons, and in that way his simplicity became artifice.
+
+Jeffrey and other critics rose furiously against the poems which
+inculcated such doctrines. "This will never do" were the opening words of
+an article in the _Edinburgh Review_. One of the _Rejected Addresses_,
+called _The Baby's Debut, by W. W._, (spoken in the character of Nancy
+Lake, eight years old, who is drawn upon the stage in a go-cart,) parodies
+the ballads thus:
+
+    What a large floor! 'tis like a town;
+    The carpet, when they lay it down,
+      Won't hide it, I'll be bound:
+    And there's a row of lamps, my eye!
+    How they do blaze: I wonder why
+      They keep them on the ground?
+
+And this, Jeffrey declares, is a flattering imitation of Wordsworth's
+style.
+
+The day for depreciating Wordsworth has gone by; but calmer critics must
+still object to his poetical views in their entireness. In binding all
+poetry to his _dicta_, he ignores that _mythus_ in every human mind, that
+longing after the heroic, which will not be satisfied with the simple and
+commonplace. One realm in which Poetry rules with an enchanted sceptre is
+the land of reverie and day-dream,--a land of fancy, in which genius
+builds for itself castles at once radiant and, for the time, real; in
+which the beggar is a king, the poor man a Croesus, the timid man a hero:
+this is the fairy-land of the imagination. Among Wordsworth's poems are a
+number called _Poems of the Imagination_. He wrote learnedly about the
+imagination and fancy; but the truth is, that of all the great
+poets,--and, in spite of his faults, he is a great poet,--there is none so
+entirely devoid of imagination. What has been said of the heroic may be
+applied to wit, so important an element in many kinds of poetry; he
+ignores it because he was without it totally. If only humble life and
+commonplace incidents and unfigured rhetoric and bald language are the
+proper materials for the poetry, what shall be said of all literature,
+ancient and modern, until Wordsworth's day?
+
+
+THE EXCURSION AND SONNETS.--With his growing fame and riper powers, he had
+deviated from his own principles, especially of language; and his peaceful
+epic, _The Excursion_, is full of difficult theology, exalted philosophy,
+and glowing rhetoric. His only attempt to adhere to his system presents
+the incongruity of putting these subjects into the lips of men, some of
+whom, the Scotch pedler for example, are not supposed to be equal to their
+discussion. In his language, too, he became far more polished and
+melodious. The young writer of the _Lyrical Ballads_ would have been
+shocked to know that the more famous Wordsworth could write
+
+    A golden lustre slept upon the hills;
+
+or speak of
+
+    A pupil in the many-chambered school,
+    Where superstition weaves her airy dreams.
+
+_The Excursion_, although long, is unfinished, and is only a portion of
+what was meant to be his great poem--_The Recluse_. It contains poetry of
+the highest order, apart from its mannerism and its improbable narrative;
+but the author is to all intents a different man from that of the
+_Ballads_: as different as the conservative Wordsworth of later years was
+from the radical youth who praised the French Revolution of 1791. As a
+whole, _The Excursion_ is accurate, philosophic, and very dull, so that
+few readers have the patience to complete its perusal, while many enjoy
+its beautiful passages.
+
+To return to the events of his life. In 1802 he married; and, after
+several changes of residence, he finally purchased a place called
+Rydal-mount in 1813, where he spent the remainder of his long, learned,
+and pure life. Long-standing dues from the Earl of Lonsdale to his father
+were paid; and he received the appointment of collector at Whitehaven and
+stamp distributor for Cumberland. Thus he had an ample income, which was
+increased in 1842 by a pension of L300 per annum. In 1843 he was made
+poet-laureate. He died in 1850, a famous poet, his reputation being due
+much more to his own clever individuality than to the poetic principles he
+asserted.
+
+His ecclesiastical sonnets compare favorably with any that have been
+written in English. Landor, no friend of the poet, says: "Wordsworth has
+written more fine sonnets than are to be met with in the language
+besides."
+
+
+AN ESTIMATE.--The great amount of verse Wordsworth has written is due to
+his estimate of the proper uses of poetry. Where other men would have
+written letters, journals, or prose sketches, his ready metrical pen wrote
+in verse: an excursion to England or Scotland, _Yarrow Visited and
+Revisited_, journeys in Germany and Italy, are all in verse. He exhibits
+in them all great humanity and benevolence, and is emphatically and
+without cant the poet of religion and morality. Coleridge--a poet and an
+attached friend, perhaps a partisan--claims for him, in his _Biographia
+Literaria_, "purity of language, freshness, strength, _curiosa felicitas_
+of diction, truth to nature in his imagery, imagination in the highest
+degree, but faulty fancy." We have already ventured to deny him the
+possession of imagination: the rest of his friend's eulogium is not
+undeserved. He had and has many ardent admirers, but none more ardent than
+himself. He constantly praised his own verses, and declared that they
+would ultimately conquer all prejudices and become universally popular--an
+opinion that the literary world does not seem disposed to adopt.
+
+
+ROBERT SOUTHEY.--Next to Wordsworth, and, with certain characteristic
+differences, of the same school, but far beneath him in poetical power, is
+Robert Southey, who was born at Bristol, August 12, 1774. He was the son
+of a linen-draper in that town. He entered Balliol College, Oxford, in
+1792, but left without taking his degree. In 1794 he published a radical
+poem on the subject of _Wat Tyler_, the sentiments of which he was
+afterwards very willing to repudiate. With the enthusiastic instinct of a
+poet, he joined with Wordsworth and Coleridge in a scheme called
+_Pantisocrasy_; that is, they were to go together to the banks of the
+Susquehanna, in a new country of which they knew nothing except by
+description; and there they were to realize a dream of nature in the
+golden age--a Platonic republic, where everything was to be in common, and
+from which vice and selfishness were to be forever excluded. But these
+young neo-platonists had no money, and so the scheme was given up.
+
+In 1795 he married Miss Fricker, a milliner of Bristol, and made a voyage
+to Lisbon, where his uncle was chaplain to the British Factory. He led an
+unsettled life until 1804, when he established himself at Keswick in the
+Lake country, where he spent his life. He was a literary man and nothing
+else, and perhaps one of the most industrious writers that ever held a
+literary pen. Much of the time, indeed, he wrote for magazines and
+reviews, upon whatever subject was suggested to him, to win his daily
+bread.
+
+
+HIS WRITINGS.--After the publication of _Wat Tyler_ he wrote an epic poem
+called _Joan of Arc_, in 1796, which was crude and severely criticized.
+After some other unimportant essays, he inaugurated his purpose of
+illustrating the various oriental mythologies, by the publication of
+_Thalaba the Destroyer_, which was received with great disfavor at the
+time, and which first coupled his name with that of Wordsworth as of the
+school of Lake poets. It is in irregular metre, which at first has the
+charm of variety, but which afterwards loses its effect, on account of its
+broken, disjointed versification. In 1805 appeared _Madoc_--a poem based
+upon the subject of early Welsh discoveries in America. It is a long poem
+in two parts: the one descriptive of _Madoc in Wales_ and the other of
+_Madoc in Aztlan_. Besides many miscellaneous works in prose, we notice
+the issue, in 1810, of _The Curse of Kehama_--the second of the great
+mythological poems referred to.
+
+Among his prose works must be mentioned _The Chronicle of the Cid_, _The
+History of Brazil_, _The Life of Nelson_, and _The History of the
+Peninsular War_. A little work called _The Doctor_ has been greatly liked
+in America.
+
+Southey wrote innumerable reviews and magazine articles; and, indeed,
+tried his pen at every sort of literary work. His diction--in prose, at
+least--is almost perfect, and his poetical style not unpleasing. His
+industry, his learning, and his care in production must be acknowledged;
+but his poems are very little read, and, in spite of his own prophecies,
+are doomed to the shelf rather than retained upon the table. Like
+Wordsworth, he was one of the most egotistical of men; he had no greater
+admirer than Robert Southey; and had his exertions not been equal to his
+self-laudation, he would have been intolerable.
+
+The most singular instance of perverted taste and unmerited eulogy is to
+be found in his _Vision of Judgment_, which, as poet-laureate, he produced
+to the memory of George the Third. The severest criticism upon it is Lord
+Byron's _Vision of Judgment_--reckless, but clever and trenchant. The
+consistency and industry of Southey's life caused him to be appointed
+poet-laureate upon the death of Pye; and in 1835, having declined a
+baronetcy, he received an annual pension of L300. Having lost his first
+wife in 1837, he married Miss Bowles, the poetess, in 1839; but soon after
+his mind began to fail, and he had reached a state of imbecility which
+ended in death on the 21st of March, 1843. In 1837, at the age of
+sixty-three, he collected and edited his complete poetical works, with
+copious and valuable historical notes.
+
+
+HISTORICAL VALUE.--It is easy to see in what manner Southey, as a literary
+man, has reflected the spirit of the age. Politically, he exhibits
+partisanship from Radical to Tory, which may be clearly discerned by
+comparing his _Wat Tyler_ with his _Vision of Judgment_ and his _Odes_. As
+to literary and poetic canons, his varied metre, and his stories in the
+style of Wordsworth, show that he had abandoned all former schools. In his
+histories and biographies he is professedly historical; and in his epics
+he shows that greater range of learned investigation which is so
+characteristic of that age. The _Curse of Kehama_ and _Thalaba_ would have
+been impossible in a former age. He himself objected to be ranked with the
+Lakers; but Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge have too much in common,
+notwithstanding much individual difference, not to be classed together as
+innovators and asserters, whether we call them Lakers or something else.
+
+It was on the occasion of his publishing _Thalaba_, that his name was
+first coupled with that of Wordsworth. His own words are, "I happened to
+be residing at Keswick when Mr. Wordsworth and I began to be acquainted.
+Mr. Coleridge also had resided there; and this was reason enough for
+classing us together as a school of poets." There is not much external
+resemblance, it is true, between _Thalaba_ and the _Excursion_; but the
+same poetical motives will cause both to remain unread by the
+multitude--unnatural comparisons, recondite theology, and a great lack of
+common humanity. That there was a mutual admiration is found in Southey's
+declaration that Wordsworth's sonnets contain the profoundest poetical
+wisdom, and that the _Preface_ is the quintessence of the philosophy of
+poetry.
+
+
+SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.--More individual, more eccentric, less
+commonplace, in short, a far greater genius than either of his fellows,
+Coleridge accomplished less, had less system, was more visionary and
+fragmentary than they: he had an amorphous mind of vast proportions. The
+man, in his life and conversation, was great; the author has left little
+of value which will last when the memory of his person has disappeared. He
+was born on the 21st of October, 1772, at Ottery St. Mary. His father was
+a clergyman and vicar of the parish. He received his education at Christ's
+Hospital in London, where, among others, he had Charles Lamb as a comrade,
+and formed with him a friendship which lasted as long as they both lived.
+
+
+EARLY LIFE.--There he was an erratic student, but always a great reader;
+and while he was yet a lad, at the age of fourteen, he might have been
+called a learned man.
+
+He had little self-respect, and from stress of poverty he intended to
+apprentice himself to a shoemaker; but friends who admired his learning
+interfered to prevent this, and he was sent with a scholarship to Jesus
+College, Cambridge, in 1791. Like Wordsworth and Southey, he was an
+intense Radical at first; and on this account left college without his
+degree in 1793. He then enlisted as a private in the 15th Light Dragoons;
+but, although he was a favorite with his comrades, whose letters he wrote,
+he made a very poor soldier. Having written a Latin sentence under his
+saddle on the stable wall, his superior education was recognized; and he
+was discharged from the service after only four months' duty. Eager for
+adventure, he joined Southey and Lloyd in their scheme of pantisocracy,
+to which we have already referred; and when that failed for want of money,
+he married the sister-in-law of Southey--Miss Fricker, of Bristol. He was
+at this time a Unitarian as well as a Radical, and officiated frequently
+as a Unitarian minister. His sermons were extremely eloquent. He had
+already published some juvenile poems, and a drama on the fall of
+Robespierre, and had endeavored to establish a periodical called _The
+Watchman_. He was always erratic, and dependent upon the patronage of his
+friends; in short, he always presented the sad spectacle of a man who
+could not take care of himself.
+
+
+HIS WRITINGS.--After a residence at Stowey, in Somersetshire, where he
+wrote some of his finest poems, among which were the first part of
+_Christabel_, _The Ancient Mariner_, and _Remorse_, a tragedy, he was
+enabled, through the kindness of friends, to go, in 1798, to Germany,
+where he spent fourteen months in the study of literature and metaphysics.
+In the year 1800 he returned to the Lake country, where he for some time
+resided with Southey at Keswick; Wordsworth being then at Grasmere. Then
+was established as a fixed fact in English literature the Lake school of
+poetry. These three poets acted and reacted upon each other. From having
+been great Radicals they became Royalists, and Coleridge's Unitarian
+belief was changed into orthodox churchmanship. His translation of
+Schiller's _Wallenstein_ should rather be called an expansion of that
+drama, and is full of his own poetic fancies. After writing for some time
+for the _Morning Post_, he went to Malta as the Secretary to the Governor
+in 1804, at a salary of L800 per annum. But his restless spirit soon drove
+him back to Grasmere, and to desultory efforts to make a livelihood.
+
+In 1816 he published the two parts of _Christabel_, an unfinished poem,
+which, for the wildness of the conceit, exquisite imagery, and charming
+poetic diction, stands quite alone in English literature. In a periodical
+called _The Friend_, which he issued, are found many of his original
+ideas; but it was discontinued after twenty-seven numbers. His _Biographia
+Literaria_, published in 1817, contains valuable sketches of literary men,
+living and dead, written with rare critical power.
+
+In his _Aids to Reflection_, published in 1825, are found his metaphysical
+tenets; his _Table-Talk_ is also of great literary value; but his lectures
+on Shakspeare show him to have been the most remarkable critic of the
+great dramatist whom the world has produced.
+
+It has already been mentioned that when the first volume of Wordsworth's
+_Lyrical Ballads_ was published, _The Ancient Mariner_ was included in it,
+as a poem by an anonymous friend. It had been the intention of Coleridge
+to publish another poem in the second volume; but it was considered
+incongruous, and excluded. That poem was the exquisite ballad entitled
+_Love_, or _Genevieve_.
+
+
+HIS HELPLESSNESS.--With no home of his own, he lived by visiting his
+friends; left his wife and children to the support of others, and seemed
+incapable of any other than this shifting and shiftless existence. This
+natural imbecility was greatly increased during a long period by his
+constant use of opium, which kept him, a greater portion of his life, in a
+world of dreams. He was fortunate in having a sincere and appreciative
+friend in Mr. Gilman, surgeon, near London, to whose house he went in
+1816; and where, with the exception of occasional visits elsewhere, he
+resided until his death in 1834. If the Gilmans needed compensation for
+their kindness, they found it in the celebrity of their visitor; even
+strangers made pilgrimages to the house at Highgate to hear the rhapsodies
+of "the old man eloquent." Coleridge once asked Charles Lamb if he had
+ever heard him preach, referring to the early days when he was a Unitarian
+preacher. "I never heard you do anything else," was the answer he
+received. He was the prince of talkers, and talked more coherently and
+connectedly than he wrote: drawing with ease from the vast stores of his
+learning, he delighted men of every degree. While of the Lake school of
+poetry, and while in some sort the creature of his age and his
+surroundings, his eccentricities gave him a rare independence and
+individuality. A giant in conception, he was a dwarf in execution; and
+something of the interest which attaches to a _lusus naturae_ is the chief
+claim to future reputation which belongs to S. T. C.
+
+
+HARTLEY COLERIDGE, his son, (1796-1849,) inherited much of his father's
+talents; but was an eccentric, deformed, and, for a time, an intemperate
+being. His principal writings were monographs on various subjects, and
+articles for Blackwood. HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE, (1800-1843,) a nephew and
+son-in-law of the poet, was also a gifted man, and a profound classical
+scholar. His introduction to the study of the great classic poets,
+containing his analysis of Homer's epics, is a work of great merit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+THE REACTION IN POETRY.
+
+
+   Alfred Tennyson. Early Works. The Princess. Idyls of the King.
+   Elizabeth B. Browning. Aurora Leigh. Her Faults. Robert Browning. Other
+   Poets.
+
+
+
+TENNYSON AND THE BROWNINGS.
+
+
+ALFRED TENNYSON.--It is the certain fate of all extravagant movements,
+social or literary, to invite criticism and opposition, and to be followed
+by reaction. The school of Wordsworth was the violent protest against what
+remained of the artificial in poetry; but it had gone, as we have seen, to
+the other extreme. The affected simplicity, and the bald diction which it
+inculcated, while they raised up an army of feeble imitators, also
+produced in the ranks of poetry a vindication of what was good in the old;
+new theories, and a very different estimate of poetical subjects and
+expression. The first poet who may be looked upon as leading the
+reactionary party is Alfred Tennyson. He endeavored out of all the schools
+to synthesize a new one. In many of his descriptive pieces he followed
+Wordsworth: in his idyls, he adheres to the romantic school; in his
+treatment and diction, he stands alone.
+
+
+EARLY EFFORTS.--He was the son of a clergyman of Lincolnshire, and was
+born at Somersby, in 1810. After a few early and almost unknown efforts in
+verse, the first volume bearing his name was issued in 1830, while he was
+yet an under-graduate at Cambridge: it had the simple title--_Poems,
+chiefly Lyrical_. In their judgment of this new poet, the critics were
+almost as much at fault as they had been when the first efforts of
+Wordsworth appeared; but for very different reasons. Wordsworth was simple
+and intensely realistic. Tennyson was mystic and ideal: his diction was
+unusual; his little sketches conveyed an almost hidden moral; he seemed to
+inform the reader that, in order to understand his poetry, it must be
+studied; the meaning does not sparkle upon the surface; the language
+ripples, the sense flows in an undercurrent. His first essays exhibit a
+mania for finding strange words, or coining new ones, which should give
+melody, to his verse. Whether this was a process of development or not, he
+has in his later works gotten rid of much of this apparent mannerism,
+while he has retained, and even improved, his harmony. He exhibits a rare
+power of concentration, as opposed to the diffusiveness of his
+contemporaries. Each of his smaller poems is a thought, briefly, but
+forcibly and harmoniously, expressed. If it requires some exertion to
+comprehend it, when completely understood it becomes a valued possession.
+
+It is difficult to believe that such poems as _Mariana_ and _Recollections
+of the Arabian Nights_ were the production of a young man of twenty.
+
+In 1833 he published his second volume, containing additional poems, among
+which were _Enone_, _The May Queen_, _The Lotos-Eaters_, and _A Dream of
+Fair Women_. _The May Queen_ became at once a favorite, because every one
+could understand it: it touched a chord in every heart; but his rarest
+power of dreamy fancy is displayed in such pieces as _The Arabian Nights_
+and the _Lotos-Eaters_. No greater triumph has been achieved in the realm
+of fancy than that in the court of good Haroun al Raschid, and amid the
+Lotos dreams of the Nepenthe coast. These productions were not received
+with the favor which they merited, and so he let the critics alone for
+nine years. In 1842 he again appeared in print, with, among other poems,
+the exquisite fragment of the _Morte d'Arthur_, _Godiva_, _St. Agnes_,
+_Sir Galahad_, _Lady Clara Vere de Vere_, _The Talking Oak_, and chief,
+perhaps, of all, _Locksley Hall_. In these poems he is not only a poet,
+but a philosopher. Each of these is an extended apothegm, presenting not
+only rules of life, but mottoes and maxims for daily use. They are
+soliloquies of the nineteenth century, and representations of its men and
+conditions.
+
+
+THE PRINCESS.--In 1847 he published _The Princess, a Medley_--a pleasant
+and suggestive poem on woman's rights, in which exquisite songs are
+introduced, which break the monotony of the blank verse, and display his
+rare lyric power. The _Bugle Song_ is among the finest examples of the
+adaptation of sound to sense in the language; and there is nothing more
+truthful and touching than the short verses beginning,
+
+    Home they brought her warrior dead.
+
+Arthur Hallam, a gifted son of the distinguished historian, who was
+betrothed to Tennyson's sister, died young; and the poet has mourned and
+eulogized him in a long poem entitled _In Memoriam_. It contains one
+hundred and twenty-nine four-lined stanzas, and is certainly very musical
+and finished; but it is rather the language of calm philosophy elaborately
+studied, than that of a poignant grief. It is not, in our judgment, to be
+compared with his shorter poems, and is generally read and overpraised
+only by his more ardent admirers, who discover a crystal tear of genuine
+emotion in every stanza.
+
+
+IDYLS OF THE KING.--The fragment on the death of Arthur, already
+mentioned, foreshadowed a purpose of the poet's mind to make the legends
+of that almost fabulous monarch a vehicle for modern philosophy in English
+verse. In 1859 appeared a volume containing the _Idyls of the King_. They
+are rather minor epics than idyls. The simple materials are taken from the
+Welsh and French chronicles, and are chiefly of importance in that they
+cater to that English taste which finds national greatness typified in
+Arthur. It had been a successful stratagem with Spenser in _The Fairy
+Queen_, and has served Tennyson equally well in the _Idyls_. It unites the
+ages of fable and of chivalry; it gives a noble lineage to heroic deeds.
+The best is the last--_Guinevere_--almost the perfection of pathos in
+poetry. The picturesqueness of his descriptions is evinced by the fact
+that Gustave Dore has chosen these _Idyls_ as a subject for illustration,
+and has been eminently successful in his labor.
+
+_Maud_, which appeared in 1855, notwithstanding some charming lyrical
+passages, may be considered Tennyson's failure. In 1869 he completed _The
+Idyls_ by publishing _The Coming of Arthur_, _The Holy Grail_, and
+_Pelleas and Etteare_. He also finished the _Morte d'Arthur_, and put it
+in its proper place as _The Passing of Arthur_.
+
+Tennyson was appointed poet-laureate upon the death of Wordsworth, in
+1850, and receives besides a pension of L200. He lived for a long time in
+great retirement at Farringford, on the Isle of Wight; but has lately
+removed to Petersfield, in Hampshire. It may be reasonably doubted whether
+this hermit-life has not injured his poetical powers; whether, great as he
+really is, a little inhalation of the air of busy every-day life would not
+have infused more of nature and freshness into his verse. Among his few
+_Odes_ are that on the death of the Duke of Wellington, the dedication of
+his poems to the Queen, and his welcome to Alexandra, Princess of Wales,
+all of which are of great excellence. His _Charge of the Light Brigade_,
+at Balaclava, while it gave undue currency to that stupid military
+blunder, must rank as one of the finest battle-lyrics in the language.
+
+The poetry of Tennyson is eminently representative of the Victorian age.
+He has written little; but that little marks a distinct era in
+versification--great harmony untrammelled by artificial _correctness_; and
+in language, a search for novelty to supply the wants and correct the
+faults of the poetic vocabulary. He is national in the _Idyls_;
+philosophic in _The Two Voices_, and similar poems. The _Princess_ is a
+gentle satire on the age; and though, in striving for the reputation of
+originality, he sometimes mistakes the original for the beautiful, he is
+really the laurelled poet of England in merit as well as in title.
+
+
+ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.--The literary usher is now called upon to cry
+with the herald of the days of chivalry--_Place aux dames_. A few ladies,
+as we have seen, have already asserted for themselves respectable
+positions in the literary ranks. Without a question as to the relative
+gifts of mind in man and woman, we have now reached a name which must rank
+among those of the first poets of the present century--one which
+represents the Victorian age as fully and forcibly as Tennyson, and with
+more of novelty than he. Nervous in style, elevated in diction, bold in
+expression, learned and original, Mrs. Browning divides the poetic renown
+of the period with Tennyson. If he is the laureate, she was the
+acknowledged queen of poetry until her untimely death.
+
+Miss Elizabeth Barrett was born in London, in 1809. She was educated with
+great care, and began to write at a very early age. A volume, entitled
+_Essays on Mind, with Other Poems_, was published when she was only
+seventeen. In 1833 she produced _Prometheus Bound_, a translation of the
+drama of AEschylus from the original Greek, which exhibited rare classical
+attainments; but which she considered so faulty that she afterwards
+retranslated it. In 1838 appeared _The Seraphim, and other Poems_; and in
+1839, _The Romaunt of the Page_. Not long after, the rupture of a
+blood-vessel brought her to the verge of the grave; and while she was
+still in a precarious state of health, her favorite brother was drowned.
+For several years she lived secluded, studying and composing when her
+health permitted; and especially drawing her inspiration from original
+sources in Greek and Hebrew. In 1844 she published her collected poems in
+two volumes. Among these was _Lady Geraldine's Courtship_: an exquisite
+story, the perusal of which is said to have induced Robert Browning to
+seek her acquaintance. Her health was now partially restored; and they
+were married in 1846. For some time they resided at Florence, in a
+congenial and happy union. The power of passionate love is displayed in
+her _Sonnets from the Portuguese_, which are among the finest in the
+language. Differing in many respects from those of Shakspeare, they are
+like his in being connected by one impassioned thought, and being, without
+doubt, the record of a heart experience.
+
+Thoroughly interested in the social and political conditions of struggling
+Italy, she gave vent to her views and sympathies in a volume of poems,
+entitled _Casa Guidi Windows_. Casa Guidi was the name of their residence
+in Florence, and the poems vividly describe what she saw from its
+windows--divers forms of suffering, injustice, and oppression, which
+touched the heart of a tender woman and a gifted poet, and compelled it to
+burst forth in song.
+
+
+AURORA LEIGH.--But by far the most important work of Mrs. Browning is
+_Aurora Leigh_: a long poem in nine books, which appeared in 1856, in
+which the great questions of the age, social and moral, are handled with
+great boldness. It is neither an epic, nor an idyl, nor a tale in verse:
+it combines features of them all. It presents her clear convictions of
+life and art, and is full of philosophy, largely expressed in the language
+of irony and sarcasm. She is an inspired advocate of the intellectual
+claims of woman; and the poem is, in some degree, an autobiography: the
+identity of the poet and the heroine gives a great charm to the narrative.
+There are few finer pieces of poetical inspiration than the closing scene,
+where the friend and lover returns blind and helpless, and the woman's
+heart, unconquered before, surrenders to the claims of misfortune as the
+champion of love. After a happy life with her husband and an only child,
+sent for her solace, this gifted woman died in 1863.
+
+
+HER FAULTS.--It is as easy to criticize Mrs. Browning's works as to admire
+them; but our admiration is great in spite of her faults: in part because
+of them, for they are faults of a bold and striking individuality. There
+is sometimes an obscurity in her fancies, and a turgidity in her language.
+She seems to transcend the poet's license with a knowledge that she is
+doing so. For example:
+
+    We will sit on the throne of a purple sublimity,
+    And grind down men's bones to a pale unanimity.
+
+And again, in speaking of Goethe, she says:
+
+    His soul reached out from far and high,
+    And fell from inner entity.
+
+Her rhymes are frequently and arrogantly faulty: she seems to scorn the
+critics; she writes more for herself than for others, and infuses all she
+writes with her own fervent spirit: there is nothing commonplace or
+lukewarm. She is so strong that she would be masculine; but so tender that
+she is entirely feminine: at once one of the most vigorous of poets and
+one of the best of women. She has attained the first rank among the
+English poets.
+
+
+ROBERT BROWNING.--As a poet of decided individuality, which has gained for
+him many admirers, Browning claims particular mention. His happy marriage
+has for his fame the disadvantage that he gave his name to a greater
+poet; and it is never mentioned without an instinctive thought of her
+superiority. Many who are familiar with her verses have never read a line
+of her husband. This is in part due to a mysticism and an intense
+subjectivity, which are not adapted to the popular comprehension. He has
+chosen subjects unknown or uninteresting to the multitude of readers, and
+treats them with such novelty of construction and such an affectation of
+originality, that few persons have patience to read his poems.
+
+Robert Browning was born, in 1812, at Camberwell; and after a careful
+education, not at either of the universities, (for he was a dissenter,) he
+went at the age of twenty to Italy, where he eagerly studied the history
+and antiquity to be found in the monasteries and in the remains of the
+mediaeval period. He also made a study of the Italian people. In 1835 he
+published a drama called _Paracelsus_, founded upon the history of that
+celebrated alchemist and physician, and delineating the conditions of
+philosophy in the fifteenth century. It is novel, antique, and
+metaphysical: it exhibits the varied emotions of human sympathy; but it is
+eccentric and obscure, and cannot be popular. He has been called the poet
+for poets; and this statement seems to imply that he is not the poet for
+the great world.
+
+In 1837 he published a tragedy called _Strafford_; but his Italian culture
+seems to have spoiled his powers for portraying English character, and he
+has presented a stilted Strafford and a theatrical Charles I.
+
+In 1840 appeared _Sordello_, founded upon incidents in the history of that
+Mantuan poet Sordello, whom Dante and Virgil met in purgatory; and who,
+deserting the language of Italy, wrote his principal poems in the
+Provencal. The critics were so dissatisfied with this work, that Browning
+afterwards omitted it in the later editions of his poems. In 1843 he
+published a tragedy entitled _A Blot on the 'Scutcheon_, and a play
+called _The Dutchess of Cleves_. In 1850 appeared _Christmas Eve_ and
+_Easter Day_. Concerning all these, it may be said that it is singular and
+sad that a real poetic gift, like that of Browning, should be so shrouded
+with faults of conception and expression. What leads us to think that many
+of these are an affectation, is that he has produced, almost with the
+simplicity of Wordsworth, those charming sketches, _The Good News from
+Ghent to Aix_, and _An Incident at Ratisbon_.
+
+Among his later poems we specially commend _A Death in the Desert_, and
+_Pippa Passes_, as less obscure and more interesting than any, except the
+lyrical pieces just mentioned. It is difficult to show in what manner
+Browning represents his age. His works are only so far of a modern
+character that they use the language of to-day without subsidizing its
+simplicity, and abandon the old musical couplet without presenting the
+intelligible if commonplace thought which it used to convey.
+
+
+
+OTHER POETS OF THE LATEST PERIOD.
+
+
+_Reginald Heber_, 1783-1826: a godly Bishop of Calcutta. He is most
+generally known by one effort, a little poem, which is a universal
+favorite, and has preached, from the day it appeared, eloquent sermons in
+the cause of missions--_From Greenland's Icy Mountains_. Among his other
+hymns are _Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning_, and _The Son of
+God goes forth to War_.
+
+_Barry Cornwall_, born 1790: this is a _nom de plume_ of _Bryan Proctor_,
+a pleasing, but not great poet. His principal works are _Dramatic Scenes_,
+_Mirandola_, a tragedy, and _Marcian Colonna_. His minor poems are
+characterized by grace and fluency. Among these are _The Return of the
+Admiral_; _The Sea, the Sea, the Open Sea_; and _A Petition to Time_. He
+also wrote essays and tales in prose--a _Life of Edmund Keane_, and a
+_Memoir of Charles Lamb_. His daughter, _Adelaide Anne Proctor_, is a
+gifted poetess, and has written, among other poems, _Legends and Lyrics_,
+and _A Chaplet of Verses_.
+
+_James Sheridan Knowles_, 1784-1862: an actor and dramatist. He left the
+stage and became a Baptist minister. His plays were very successful upon
+the stage. Among them, those of chief merit are _The Hunchback_,
+_Virginius and Caius Gracchus_, and _The Wife, a Tale of Mantua_.
+
+_Jean Ingelow_, born 1830: one of the most popular of the later English
+poets. _The Song of Seven_, and _My Son's Wife Elizabeth_, are extremely
+pathetic, and of such general application that they touch all hearts. The
+latter is the refrain of _High Tide on the Coast of Lancashire_. She has
+published, besides, several volumes of stories for children, and one
+entitled _Studies for Stories_.
+
+_Algernon Charles Swinburne_, born 1843: he is principally and very
+favorably known by his charming poem _Atalanta in Calydon_. He has also
+written a somewhat heterodox and licentious poem entitled _Laus Veneris_,
+_Chastelard_, and _The Song of Italy_; besides numerous minor poems and
+articles for magazines. He is among the most notable and prolific poets of
+the age; and we may hope for many and better works from his pen.
+
+_Richard Harris Barham_, 1788-1845: a clergyman of the Church of England,
+and yet one of the most humorous of writers. He is chiefly known by his
+_Ingoldsby Legends_, which were contributed to the magazines. They are
+humorous tales in prose and verse; the latter in the vein of Peter Pindar,
+but better than those of Wolcot, or any writer of that school. Combined
+with the humorous and often forcible, there are touches of pathos and
+terror which are extremely effective. He also wrote a novel called _My
+Cousin Nicholas_.
+
+_Philip James Bailey_, born 1816: he published, in 1839, _Festus_, a poem
+in dramatic form, having, for its _dramatis personae_, God in his three
+persons, Lucifer, angels, and man. Full of rare poetic fancy, it repels
+many by the boldness of its flight in the consideration of the
+incomprehensible, which many minds think the forbidden. _The Angel World_
+and _The Mystic_ are of a similar kind; but his last work, _The Age, a
+Colloquial Satire_ is on a mundane subject and in a simpler style.
+
+_Charles Mackay_, born 1812: principally known by his fugitive pieces,
+which contain simple thoughts on pleasant language. His poetical
+collections are called _Town Lyrics_ and _Egeria_.
+
+_John Keble_, 1792-1866: the modern George Herbert; a distinguished
+clergyman. He was Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and produced, besides
+_Tracts for the Times_, and other theological writings, _The Christian
+Year_, containing a poem for every Sunday and holiday in the
+ecclesiastical year. They are devout breathings in beautiful verse, and
+are known and loved by great numbers out of his own communion. Many of
+them have been adopted as hymns in many collections.
+
+_Martin Farquhar Tupper_, born 1810: his principal work is _Proverbial
+Philosophy_, in two series. It was unwontedly popular; and Tupper's name
+was on every tongue. Suddenly, the world reversed its decision and
+discarded its favorite; so that, without having done anything to warrant
+the desertion, Tupper finds himself with but very few admirers, or even
+readers: so capricious is the _vox populi_. The poetry is not without
+merit; but the world cannot forgive itself for having rated it too high.
+
+_Matthew Arnold_, born 1822: the son of Doctor Arnold of Rugby. He has
+written numerous critical papers, and was for some time Professor of
+Poetry at Oxford. _Sorab and Rustam_ is an Eastern tale in verse, of great
+beauty. His other works are _The Strayed Reveller_, and _Empedocles on
+Etna_. More lately, an Inspector of Schools, he has produced several works
+on education, among which are _Popular Education in France_ and _The
+Schools and Universities of the Continent_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+THE LATER HISTORIANS.
+
+
+   New Materials. George Grote. History of Greece. Lord Macaulay. History
+   of England. Its Faults. Thomas Carlyle. Life of Frederick II. Other
+   Historians.
+
+
+
+NEW MATERIALS.
+
+
+Nothing more decidedly marks the nineteenth century than the progress of
+history as a branch of literature. A wealth of material, not known before,
+was brought to light, increasing our knowledge and reversing time-honored
+decisions upon historic points. Countries were explored and their annals
+discovered. Expeditions to Egypt found a key to hieroglyphs; State papers
+were arranged to the hand of the scholar; archives, like those of
+Simancas, were thrown open. The progress of Truth, through the extension
+of education, unmasked ancient prescriptions and prejudices: thus, where
+the chronicle remained, philosophy was transformed; and it became evident
+that the history of man in all times must be written anew, with far
+greater light to guide the writer than the preceding century had enjoyed.
+Besides, the world of readers became almost as learned as the historian
+himself, and he wrote to supply a craving and a demand such as had never
+before existed. A glance at the labors of the following historians will
+show that they were not only annalists, but reformers in the full sense of
+the word: they re-wrote what had been written before, supplying defects
+and correcting errors.
+
+
+GEORGE GROTE.--This distinguished writer was born near London, in 1794. He
+was the son of a banker, and received his education at the Charter House.
+Instead of entering one of the universities, he became a clerk in his
+father's banking-house. Early imbued with a taste for Greek literature, he
+continued his studies with great zeal; and was for many years collecting
+the material for a history of Greece. The subject was quietly and
+thoroughly digested in his mind before he began to write. A member of
+Parliament from 1832 to 1841, he was always a strong Whig, and was
+specially noted for his championship of the vote by ballot. There was no
+department of wholesome reform which he did not sustain. He opposed the
+corn laws, which had become oppressive; he favored the political rights of
+the Jews, and denounced prescriptive evils of every kind.
+
+
+HISTORY OF GREECE.--In 1846 he published the first volume of his _History
+of Greece from the Earliest Period to the Death of Alexander the Great_:
+the remaining volumes appeared between that time and 1856. The work was
+well received by critics of all political opinions; and the world was
+astonished that such a labor should have been performed by any writer who
+was not a university man. It was a luminous ancient history, in a fresh
+and racy modern style: the review of the mythology is grand; the political
+conditions, the manners and customs of the people, the military art, the
+progress of law, the schools of philosophy, are treated with remarkable
+learning and clearness. But he as clearly exhibits the political condition
+of his own age, by the sympathy which he displays towards the democracy of
+Athens in their struggles against the tenets and actions of the
+aristocracy. The historian writes from his own political point of view;
+and Grote's history exhibits his own views of reform as plainly as that of
+Mitford sets forth his aristocratic proclivities. Thus the English
+politics of the age play a part in the Grecian history.
+
+There were several histories of Greece written not long before that of
+Grote, which may be considered as now set aside by his greater accuracy
+and better style. Among these the principal are that of JOHN GILLIES,
+1747-1836, which is learned, but statistical and dry; that of CONNOP
+THIRLWALL, born 1797, Bishop of St. David's, which was greatly esteemed by
+Grote himself; and that of WILLIAM MITFORD, 1744-1827, to correct the
+errors and supply the deficiencies of which, Grote's work was written.
+
+
+LORD MACAULAY.--Thomas Babington Macaulay was born at Rothley, in
+Leicestershire, on the 25th of October, 1800. His father, Zachary
+Macaulay, a successful West Indian merchant, devoted his later life to
+philanthropy. His mother was Miss Selina Mills, the daughter of a
+bookseller of Bristol. After an early education, chiefly conducted at
+home, he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1818, where he
+distinguished himself as a debater, and gained two prize poems and a
+scholarship. He was graduated in 1822, and afterwards continued his
+studies; producing, during the next four years, several of his stirring
+ballads. He began to write for the Edinburgh Review in 1825. In 1830 he
+entered Parliament, and was immediately noted for his brilliant oratory in
+advocating liberal principles. In 1834 he was sent to India, as a member
+of the Supreme Council; and took a prominent part in preparing an Indian
+code of laws. This code was published on his return to England, in 1838;
+but it was so kind and considerate to the natives, that the martinets in
+India defeated its adoption. From his return until 1847, he had a seat in
+Parliament as member for Edinburgh; but in the latter year his support of
+the grant to the Maynooth (Roman Catholic) College so displeased his
+constituents, that in the next election he lost his seat.
+
+During all these busy years he had been astonishing and delighting the
+reading world by his truly brilliant papers in the _Edinburgh Review_,
+which have been collected and published as _Miscellanies_. The subjects
+were of general interest; their treatment novel and bold; the learning
+displayed was accurate and varied; and the style pointed, vigorous, and
+harmonious. The papers upon _Clive_ and _Hastings_ are enriched by his
+intimate knowledge of Indian affairs, acquired during his residence in
+that country. His critical papers are severe and satirical, such as the
+articles on _Croker's Boswell_, and on _Mr. Robert Montgomery's Poems_.
+His unusual self-reliance as a youth led him to great vehemence in the
+expression of his opinions, as well as into errors of judgment, which he
+afterwards regretted. The radicalism which is displayed in his essay on
+_Milton_ was greatly modified when he came to treat of kindred subjects in
+his History.
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND.--He had long cherished the intention of writing
+the history of England, "from the accession of James II. down to a time
+which is within the memory of men still living." The loss of his election
+at Edinburgh gave him the leisure necessary for carrying out this purpose.
+In 1848 he published the first and second volumes, which at once achieved
+an unprecedented popularity. His style had lost none of its brilliancy;
+his reading had been immense; his examination of localities was careful
+and minute. It was due, perhaps, to this growing fame, that the electors
+of Edinburgh, without any exertion on his part, returned him to Parliament
+in 1852. In 1855 the third and fourth volumes of his History appeared,
+bringing the work down to the peace of Ryswick, in 1697. All England
+applauded the crown when he was elevated to the peerage, in 1857, as Baron
+Macaulay of Rothley.
+
+It was now evident that Macaulay had deceived himself as to the magnitude
+of his subject; at least, he was never to finish it. He died suddenly of
+disease of the heart, on the 28th of December, 1859; and all that remained
+of his History was a fragmentary volume, published after his death by his
+sister, Lady Trevelyan, which reaches the death of William III., in 1702.
+
+
+ITS FAULTS.--The faults of Macaulay's History spring from the character of
+the man: he is always a partisan or a bitter enemy. His heroes are angels;
+those whom he dislikes are devils; and he pursues them with the ardor of a
+crusader or the vendetta of a Corsican. The Stuarts are painted in the
+darkest colors; while his eulogy of William III. is fulsome and false. He
+blackens the character of Marlborough for real faults indeed; but for such
+as Marlborough had in common with thousands of his contemporaries. If, as
+has been said, that great captain deserved the greatest censure as a
+statesman and warrior, it is equally true, paradoxical as it may seem,
+that he deserved also the greatest praise in both capacities. Macaulay has
+fulminated the censure and withheld the praise.
+
+What is of more interest to Americans, he loses no opportunity of
+attacking and defaming William Penn; making statements which have been
+proved false, and attributing motives without reason or justice.
+
+His style is what the French call the _style coupe_,--short sentences,
+like those of Tacitus, which ensure the interest by their recurring
+shocks. He writes history with the pen of a reviewer, and gives verdicts
+with the authority of a judge. He seems to say, Believe the autocrat; do
+not venture to philosophize.
+
+His poetry displays tact and talent, but no genius; it is pageantry in
+verse. His _Lays of Ancient Rome_ are scholarly, of course, and pictorial
+in description, but there is little of nature, and they are theatrical
+rather than dramatic; they are to be declaimed rather than to be read or
+sung.
+
+In society, Macaulay was a great talker--he harangued his friends; and
+there was more than wit in the saying of Sidney Smith, that his
+conversation would have been improved by a few "brilliant flashes of
+silence."
+
+But in spite of his faults, if we consider the profoundness of his
+learning, the industry of his studies, and the splendor of his style, we
+must acknowledge him as the most distinguished of English historians. No
+one has yet appeared who is worthy to complete the magnificent work which
+he left unfinished.
+
+
+THOMAS CARLYLE.--A literary brother of a very different type, but of a
+more distinct individuality, is Carlyle, who was born in Dumfries-shire,
+Scotland, in 1795. He was the eldest son of a farmer. After a partial
+education at home, he entered the University of Edinburgh, where he was
+noted for his attainments in mathematics, and for his omnivorous reading.
+After leaving the university he became a teacher in a private family, and
+began to study for the ministry, a plan which he soon gave up.
+
+His first literary effort was a _Life of Schiller_, issued in numbers of
+the _London Magazine_, in 1823-4. He turned his attention to German
+literature, in the knowledge of which he has surpassed all other
+Englishmen. He became as German as the Germans.
+
+In 1826 he married, and removed to Craigen-Puttoch, on a farm, where, in
+isolation and amid the wildness of nature, he studied, and wrote articles
+for the _Edinburgh Review_, the _Foreign Quarterly_, and some of the
+monthly magazines. His study of the German, acting upon an innate
+peculiarity, began to affect his style very sensibly, as is clearly seen
+in the singular, introverted, parenthetical mode of expression which
+pervades all his later works. His earlier writings are in ordinary
+English, but specimens of _Carlylese_ may be found in his _Sartor
+Resartus_, which at first appalled the publishers and repelled the general
+reader. Taking man's clothing as a nominal subject, he plunges into
+philosophical speculations with which clothes have nothing to do, but
+which informed the world that an original thinker and a novel and curious
+writer had appeared.
+
+In 1834 he removed to Chelsea, near London, where he has since resided. In
+1837, he published his _French Revolution_, in three volumes,--_The
+Bastile_, _The Constitution_, _The Guillotine_. It is a fiery, historical
+drama rather than a history; full of rhapsodies, startling rhetoric,
+disconnected pictures. It has been fitly called "a history in flashes of
+lightning." No one could learn from it the history of that momentous
+period; but one who has read the history elsewhere, will find great
+interest in Carlyle's wild and vivid pictures of its stormy scenes.
+
+In 1839 he wrote, in his dashing style, upon _Chartism_, and about the
+same time read a course of lectures upon _Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the
+Heroic in History_, in which he is an admirer of will and impulse, and
+palliates evil when found in combination with these.
+
+In 1845 he edited _The Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell_, and in
+his extravagant eulogies worships the hero rather than the truth.
+
+
+FREDERICK II.--In 1858 appeared the first two volumes of _The Life of
+Frederick the Great_, and since that time he has completed the work. This
+is doubtless his greatest effort. It is full of erudition, and contains
+details not to be found in any other biography of the Prussian monarch;
+but so singularly has he reasoned and commented upon his facts, that the
+enlightened reader often draws conclusions different from those which the
+author has been laboring to establish. While the history shows that, for
+genius and success, Frederick deserved to be called the Great, Carlyle
+cannot make us believe that he was not grasping, selfish, a dissembler,
+and an immoral man.
+
+The author's style has its admirers, and is a not unpleasing novelty and
+variety to lovers of plain English; but it wearies in continuance, and one
+turns to French or German with relief. The Essays upon _German
+Literature_, _Richter_, and _The Niebelungen Lied_ are of great value to
+the young student. Such tracts as _Past and Present_, and _The Latter-Day
+Pamphlets_, have caused him to be called the "Censor of the Age." He is
+too eccentric and prejudiced to deserve the name in its best meaning. If
+he fights shams, he sometimes mistakes windmills and wine-skins for
+monsters, and, what is worse, if he accost a shepherd or a milkmaid, they
+at once become _Amadis de Gaul_ and _Dulcinea del Toboso_. In spite of
+these prejudices and peculiarities, Carlyle will always be esteemed for
+his arduous labors, his honest intentions, and his boldness in expressing
+his opinions. His likes and dislikes find ready vent in his written
+judgments, and he cares for neither friend nor foe, in setting forth his
+views of men and events. On many subjects it must be said his views are
+just. There are fields in which his word must be received with authority.
+
+
+
+OTHER HISTORIANS OF THE LATEST PERIOD.
+
+
+_John Lingard_, 1771-1851: a Roman Catholic priest. He was a man of great
+probity and worth. His chief work is _A History of England_, from the
+first invasion of the Romans to the accession of William and Mary. With a
+natural leaning to his own religious side in the great political
+questions, he displays great industry in collecting material, beauty of
+diction, and honesty of purpose. His history is of particular value, in
+that it stands among the many Protestant histories as the champion of the
+Roman Catholics, and gives an opportunity to "hear the other side," which
+could not have had a more respectable advocate. In all the great
+controversies, the student of English history must consult Lingard, and
+collate his facts and opinions with those of the other historians. He
+wrote, besides, numerous theological and controversial works.
+
+_Patrick Fraser Tytler_, 1791-1849: the author of _A History of Scotland
+from Alexander III. to James VI. (James I. of England)_, and _A History of
+England during the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary_. His _Universal History_
+has been used as a text-book, and in style and construction has great
+merit, although he does not rise to the dignity of a philosophic
+historian.
+
+_Sir William Francis Patrick Napier_, 1785-1866: a distinguished soldier,
+and, like Caesar, a historian of the war in which he took part. His
+_History of the War in the Peninsula_ stands quite alone. It is clear in
+its strategy and tactics, just to the enemy, and peculiar but effective in
+style. It was assailed by several military men, but he defended all his
+positions in bold replies to their strictures, and the work remains as
+authority upon the great struggle which he relates.
+
+_Lord Mahon_, Earl of Stanhope, born 1805: his principal work is a
+_History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles_.
+He had access to much new material, and from the Stuart papers has drawn
+much of interest with reference to that unfortunate family. His view of
+the conduct of Washington towards Major Andre has been shown to be quite
+untenable. He also wrote a _History of the War of Succession in Spain_.
+
+_Henry Thomas Buchle_, 1822-1862: he was the author of a _History of
+Civilization_, of which he published two volumes, the work remaining
+unfinished at the time of his death. For bold assumptions, vigorous style,
+and great reading, this work must be greatly admired; but all his theories
+are based on second principles, and Christianity, as a divine institution,
+is ignored. It startled the world into admiration, but has not retained
+the place in popular esteem which it appeared at first to make for itself.
+He is the English _Comte_, without the eccentricity of his model.
+
+_Sir Archibald Alison_, 1792-1867: he is the author of _The History of
+Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration
+of the Bourbons_, and a continuation from 1815 to 1852. It may be doubted
+whether even the most dispassionate scholar can write the history of
+contemporary events. We may be thankful for the great mass of facts he has
+collated, but his work is tinctured with his high Tory principles; his
+material is not well digested, and his style is clumsy.
+
+_Agnes Strickland_, born 1806: after several early attempts Miss
+Strickland began her great task, which she executed nobly--_The Queens of
+England_. Accurate, philosophic, anecdotal, and entertaining, this work
+ranks among the most valuable histories in English. If the style is not so
+nervous as that of masculine writers, there is a ready intuition as to the
+rights and the motives of the queens, and a great delicacy combined with
+entire lack of prudery in her treatment of their crimes. The library of
+English history would be singularly incomplete without Miss Strickland's
+work. She also wrote _The Queens of Scotland_, and _The Bachelor Kings of
+England_.
+
+_Henry Hallam_, 1778-1859: the principal works of this judicious and
+learned writer are _A View of Europe during the Middle Ages_, _The
+Constitutional History of England_, and _An Introduction to the Literature
+of Europe_ in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. With
+the skill of an advocate he combines the calmness of a judge; and he has
+been justly called "the accurate Hallam," because his facts are in all
+cases to be depended on. By his clear and illustrative treatment of dry
+subjects, he has made them interesting; and his works have done as much to
+instruct his age as those of any writer. Later researches in literature
+and constitutional history may discover more than he has presented, but he
+taught the new explorers the way, and will always be consulted with
+profit, as the representative of this varied learning during the first
+half of the nineteenth century.
+
+_James Anthony Froude_, born 1818: an Oxford graduate, Mr. Froude
+represents the Low Church party in a respectable minority. His chief work
+is _A History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of
+Elizabeth_. With great industry, and the style of a successful novelist in
+making his groups and painting his characters, he has written one of the
+most readable books published in this period. He claimed to take his
+authorities from unpublished papers, and from the statute-books, and has
+endeavored to show that Henry VIII. was by no means a bad king, and that
+Elizabeth had very few faults. His treatment of Anne Boleyn and Mary Queen
+of Scots is unjust and ignoble. Not content with publishing what has been
+written in their disfavor, with the omniscience of a romancer, he asserts
+their motives, and produces thoughts which they never uttered. A race of
+powerful critics has sprung forth in defence of Mary, and Mr. Froude's
+inaccuracies and injustice have been clearly shown. To novel readers who
+are fond of the sensational, we commend his work: to those who desire
+historic facts and philosophies, we proclaim it to be inaccurate,
+illogical, and unjust in the highest degree.
+
+_Sharon Turner_, 1768-1847: among many historical efforts, principally
+concerning England in different periods, his _History of the Anglo-Saxons_
+stands out prominently as a great work. He was an eccentric scholar, and
+an antiquarian, and he found just the place to delve in when he undertook
+that history. The style is not good--too epigrammatic and broken; but his
+research is great, his speculations bold, and his information concerning
+the numbers, manners, arts, learning, and other characters of the
+Anglo-Saxons, immense. The student of English history must read Turner for
+a knowledge of the Saxon period.
+
+_Thomas Arnold_, 1795-1832: widely known and revered as the Great
+Schoolmaster. He was head-master at Rugby, and influenced his pupils more
+than any modern English instructor. Accepting the views of Niebuhr, he
+wrote a work on _Roman History_ up to the close of the second Punic war.
+But he is more generally known by his historical lectures delivered at
+Oxford, where he was Professor of Modern History. A man of original views
+and great honesty of purpose, his influence in England has been
+strengthened by the excellent biography written by his friend Dean
+Stanley.
+
+_William Hepworth Dixon_, born 1821: he was for some time editor of _The
+Athenaeum_. In historic biography he appears as a champion of men who have
+been maligned by former writers. He vindicates _William Penn_ from the
+aspersions of Lord Macaulay, and _Bacon_ from the charges of meanness and
+corruption.
+
+_Charles Merivale_, born 1808: he is a clergyman, and a late Fellow of
+Cambridge, and is favorably known by his admirable work entitled, _The
+History of the Romans under the Empire_. It forms an introduction to
+Gibbon, and displays a thorough grasp of the great epoch, varied
+scholarship, and excellent taste. His analyses of Roman literature are
+very valuable, and his pictures of social life so vivid that we seem to
+live in the times of the Caesars as we read.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE LATER NOVELISTS AS SOCIAL REFORMERS.
+
+
+   Bulwer. Changes in Writing. Dickens's Novels. American Notes. His
+   Varied Powers. Second Visit to America. Thackeray. Vanity Fair. Henry
+   Esmond. The Newcomes. The Georges. Estimate of his Powers.
+
+
+
+The great feature in the realm of prose fiction, since the appearance of
+the works of Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett, had been the Waverley
+novels of Sir Walter Scott; but these apart, the prose romance had not
+played a brilliant part in literature until the appearance of Bulwer, who
+began, in his youth, to write novels in the old style; but who underwent
+several organic changes in modes of thought and expression, and at last
+stood confessed as the founder of a new school.
+
+
+BULWER.--Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer was a younger son of General
+Bulwer of Heydon Hall, Norfolk, England. He was born, in 1806, to wealth
+and ease, but was early and always a student. Educated at Cambridge, he
+took the Chancellor's prize for a poem on _Sculpture_. His first public
+effort was a volume of fugitive poems, called _Weeds and Wild Flowers_, of
+more promise than merit. In 1827 he published _Falkland_, and very soon
+after _Pelham, or the Adventures of a Gentleman_. The first was not
+received favorably; but _Pelham_ was at once popular, neither for the
+skill of the plot nor for its morality, but because it describes the
+character, dissipations, and good qualities of a fashionable young man,
+which are always interesting to an English public. Those novels that
+immediately followed are so alike in general features that they may be
+called the Pelham series. Of these the principal are _The Disowned_,
+_Devereux_, and _Paul Clifford_--the last of which throws a sentimental,
+rosy light upon the person and adventures of a highwayman; but it is too
+unreal to have done as much injury as the _Pirate's Own Book_, or the
+_Adventures of Jack Sheppard_. It may be safely asserted that _Paul
+Clifford_ never produced a highwayman. Of the same period is _Eugene
+Aram_, founded upon the true story of a scholar who was a murderer--a
+painful subject powerfully handled.
+
+In 1831 Bulwer entered Parliament, and seems to have at once commenced a
+new life. With his public duties he combined severe historical study; and
+the novels he now produced gave witness of his riper and better learning.
+Chief among these were _Rienzi_, and _The Last Days of Pompeii_. The
+former is based upon the history of that wonderful and unfortunate man
+who, in the fourteenth century, attempted to restore the Roman republic,
+and govern it like an ancient tribune. The latter is a noble production:
+he has caught the very spirit of the day in which Pompeii was submerged by
+the lava-flood; his characters are masterpieces of historic delineation;
+he handles like an adept the conflicting theologies, Christian, Roman, and
+Egyptian; and his natural scenes--Vesuvius in fury, the Bay of Naples in
+the lurid light, the crowded amphitheatre, and the terror which fell on
+man and beast, gladiator and lion--are _chef-d'oeuvres_ of Romantic art.
+
+
+CHANGES IN WRITING.--For a time he edited _The New Monthly Magazine_, and
+a change came over the spirit of his novels. This was first noticed in his
+_Ernest Maltravers_, and the sequel, _Alice, or the Mysteries_, which are
+marked by sentimental passion and mystic ideas. In _Night and Morning_ he
+is still mysterious: a blind fate seems to preside over his characters,
+robbing the good of its free merit and condoning the evil.
+
+In 1838 he was made a baronet. His versatile pen now turned to the drama;
+and although he produced nothing great, his _Lady of Lyons_, _Richelieu_,
+_Money_, and _The Sea Captain_ have always since been favorites upon the
+stage, subsidizing the talents of actors like Macready, Kean, and Edwin
+Booth.
+
+We must now chronicle another change, from the mystic to the supernatural,
+as displayed in _Zanoni_ and _Lucretia_, and especially in _A Strange
+Story_, which is the strangest of all. It was at the same period that he
+wrote _The Last of the Barons_, or the story of Warwick the king-maker,
+and _Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings_. Both are valuable to the
+student of English history as presenting the fruits of his own historic
+research.
+
+The last and most decided, and, we may add, most beneficial, change in
+Bulwer as a writer, was manifested in his publication of the _Caxtons_,
+the chief merit of which is as an usher of the novels which were to
+follow. Pisistratus Caxton is the modern Tristram Shandy, and becomes the
+putative editor of the later novels. First of these is _My Novel, or
+Varieties of English Life_. It is an admirable work: it inculcates a
+better morality, and a sense of Christian duty, at which Pelham would have
+laughed in scorn. Like it, but inferior to it, is _What Will He do with
+It?_ which has an interesting plot, an elevated style, and a rare human
+sympathy.
+
+Among other works, which we cannot mention, he wrote _The New Timon_, and
+_King Arthur_, in poetry, and a prose history entitled _Athens, its Rise
+and Fall_.
+
+Without the highest genius, but with uncommon scholarship and great
+versatility, Bulwer has used the materials of many kinds lying about him,
+to make marvellous mosaics, which imitate very closely the finest efforts
+of word-painting of the great geniuses of prose fiction.
+
+
+CHARLES DICKENS.--Another remarkable development of the age was the use
+of prose fiction, instead of poetry, as the vehicle of satire in the cause
+of social reform. The world consents readily to be amused, and it likes to
+be amused at the expense of others; but it soon tires of what is simply
+amusing or satirical unless some noble purpose be disclosed. The novels of
+former periods had interested by the creation of character and scenes; and
+there had been numerous satires prompted by personal pique. It is the
+glory of this latest age that it demands what shall so satirize the evil
+around it in men, in classes, in public institutions, that the evil shall
+recoil before the attack, and eventually disappear. Chief among such
+reformers are Dickens and Thackeray.
+
+Charles Dickens, the prince of modern novelists, was born at Landsport,
+Portsmouth, England, in 1812. His father was at the time a clerk in the
+Pay Department of the Navy, but afterwards became a reporter of debates in
+Parliament. After a very hard early life and an only tolerable education,
+young Dickens made some progress in the study of law; but soon undertook
+his father's business as reporter, in which he struggled as he has made
+David Copperfield to do in becoming proficient.
+
+His first systematic literary efforts were as a daily writer and reporter
+for _The True Sun_; he then contributed his sketches of life and
+character, drawn from personal observation, to the _Morning Chronicle_:
+these were an earnest of his future powers. They were collected as
+_Sketches by Boz_, in two volumes, and published in 1836.
+
+
+PICKWICK.--In 1837 he was asked by a publisher to prepare a series of
+comic sketches of cockney sportsmen, to illustrate, as well as to be
+illustrated by, etchings by Seymour. This yoking of two geniuses was a
+trammel to both; but the suicide of Seymour dissolved the connection, and
+Dickens had free play to produce the _Pickwick Papers_, by Boz, which were
+illustrated, as he proceeded, by H. K. Browne (Phiz). The work met and
+has retained an unprecedented popularity. Caricature as it was, it
+caricatured real, existent oddities; everything was probable; the humor
+was sympathetic if farcical, the assertion of humanity bold, and the
+philosophy of universal application. He had touched our common nature in
+all ranks and conditions; he had exhibited men and women of all types; he
+had exposed the tricks of politics and the absurdity of elections; the
+snobs of society were severely handled. He was the censor of law courts,
+the exposer of swindlers, the dread of cockneys, the friend of rustics and
+of the poor; and he has displayed in the principal character, that of the
+immortal Pickwick, the power of a generous, simple-hearted, easily
+deceived, but always philanthropic man, who comes through all his trials
+without bating a jot of his love for humanity and his faith in human
+nature. But the master-work of his plastic hand was Sam Weller, whose wit
+and wisdom pervaded both hemispheres, and is as potent to excite laughter
+to-day as at the first.
+
+In this work he began that assault, not so much on shams as upon
+prominent, unblushing evil, which he carried on in some form or other in
+all his later works; and which was to make him prominent among the
+reformers and benefactors of his age. He was at once famous, and his pen
+was in demand to amuse the idle and to aid the philanthropic.
+
+
+NICHOLAS NICKLEBY.--The _Pickwick Papers_ were in their intention a series
+of sketches somewhat desultory and loosely connected. His next work was
+_Nicholas Nickleby_, a complete story, in which he was entirely
+successful. Wonderful in the variety and reality of his characters, his
+powerful satire was here principally directed against the private
+boarding-schools in England, where unloved children, exiled and forgotten,
+were ill fed, scantily clothed, untaught, and beaten. Do-the-boys' Hall
+was his type, and many a school prison under that name was fearfully
+exposed and scourged. The people read with wonder and applause; these
+haunts of cruelty were scrutinized, some of them were suppressed; and
+since Nicholas Nickleby appeared no such school can live, because Squeers
+and Smike are on every lip, and punishment awaits the tyrant.
+
+Our scope will not permit a review of his numerous novels. In _Oliver
+Twist_ he denounces the parish system in its care of orphans, and throws a
+Drummond light upon the haunts of crime in London.
+
+_The Old Curiosity Shop_ exposes the mania of gaming, and seems to have
+been a device for presenting the pathetic pictures of _Little Nell_ and
+her grandfather, the wonderful and rapid learning of the marchioness, and
+the uncommon vitality of Mr. Richard Swiveller; and also the compound of
+will and hideousness in Quilp.
+
+He affected to find in the receptacle of Master Humphrey's clock, his
+_Barnaby Rudge_, a very dramatic picture of the great riot incited by Lord
+George Gordon in 1780, which, in its gathering, its fury, and its easy
+dispersion, was not unlike that of Wat Tyler. Dickens's delineations are
+eminently historic, and present a better notion of the period than the
+general history itself.
+
+
+AMERICAN NOTES.--In 1841 Dickens visited America, where he was received by
+the public with great enthusiasm, and annoyed, as the author of his
+biography says, by many individuals. On his return to England, he produced
+his _American Notes for General Circulation_. They were sarcastic,
+superficial, and depreciatory, and astonished many whose hospitalities he
+had received. But, in 1843, he published _Martin Chuzzlewit_, in which
+American peculiarities are treated with the broadest caricature. The
+_Notes_ might have been forgiven; but the novel excited a great and just
+anger in America. His statements were not true; his pictures were not
+just; his prejudice led him to malign a people who had received him with
+a foolish hospitality. He had eaten and drunk at the hands of the men whom
+he abused, and his character suffered more than that of his intended
+victims. In taking a few foibles for his caricature, he had left our
+merits untold, and had been guilty of the implication that we had none,
+although he knew that there were as elegant gentlemen, as refined ladies,
+and as cultivated society in America as the best in England. But a truce
+to reproaches; he has been fully forgiven.
+
+His next novel was _Dombey and Son_, in which he attacks British pomp and
+pride of state in the haughty merchant. It is full of character and of
+pathos. Every one knows, as if they had appeared among us, the proud and
+rigid Dombey, J. B. the sly, the unhappy Floy, the exquisite Toots, the
+inimitable Nipper, Sol Gills the simple, and Captain Cuttle with his hook
+and his notes.
+
+This was followed by _David Copperfield_, which is, to some extent, an
+autobiography describing the struggles of his youth, his experience in
+acquiring short-hand to become a reporter, and other vicissitudes of his
+own life. In it there is an attack upon the system of model prisons; but
+the chief interest is found in his wonderful portraitures of varied and
+opposite characters: the Peggottys, Steerforth, the inimitable Micawber,
+Betsy Trotwood; Agnes, the lovely and lovable; Mr. Dick, with such noble
+method in his madness; Dora, the child-wife; the simple Traddles, and
+Uriah Heep, the 'umble intriguer and villain.
+
+_Bleak House_ is a tremendous onslaught upon the Chancery system, and is
+said to have caused a modification of it; his knowledge of law gave him
+the power of an expert in detailing and dissecting its enormities.
+
+_Little Dorrit_ presents the heartlessness of society, and is besides a
+full and fearful picture of the system of imprisonment for debt. For
+variety, power, and pathos, it is one of his best efforts.
+
+_A Tale of Two Cities_ is a gloomy but vivid story of the French
+Revolution, which has by no means the popularity of his other works.
+
+In _Hard Times_, a shorter story, he has shown the evil consequences of a
+hard, statistical, cramming education, in which the sympathies are
+repressed, and the mind made a practical machine. The failure of Gradgrind
+has warned many a parent from imitating him.
+
+_Great Expectations_ failed to fulfil the promise of the name; but Joe
+Gargery is as original a character as any he had drawn.
+
+His last completed story is _Our Mutual Friend_, which, although unequal
+to his best novels, has still original characters and striking scenes. The
+rage for rising in the social scale ruins the Veneerings, and Podsnappery
+is a well-chosen name far the heartless dogmatism which rules in English
+society.
+
+Besides these splendid works, we must mention the delight he has given,
+and the good he has done in expanding individual and public charity, by
+his exquisite Christmas stories, of which _The Chimes_, _The Christmas
+Carol_, and _The Cricket on the Hearth_ are the best.
+
+His dramatic power has been fully illustrated by the ready adaptations of
+his novels to the stage; they are, indeed, in scenes, personages, costume,
+and interlocution, dramas in all except the form; and he himself was an
+admirable actor.
+
+
+HIS VARIED POWERS.--His tenderness is touching, and his pathos at once
+excites our sympathy. He does not tell us to feel or to weep, but he shows
+us scenes like those in the life of Smike, and in the sufferings and death
+of Little Nell, which so simply appeal to the heart that we are for the
+time forgetful of the wand which conjures them before us.
+
+Dickens is bold in the advocacy of truth and in denouncing error; he is
+the champion of honest poverty; he is the foe of class pretension and
+oppression; he is the friend of friendless children; the reformer of
+those whom society has made vagrants. Without many clear assertions of
+Christian doctrine, but with no negation of it, he believes in doing good
+for its own sake,--in self-denial, in the rewards which virtue gives
+herself. His faults are few and venial. His merry life smacks too much of
+the practical joke and the punch-bowl; he denounces cant in the
+self-appointed ministers of the gospel, but he is not careful to draw
+contrasted pictures of good pastors. His opinion seems to be based upon a
+human perfectibility. But for rare pictures of real life he has never been
+surpassed; and he has instructed an age, concerning itself, wisely,
+originally, and usefully. He has the simplicity of Goldsmith, and the
+truth to nature of Fielding and Smollett, without a spice of
+sentimentalism or of impurity; he has brought the art of prose fiction to
+its highest point, and he has left no worthy successor. He lived for years
+separated from his wife on the ground of incompatibility, and, during his
+later years at Gadshill, twenty miles from London, to avoid the
+dissipations and draughts upon his time in that city.
+
+
+SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA.--In 1868 he again visited America, to read
+portions of his own works. He was well received by the public; but society
+had learned its lesson on his former visit, and he was not overwhelmed
+with a hospitality he had so signally failed to appreciate. And if we had
+learned better, he had vastly improved; the genius had become a gentleman.
+His readings were a great pecuniary success, and at their close he made an
+amend which was graceful and proper; so that when he departed from our
+shores his former errors were fully condoned, and he left an admiring
+hemisphere behind him.
+
+In the glow of health, and while writing, in serial numbers, a very
+promising novel entitled _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_, he was struck by
+apoplexy, in June, 1870, and in a few hours was dead. England has hardly
+experienced a greater loss. All classes of men mourned when he was buried
+in Westminster Abbey, in the poets' corner, among illustrious writers,--a
+prose-poet, none of whom has a larger fame than he; a historian of his
+time of greater value to society than any who distinctively bear the
+title. His characters are drawn from life; his own experience is found in
+_Nicholas Nickleby_ and _David Copperfield_; _Micawber_ is a caricature of
+his own father. _Traddles_ is said to represent his friend Talfourd.
+_Skimpole_ is supposed to be an original likeness of Leigh Hunt, and
+William and Daniel Grant, of Manchester, were the originals of the
+_Brothers Cheeryble_.
+
+
+WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.--Dickens gives us real characters in the garb
+of fiction; but Thackeray uses fiction as the vehicle of social
+philosophy. Great name, second only to Dickens; he is not a story-teller,
+but an eastern Cadi administering justice in the form of apologue. Dickens
+is eminently dramatic; Thackeray has nothing dramatic, neither scene nor
+personage. He is Democritus the laughing philosopher, or Jupiter the
+thunderer; he arraigns vice, pats virtue on the shoulder, shouts for
+muscular Christianity, uncovers shams,--his personages are only names.
+Dickens describes individuals; Thackeray only classes: his men and women
+are representatives, and, with but few exceptions, they excite our sense
+of justice, but not our sympathy; the principal exception is _Colonel
+Newcome_, a real individual creation upon whom Thackeray exhausted his
+genius, and he stands alone.
+
+Thackeray was born in Calcutta, of an old Yorkshire family, in 1811. His
+father was in the civil service, and he was sent home, when a child of
+seven, for his education at the Charter House in London. Thence he was
+entered at Cambridge, but left without being graduated. An easy fortune of
+L20,000 led him to take life easily; he studied painting with somewhat of
+the desultory devotion he has ascribed to Clive Newcome, and, like that
+worthy, travelled on the Continent. Partly by unsuccessful investments,
+and partly by careless living, his means were spent, and he took up
+writing as a profession. The comic was his forte, and his early pieces,
+written under the pseudonym of Michael Angelo Fitzmarsh and George Fitz
+Boodle, are broadly humorous, but by no means in his later finished style.
+_The Great Hoggarty Diamond_ (1841) did not disclose his full powers.
+
+In 1841, _Punch_, a weekly comic illustrated sheet, was begun, and it
+opened to Thackeray a field which exactly suited him. Short scraps of
+comedy, slightly connected sketches, and the weekly tale of brick, chimed
+with his humor, and made him at once a favorite. The best of these serial
+contributions were _The Snob Papers_: they are as fine specimens of
+humorous satire as exist in the language. But these would not have made
+him famous, as they did not disclose his power as a novelist.
+
+
+VANITY FAIR.--This was done by his _Vanity Fair_, which was published, in
+monthly numbers, between 1846 and 1848. It was at once popular, and is the
+most artistic of all his works. He called it a novel without a hero, and
+he is right; the mind repudiates all aspirants for the post, and settles
+upon poor Major Sugar-Plums as the best man in it. He could not have said
+_without a heroine_, for does not the world since ring with the fame of
+Becky Sharpe, the cleverest and wickedest little woman in England? The
+virtuous reader even is sorry that Becky must come to grief, as, with a
+proper respect to morality, the novelist makes her.
+
+Never had the Vanity Fair of European society received so scathing a
+dissection; and its author was immediately recognized as one of the
+greatest living satirists and novelists. If he adheres more to the old
+school of Fielding, who was his model, in his plots and handling of the
+story, he was evidently original in his satire.
+
+In 1847, upon the completion of this work, he began his _History of
+Pendennis_, in serial numbers, in which he presents the hero, Arthur
+Pendennis, as an average youth of the day, full of faults and foibles, but
+likewise generous and repentant. Here he enlists the sympathies which one
+never feels for perfection; and here, too, he portrays female loveliness
+and endurance in his Mrs. Pendennis and Laura. Arthur is a purer Tom Jones
+and Laura a superior Sophia Western.
+
+In 1851 he gave a course of lectures, repeated in America the next year,
+on "the English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century." There was no one
+better fitted to write such a course; he felt with them and was of them.
+But if this enabled him to present them sympathetically, it also caused
+him to overrate them, and in some cases to descend to the standpoint of
+their own partial views. He is wrong in his estimate of Swift, and too
+eulogistic of Addison; but he is thoroughly English in both.
+
+
+HENRY ESMOND.--The study of history necessary to prepare these led to his
+undertaking a novel on the time of Queen Anne, entitled _The History of
+Henry Esmond, Esq., written by himself_. His appreciation of the age is
+excellent; but the book, leaving for the most part the comic field in
+which he was most at home, is drier and less read than his others; as an
+historical presentation a great success, with rare touches of pathos; as a
+work of fiction not equal to his other stories. The comic muse assumes a
+tragic, or at least a very sombre, dress. We have a portraiture of Queen
+Anne in her last days, and a sad picture of him who, to the Protestant
+succession, was the pretender, and to the hopeful Jacobites, James III.
+The character of Marlborough is given with but little of what was really
+meritorious in that great captain.
+
+His novel of _Pendennis_ gave him, after the manner of Bulwer's _Caxton_,
+an editor in _Arthur Pendennis_, who presents us _The Newcomes, Memoirs of
+a Most Respectable Family_, which he published in a serial form,
+completing it in 1855.
+
+
+THE NEWCOMES.--In that work we have the richest culture, the finest
+satire, and the rarest social philosophy. The character--the hero by
+pre-eminence--is Colonel Newcome, a nobleman of nature's creation,
+generous, simple, a yearningly affectionate father, a friend to all the
+poor and afflicted, one of the best men ever delineated by a novelist; few
+hearts are so hard as not to be touched by the story of his death in his
+final retirement at the Charter House. When, surrounded by weeping
+friends, he heard the bell, "a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face,
+and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said 'Adsum,' and fell
+back: it was the word we used at school when names were called; and, lo!
+he, whose heart was that of a little child, had answered to his name, and
+stood in the presence of the Master."
+
+
+THE GEORGES.--While he was writing _The Newcomes_, he had prepared a
+course of four lectures on the _Four Georges_, kings of England, with
+which he made his second visit to the United States, and which he
+delivered in the principal cities, to make a fund for his daughters and
+for his old age. It was entirely successful, and he afterwards read them
+in England and Scotland. They are very valuable historically, as they give
+us the truth with regard to men whose reigns were brilliant and on the
+whole prosperous, but who themselves, with the exception of the third of
+the name, were as bad men as ever wore crowns. George III. was continent
+and honest, but a maniac, and Mr. Thackeray has treated him with due
+forbearance and eulogy.
+
+In 1857, Mr. Thackeray was a candidate for Parliament from Oxford, but
+was defeated by a small majority; his conduct in the election was so
+magnanimous, that his defeat may be regarded as an advantage to his
+reputation.
+
+In the same year he began _The Virginians_, which may be considered his
+failure; it is historically a continuation of _Esmond_,--some of the
+English characters, the Esmonds in Virginia, being the same as in that
+work. But his presentation and estimate of Washington are a caricature,
+and his sketch of General James Wolfe, the hero of Quebec, is tame and
+untrue to life. His descriptions of Virginia colonial life are unlike the
+reality; but where he is on his own ground, describing English scenes and
+customs in that day, he is more successful. To paint historical characters
+is beyond the power of his pencil, and his Doctor Johnson is not the man
+whom Boswell has so successfully presented.
+
+In 1860 he originated the _Cornhill Magazine_, to which his name gave
+unusual popularity: it attained a circulation of one hundred
+thousand--unprecedented in England. In that he published _Lovel the
+Widower_, which was not much liked, and a charming reproduction of the
+Newcomes,--for it is nothing more,--entitled _The Adventures of Philip on
+His Way through the World_. Philip is a more than average Englishman, with
+a wicked father and rather a stupid wife; but "the little sister" is a
+star--there is no finer character in any of his works. _Philip_, in spite
+of its likeness to _The Newcomes_, is a delightful book.
+
+With an achieved fame, a high position, a home which he had just built at
+Kensington, a large income, he seemed to have before him as prosperous an
+old age as any one could desire, when, such are the mysteries of
+Providence, he was found dead in his room on the morning of December 24,
+1863.
+
+
+ESTIMATE OF HIS POWERS.--Thackeray's excellences are manifest: he was the
+master of idiomatic English, a great moralist and reformer, and the king
+of satire, all the weapons of which he managed with perfect skill. He had
+a rapier for aristocratic immunities of evil, arrows to transfix
+prescriptions and shams; and with snobs (we must change the figure) he
+played as a cat does with a mouse, torturing and then devouring. In the
+words of Miss Bronte, "he was the first social regenerator of the day, the
+very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the
+warped system of things." But this was his chief and glorious strength: in
+the truest sense, he was a satirist and a humorist, but not a novelist; he
+could not create character. His dramatic persons do not speak for
+themselves; he tells us what they are and do. His mission seems to have
+been to arraign and demolish evil rather than to applaud good, and thus he
+enlists our sinless anger as crusaders rather than our sympathy as
+philanthropists. In Dickens we are sometimes disposed to skip a little, in
+our ardor, to follow the plot and find the denouement. In Thackeray we
+read every word, for it is the philosophy we want; the plot and personages
+are secondary, as indeed he considered them; for he often tells us, in the
+time of greatest depression of his hero, that it will all come out right
+at the end,--that Philip will marry Charlotte, and have a good income,
+while the poor soul is wrestling with the _res augusta domi_. Dickens and
+Thackeray seemed to draw from each other in their later works; the former
+philosophizing more in his _Little Dorrit_ and _Our Mutual Friend_, and
+the latter attempting more of the descriptive in _The Newcomes_ and
+_Philip_. Of minor pieces we may mention his _Rebecca_ and _Rowena_, and
+his _Kickleburys on the Rhine_; his _Essay on Thunder_ and _Small Beer_;
+his _Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo_, in 1846, and his
+published collection of smaller sketches called _The Roundabout Papers_.
+That Thackeray was fully conscious of the dignity of his functions may be
+gathered from his own words in _Henry Esmond_. "I would have history
+familiar rather than heroic, and think Mr. Hogarth and Mr. Fielding.
+[and, we may add, Mr. Thackeray,] will give our children a much better
+idea of the manners of that age in England than the _Court Gazette_ and
+the newspapers which we get thence." At his death he left an unfinished
+novel, entitled _Dennis Duval_. A gifted daughter, who was his kind
+amanuensis. Miss ANNE E. THACKERAY, has written several interesting tales,
+among which are _The Village on the Cliff_ and _The Story of Elizabeth_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+THE LATER WRITERS.
+
+
+   Charles Lamb. Thomas Hood. Thomas de Quincey. Other Novelists. Writers
+   on Science and Philosophy.
+
+
+CHARLES LAMB.--This distinguished writer, although not a novelist like
+Dickens and Thackeray, in the sense of having produced extensive works of
+fiction, was, like them, a humorist and a satirist, and has left
+miscellaneous works of rare merit. He was born in London, and was the son
+of a servant to one of the Benches of the Inner Temple; he was educated at
+Christ's Hospital, where he became the warm friend of Coleridge. In 1792
+he received an appointment as clerk in the South Sea House, which he
+retained until 1825, when, owing to the distinction he had obtained in the
+world of letters, he was permitted to retire with a pension of L450. He
+describes his feelings on this happy release from business, in his essay
+on _The Superannuated Man_. He was an eccentric man, a serio-comic
+character, whose sad life is singularly contrasted with his irrepressible
+humor. His sister, whom he has so tenderly described as Bridget Elia, in a
+fit of insanity killed their mother with a carving-knife, and Lamb devoted
+himself to her care.
+
+He was a poet, and left quaint and beautiful album verses and minor
+pieces. As a dramatist, he is known by his tragedy _John Woodvil_, and the
+farce _Mr. H----_, neither of which was a success. But he has given us in
+his _Specimens of Old English Dramatists_ the result of great reading and
+rare criticism.
+
+But it is chiefly as a writer of essays and short stories that he is
+distinguished. The _Essays of Elia_, in their vein, mark an era in the
+literature; they are light, racy, seemingly dashed off, but really full of
+his reading of the older English authors. Indeed, he is so quaint in
+thought and style, that he seems an anachronism--a writer of the
+Elizabethan period returned to life in this century. He bubbles over with
+puns, jests, and repartees; and although not popular in the sense of
+reaching the multitude, he is the friend and companion of congenial
+readers. Among his essays, we may mention the stories of _Rosamund Gray_
+and _Old Blind Margaret_. _Dream Children_ and _The Child Angel_ are those
+of greatest power; but every one he has written is charming. His sly hits
+at existing abuses are designed to laugh them away. He was the favorite of
+his literary circle, and as a talker had no superior. After a life of
+care, not unmingled with pleasures, he died in 1834. Lamb's letters are
+racy, witty, idiomatic, and unlabored; and, as most of them are to
+colleagues in literature and on subjects of social and literary interest,
+they are important aids in studying the history of his period.
+
+
+THOMAS HOOD.--The greatest humorist, the best punster, and the ablest
+satirist of his age, Hood attacked the social evils around him with such
+skill and power that he stands forth as a philanthropist. He was born in
+London in 1798, and, after a limited education, he began to learn the art
+of engraving; but his pen was more powerful than his burin. He soon began
+to contribute to the _London Magazine_ his _Whims and Oddities_; and, in
+irregular verse, satirized the would-be great men of the time, and the
+eccentric legislation they proposed in Parliament. These short poems are
+full of puns and happy _jeux de mots_, and had a decided effect in
+frustrating the foolish plans. After this he published _National Tales_,
+in the same comic vein; but also produced his exquisite serious pieces,
+_The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies_, _Hero and Leander_, and others, all
+of which are striking and tasteful. In 1838 he commenced _The Comic
+Annual_, which appeared for several years, brimful of mirth and fun. He
+was editor of various magazines,--_The New Monthly_, and _Hood's
+Magazine_. For _Punch_ he wrote _The Song of the Shirt_, and _The Bridge
+of Sighs_. No one can compute the good done by both; the hearts touched;
+the pockets opened. The sewing women were better paid, more cared for,
+elevated in the social scale; and many of them saved from that fate which
+is so touchingly chronicled in _The Bridge of Sighs_. Hood was a true poet
+and a great poet. _Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg_ is satire, story,
+epic, comedy, in one.
+
+If he owed to Smollett's _Humphrey Clinker_ the form of his _Up the
+Rhine_, he has equalled Smollett in the narrative, in the variety of
+character, and in the admirable cacography of Martha Penny. His
+caricatures fasten facts in the memory, and every tourist up the Rhine
+recognizes Hood's personages wherever he lands.
+
+After a life of ill-health and pecuniary struggle, Hood died, greatly
+lamented, on the 3d of May, 1845, and left no successor to wield his
+subtle pen.
+
+
+THOMAS DE QUINCEY (1785-1859).--This singular author, and very learned and
+original thinker, owes much of his reputation to the evil habit of
+opium-eating, which affected his personal life and authorship. His most
+popular work is _The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_, which
+interests the reader by its curious pictures of the abnormal conditions in
+which he lived and wrote. He abandoned this noxious practice in the year
+1820. He produced much which he did not publish; and his writings all
+contain a suggestion of strength and scholarship, a surplus beyond what he
+has given to the world. There are numerous essays and narratives, among
+which his paper entitled _Murder considered as One of the Fine Arts_ is
+especially notable. His prose is considered a model of good English.
+
+The death of Dickens and Thackeray left England without a novelist of
+equal fame and power, but with a host of scholarly and respectable pens,
+whose productions delight the popular taste, and who are still in the tide
+of busy authorship.
+
+Our purpose is already accomplished, and we might rest without the
+proceeding beyond the middle of the century; but it will be proper to make
+brief mention of those, some of whom have already departed, but many of
+whom still remain, and are producing new works, who best illustrate the
+historical value and teachings of English literature, and whose writings
+will be read in the future for their delineations of the habits and
+conditions of the present period.
+
+
+
+OTHER NOVELISTS.
+
+
+_Captain Frederick Marryat_, of the Royal Navy, 1792-1848: in his sea
+novels depicts naval life with rare fidelity, and with, a roystering
+joviality which makes them extremely entertaining. The principal of these
+are _Frank Mildmay_, _Newton Forster_, _Peter Simple_, and _Midshipman
+Easy_. His works constitute a truthful portrait of the British Navy in the
+beginning of the eighteenth century, and have influenced many
+high-spirited youths to choose a maritime profession.
+
+_George P. R. James_, 1806-1860: is the author of nearly two hundred
+novels, chiefly historical, which have been, in their day, popular. It was
+soon found, however, that he repeated himself, and the sameness of
+handling began to tire his readers. His "two travellers," with whom he
+opens his stories, have become proverbially ridiculous. But he has
+depicted scenes in modern history with skill, and especially in French
+history. His _Richelieu_ is a favorite; and in his _Life of Charlemagne_
+he has brought together the principal events in the career of that
+distinguished monarch with logical force and historical accuracy.
+
+_Benjamin d'Israeli_, born 1805: is far more famous as a persevering,
+acute, and able statesman than as a novelist. In proof of this, having
+surmounted unusual difficulties, he has been twice Chancellor of the
+Exchequer and once Prime Minister of England. Among his earlier novels,
+which are pictures of existing society, are: _Vivian Gray_, _Contarini
+Fleming_, _Coningsby_, and _Henrietta Temple_. In _The Wondrous Tale of
+Alroy_ he has described the career of that singular claimant to the
+Jewish Messiahship. _Lothair_, which was published in 1869, is the story
+of a young nobleman who was almost enticed to enter the Roman Catholic
+Church. The descriptions of society are either very much overwrought or
+ironical; but his knowledge of State craft and Church craft renders the
+book of great value to the history of religious polemics. His father,
+_Isaac d'Israeli_, is favorably known as the author of _The Curiosities of
+Literature_, _The Amenities of Literature_, and _The Quarrels of Authors_.
+
+_Charles Lever_, 1806-1872: he was born in Dublin, and, after a partial
+University career, studied medicine. He has embodied his experience of
+military life in several striking but exaggerated works,--among these are:
+_The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer_, _Charles O'Malley_, and _Jack
+Hinton_. He excels in humor and in picturesque battle-scenes, and he has
+painted the age in caricature. Of its kind, _Charles O'Malley_ stands
+pre-eminent: the variety of character is great; all classes of military
+men figure in the scenes, from the Duke of Wellington to the inimitable
+Mickey Free. He was for some time editor of the _Dublin University
+Magazine_, and has written numerous other novels, among which are: _Roland
+Cashel_, _The Knight of Gwynne_, and _The Dodd Family Abroad_; and, last
+of all, _Lord Kilgobbin_.
+
+_Charles Kingsley_, born 1809: this accomplished clergyman, who is a canon
+of Chester, is among the most popular English writers,--a poet, a
+novelist, and a philosopher. He was first favorably known by a poetical
+drama on the story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, entitled _The Saint's
+Tragedy_. Among his other works are: _Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet_;
+_Hypatia, the Story of a Virgin Martyr_; _Andromeda; Westward Ho! or the
+Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh_; _Two Years Ago_; and _Hereward, the Last
+of the English_. This last is a very vivid historical picture of the way
+in which the man of the fens, under the lead of this powerful outlaw, held
+out against William the Conqueror. The busy pen of Kingsley has produced
+numerous lectures, poems, reviews, essays, and some plain and useful
+sermons. He is now Professor of Modern History at Cambridge.
+
+_Charlotte Bronte_, 1816-1855: if of an earlier period, this gifted woman
+would demand a far fuller mention and a more critical notice than can be
+with justice given of a contemporary. She certainly wrote from the depths
+of her own consciousness. _Jane Eyre_, her first great work, was received
+with intense interest, and was variously criticized. The daughter of a
+poor clergyman at Haworth, and afterwards a teacher in a school at
+Brussels, with little knowledge of the world, she produced a powerful book
+containing much curious philosophy, and took rank at once among the first
+novelists of the age. Her other works, if not equal to _Jane Eyre_, are
+still of great merit, and deal profoundly with the springs of human
+action. They are: _The Professor_, _Villette_, and _Shirley_. Her
+characters are portraits of the men and women around her, painted from
+life; and she speaks boldly of motives and customs which other novelists
+have touched very delicately. She had two gifted sisters, who were also
+successful novelists; but who died young. Miss Bronte died a short time
+after her marriage to Mr. Nichol, her father's curate. _Mrs. Elizabeth
+Gaskell_, her near friend, and the author of a successful novel called
+_Mary Barton_, has written an interesting biography of Mrs. Nichol.
+
+_George Eliot_, born 1820: under this pseudonym, Miss Evans has written
+several works of great interest. Among these are: _Adam Bede_; _The Mill
+on the Floss_; _Romola_, an Italian story; _Felix Holt_; and _Silas
+Marner_. Simple, and yet eminently dramatic in scene, character, and
+interlocution, George Eliot has painted pictures from middle and common
+life, and is thus the exponent of a large humanity. She is now the wife of
+the popular author, G. H. Lewes.
+
+_Dinah Maria Muloch_ (Mrs. Craik), born 1826: a versatile writer. She is
+best known by her novels entitled _John Halifax_ and _The Ogilvies_.
+
+_Wilkie Collins_, born 1824: he is the son of a landscape-painter, and is
+renowned for his curious and well-concealed plots, phantom-like
+characters, and striking effects. Among his novels the best known are:
+_Antonina_, _The Dead Secret_, _The Woman in White_, _No Name_,
+_Armadale_, _The Moonstone_, and _Man and Wife_. There is a sameness in
+these works; and yet it is evident that the author has put his invention
+on the rack to create new intrigues, and to mystify his reader from the
+beginning to the end of each story.
+
+_Charles Reade_, born 1814: he is one of the most prolific writers of the
+day, as well as one of the most readable in all that he has written. He
+draws many impassioned scenes, and is as sensuous in literature as Rubens
+in art. Among his principal works are: _White Lies_, _Love Me Little, Love
+Me Long_; _The Cloister and The Hearth_; _Hard Cash_, and _Griffith
+Gaunt_, which convey little, if any, practical instruction. His _Never Too
+Late to Mend_ is of great value in displaying the abuses of the prison
+system in England; and his _Put Yourself in His Place_ is a very powerful
+attack upon the Trades' Unions. A singular epigrammatic style keeps up the
+interest apart from the story.
+
+_Mary Russell Mitford_, 1786-1855: she was a poet and a dramatist, but is
+chiefly known by her stories. In the collection called _Our Village_, she
+has presented beautiful and simple pictures of English country life which
+are at once touching and instructive.
+
+_Charlotte Mary Yonge_, born 1823: among the many interesting works of
+this author, _The Heir of Redclyff_ is the first and best. This was
+followed by _Daisy Chain_, _Heartsease_, _The Clever Woman of the Family_,
+and numerous other works of romance and of history,--all of which are
+valuable for their high tone of moral instruction and social manners.
+
+_Anthony Trollope_, born 1815: he and his brother, Thomas Adolphus
+Trollope, are sons of that Mrs. Frances Trollope who abused our country in
+her work entitled _The Domestic Manners of the Americans_, in terms that
+were distasteful even to English critics. Anthony Trollope is a successful
+writer of society-novels, which, without being of the highest order, are
+faithful in their portraitures. Among those which have been very popular
+are: _Barchester Towers_, _Framley Parsonage_, _Doctor Thorne_, and _Orley
+Farm_, He travelled in the United States, and has published a work of
+discernment entitled _North America_. His brother Thomas is best known by
+his _History of Florence to the Fall of the Republic_.
+
+
+_Thomas Hughes_, born 1823: the popular author of _Tom Brown's School-Days
+at Rugby_, and _Tom Brown at Oxford_,--books which display the workings of
+these institutions, and set up a standard for English youth. The first is
+the best, and has made him famous.
+
+
+
+WRITERS ON SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.
+
+
+Although these do not come strictly within the scope of English
+literature, they are so connected with it in the composition of general
+culture, and give such a complexion to the age, that it is well to mention
+the principal names.
+
+_Sir William Hamilton_, 1788-1856: for twenty years Professor of Logic and
+Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. His voluminous lectures on
+both these subjects were edited, after his death, by Mansel and Veitch,
+and have been since of the highest authority.
+
+_William Whewell_, 1795-1866: for some time Master of Trinity College,
+Cambridge. He has written learnedly on many subjects: his most valuable
+works are: _A History of the Inductive Sciences_, _The Elements of
+Morality_, and _The Plurality of Worlds_. Of Whewell it has been pithily
+said, that "science was his forte, and omniscience his foible."
+
+_Richard Whately, D.D._, 1787-1863: he was appointed in 1831 Archbishop
+of Dublin and Kildare, in Ireland. His chief works are: _Elements of
+Logic_, _Elements of Rhetoric_, and _Lectures on Political Economy_. He
+gave a new impetus to the study of Logic and Rhetoric, and presented the
+formal logic of Aristotle anew to the world; thus marking a distinct epoch
+in the history of that much controverted science.
+
+_John Ruskin_, born 1819: he ranks among the most original critics in art;
+but is eccentric in his opinions. His powers were first displayed in his
+_Modern Painters_. In his _Seven Lamps of Architecture_ he has laid down
+the great fundamental principles of that art, among the forms of which the
+Gothic claims the pre-eminence. These are further carried out in _The
+Stones of Venice_. He is a transcendentalist and a pre-Raphaelite, and
+exceedingly dogmatic in stating his views. His descriptive powers are very
+great.
+
+_Hugh Miller_, 1802-1856: an uneducated mechanic, he was a brilliant
+genius and an observant philosopher. His best works are: _The Old Red
+Sandstone_, _Footprints of the Creator_, and _The Testimonies of the
+Rocks_. He shot himself in a fit of insanity.
+
+_John Stuart Mill_, born 1806: the son of James Mill, the historian of
+India. He was carefully educated, and has written on many subjects. He is
+best known by his _System of Logic_; his work on _Political Economy_; and
+his _Treatise on Liberty_. Each of these topics being questions of
+controversy, Mr. Mill states his views strongly in respect to opposing
+systems, and is very clear in the expression of his own dogmas.
+
+_Thomas Chalmers, D.D._, 1780-1847: this distinguished divine won his
+greatest reputation as an eloquent preacher. He was for some time
+Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of St. Andrew's, and wrote
+on _Natural Theology_, _The Evidences of Christianity_, and some lectures
+on _Astronomy_. But all his works are glowing sermons rather than
+philosophical treatises.
+
+_Richard Chevenix Trench, D.D._, born 1807: the present Archbishop of
+Dublin. He has written numerous theological works of popular value, among
+which are _Notes on the Parables, and on Miracles_. He has also published
+two series of charming lectures on English philology, entitled _The Study
+of Words_ and _English Past and Present_. They are suggestive and
+discursive rather than philosophical, but have incited many persons to
+pursue this delightful study.
+
+_Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D._, born 1815: Dean of Westminster. He was
+first known by his excellent biography of Dr. Arnold of Rugby; but has
+since enriched biblical literature by his lectures on _The Eastern Church_
+and on _The Jewish Church_. He accompanied the Prince of Wales on his
+visit to Palestine, and was not only eager in collecting statistics, but
+has reproduced them with poetic power.
+
+_Nicholas Wiseman, D.D._, 1802-1865: the head of the Roman Catholic Church
+in England. Cardinal Wiseman has written much on theological and
+ecclesiastical questions; but he is best known to the literary world by
+his able lectures on _The Connection between Science and Revealed
+Religion_, which are additionally valuable because they have no sectarian
+character.
+
+_Charles Darwin_, born 1809: although he began his career at an early age,
+his principal works are so immediately of the present time, and his
+speculations are so involved in serious controversies, that they are not
+within the scope of this work. His principal works are: _The Origin of
+Species by means of Natural Selection_, and _The Descent of Man_. His
+facts are curious and very carefully selected; but his conclusions have
+been severely criticized.
+
+_Frederick Max Mueller_, born 1823: a German by birth. He is a professional
+Oxford, and has done more to popularize the Science of Language than any
+other writer. He has written largely on Oriental linguistics, and has
+given two courses of lectures on _The Science of Language_, which have
+been published, and are used as text-books. His _Chips from a German
+Workshop_ is a charming book, containing his miscellaneous articles in
+reviews and magazines.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+ENGLISH JOURNALISM.
+
+
+   Roman News Letters. The Gazette. The Civil War. Later Divisions. The
+   Reviews. The Monthlies. The Dailies. The London Times. Other
+   Newspapers.
+
+
+ROMAN NEWS LETTERS.--English serials and periodicals, from the very time
+of their origin, display, in a remarkable manner, the progress both of
+English literature and of English history, and form the most striking
+illustration that the literature interprets the history. In using the
+caption, "journalism," we include all forms of periodical
+literature--reviews, magazines, weekly and daily papers. The word
+journalism is, in respect to many of them, a misnomer, etymologically
+considered: it is a French corruption of _diurnal_, which, from the Latin
+_dies_, should mean a daily paper; but it is now generally used to include
+all periodicals. The origin of newspapers is quite curious, and antedates
+the invention of printing. The _acta diurna_, or journals of public
+events, were the daily manuscript reports of the Roman Government during
+the later commonwealth. In these, among other matters of public interest,
+every birth, marriage, and divorce was entered. As an illustration of the
+character of these brief entries, we have the satire of Petronius, which
+he puts in the mouth of the freed man Trimalchio: "The seventh of the
+Kalends of Sextilis, on the estate at Cumae, were born thirty boys, twenty
+girls; were carried from the floor to the barn, 500,000 bushels of wheat;
+were broke 500 oxen. The same day the slave Mithridates was crucified for
+blasphemy against the Emperor's genius; the same day was placed in the
+chest the sum of ten millions sesterces, which could not be put out to
+use." Similar in character were the _Acta Urbana_, or city register, the
+_Acta Publica_, and the _Acta Senatus_, whose names indicate their
+contents. They were brief, almost tabular, and not infrequently
+sensational.
+
+
+THE GAZETTE.--After the downfall of Rome, and during the Dark Ages, there
+are few traces of journalism. When Venice was still in her palmy days, in
+1563, during a war with the Turks, printed bulletins were issued from time
+to time, the price for reading which was a coin of about three farthings'
+value called a _gazetta_; and so the paper soon came to be called a
+gazette. Old files, to the amount of thirty volumes, of great historical
+value, may be found in the Magliabecchian Library at Florence.
+
+Next in order, we find in France _Affiches_, or _placards_, which were
+soon succeeded by regular sheets of advertisement, exhibited at certain
+offices.
+
+As early as the time of the intended invasion of England by the Spanish
+Armada, about the year 1588, we find an account of its defeat and
+dispersion in the _Mercurie_, issued by Queen Elizabeth's own printer. In
+another number is the news of a plot for killing the queen, and a
+statement that instruments of torture were on board the vessels, to set up
+the Inquisition in London. Whether true or not, the newspaper said it; and
+the English people believed it implicitly.
+
+About 1600, with the awakening spirit of the people, there began to appear
+periodical papers containing specifically news from Germany, from Italy,
+&c. And during the Thirty Years' War there was issued a weekly paper
+called _The Certain News of the Present Week_. Although the word _news_ is
+significant enough, many persons considered it as made up of the initial
+letters representing the cardinal points of the compass, _N.E.W.S._, from
+which the curious people looked for satisfying intelligence.
+
+
+THE CIVIL WAR.--The progress of English journalism received a great
+additional impetus when the civil war broke out between Charles I. and his
+Parliament, in 1642. To meet the demands of both parties for intelligence,
+numbers of small sheets were issued: _Truths from York_ told of the rising
+in the king's favor there. There were: _Tidings from Ireland_, _News from
+Hull_, telling of the siege of that place in 1643; _The Dutch Spy_; _The
+Parliament Kite_; _The Secret Owl_; _The Scot's Dove_, with the
+olive-branch. Then flourished the _Weekly Discoverer_, and _The Weekly
+Discoverer Stripped Naked_. But these were only bare and partial
+statements, which excited rancor without conveying intelligence. "Had
+there been better vehicles for the expression of public opinion," says the
+author of the Student's history of England, "the Stuarts might have been
+saved from some of those schemes which proved so fatal to themselves."
+
+In the session of Parliament held in 1695, there occurred a revolution of
+great moment. There had been an act, enforced for a limited time, to
+restrain unlicensed printing, and under it censors had been appointed;
+but, in this year, the Parliament refused to re-enact or continue it, and
+thus the press found itself comparatively free.
+
+We have already referred to the powerful influence of the essayists in
+_The Tatler_, _Spectator_, _Guardian_, and _Rambler_, which may be called
+the real origin of the present English press.
+
+
+LATER DIVISIONS.--Coming down to the close of the eighteenth century, we
+find the following division of English periodical literature:
+_Quarterlies_, usually called _Reviews_; _Monthlies_, generally entitled
+_Magazines_; _Weeklies_, containing digests of news; and _Dailies_, in
+which are found the intelligence and facts of the present moment; and in
+this order, too, were the intellectual strength and learning of the time
+at first employed. The _Quarterlies_ contained the articles of the great
+men--the acknowledged critics in politics, literature, and art; the
+_Magazines_, a current literature of poetry and fiction; the _Weeklies_
+and _Dailies_, reporters' facts and statistics; the latter requiring
+activity rather than cleverness, and beginning to be a vehicle for
+extensive advertisements.
+
+This general division has been since maintained; but if the order has not
+been reversed, there can be no doubt that the great dailies have steadily
+risen; on most questions of popular interest in all departments, long and
+carefully written articles in the dailies, from distinguished pens,
+anticipate the quarterlies, or force them to seek new grounds and forms of
+presentation after forestalling their critical opinions. Not many years
+ago, the quarterlies subsidized the best talent; now the men of that class
+write for _The Times_, _Standard_, _Telegraph_, &c.
+
+Let us look, in the order we have mentioned, at some representatives of
+the press in its various forms.
+
+Each of the principal reviews represents a political party, and at the
+same time, in most cases, a religious denomination; and they owe much of
+their interest to the controversial spirit thus engendered.
+
+
+REVIEWS.--First among these, in point of origin, is the _Edinburgh
+Review_, which was produced by the joint efforts of several young, and
+comparatively unknown, gentlemen, among whom were Francis (afterwards)
+Lord Jeffrey, Lord Murray, Mr. (since Lord) Brougham, and the Rev. Sydney
+Smith. The latter gentleman was appointed first editor, and remained long
+enough in Edinburgh to edit the first number. Thereafter Jeffrey conducted
+it. The men were clever, witty, studious, fearless; and the Review was not
+only from the first a success, but its fiat was looked for by authors with
+fear and trembling. It became a vehicle for the efforts of the best minds.
+Macaulay wrote for it those brilliant miscellanies which at once
+established his fame, and gave it much of its popularity. In it Jeffrey
+attacked the Lake poetry, and incurred the hatred of Byron. Its
+establishment, in 1803, was an era in the world of English letters. The
+papers were not merely reviews, but monographs on interesting subjects--a
+new anatomy of history; it was in a general way an exponent, but quite an
+independent one, of the Whig party, or those who would liberally construe
+the Constitution,--putting Churchmen and Dissenters on the same platform;
+although published in Edinburgh, it was neither Scotch nor Presbyterian.
+It attacked ancient prescriptions and customs; agitated questions long
+considered settled both of present custom and former history; and thus
+imitated the champion knights who challenged all comers, and sustained no
+defeats.
+
+Occupying opposite ground to this is the great English review called the
+_London Quarterly_: it was established in 1809; is an uncompromising
+Tory,--entirely conservative as to monarchy, aristocracy, and Established
+Church. Its first editor was William Gifford; but it attained its best
+celebrity under the charge of John Gibson Lockhart, the son-in-law of Sir
+Walter Scott, a man of singular critical power. Among its distinguished
+contributors were Southey, Scott, Canning, Croker, and Wordsworth.
+
+The _North British Review_, which never attained the celebrity of either
+of these, and which has at length, in 1871, been discontinued, occupied
+strong Scottish and Presbyterian ground, and had its respectable
+supporters.
+
+But besides the parties mentioned, there is a floating one, growing by
+slow but sure accretion, know as the _Radical_. It includes men of many
+stamps, mainly utilitarian,--radical in politics, innovators, radical in
+religion, destructive as to systems of science and arts, a learned and
+inquisitive class,--rational, transcendental, and intensely dogmatic. As a
+vent for this varied party, the _Westminster Review_ was founded by Mr
+Bentham, in 1824. Its articles are always well written, and sometimes
+dangerous, according to our orthodox notions. It is supported by such
+writers as Mill, Bowring, and Buckle.
+
+Besides these there are numerous quarterlies of more or less limited
+scope, as in science or art, theology or law; such as _The Eclectic, The
+Christian Observer, The Dublin_, and many others.
+
+
+THE MONTHLIES.--Passing from the reviews to the monthlies, we find the
+range and number of these far greater, and the matter lighter. The first
+great representative of the modern series, and one that has kept its issue
+up to the present day, is Cave's _Gentleman's Magazine_, which commenced
+its career in 1831, and has been continued, after Cave's death, by Henry &
+Nichols, who wrote under the pseudonym of _Sylvanus Urban_. It is a strong
+link between past and present. Johnson sent his _queries_ to it while
+preparing his dictionary, and at the present day it is the favorite
+vehicle of antiquarians and historians. Passing by others, we find
+Blackwood's _Edinburgh Magazine_, first published in 1817. Originally a
+strong and bitter conservative, it kept up its popularity by its fine
+stories and poems. Among the most notable papers in Blackwood are the
+_Noctes Ambrosianae_, in which Professor Wilson, under the pseudonym of
+_Christopher North_, took the greater part.
+
+Most of the magazines had little or no political proclivity, but were
+chiefly literary. Among them are _Fraser's_, begun in 1830, and the
+_Dublin University_, in 1832.
+
+A charming light literature was presented by the _New Monthly_: in
+politics it was a sort of set-off to Blackwood: in it Captain Marryat
+wrote his famous sea stories; and among other contributors are the ever
+welcome names of Hood, Lytton, and Campbell. The _Penny Magazine_, of
+Knight, was issued from 1832 to 1845.
+
+Quite a new era dawned upon the magazine world in the establishment of
+several new ones, under the auspices of famous authors; among which we
+mention _The Cornhill_, edited by Thackeray, in 1859, with unprecedented
+success, until his tender heart compelled him to resign it; _Temple Bar_,
+by Sala, in 1860, is also very successful.
+
+In 1850 Dickens began the issue of _Household Words_, and in 1859 this was
+merged into _All the Year Round_, which owed its great popularity to the
+prestige of the same great writer.
+
+Besides these, devoted to literature and criticism, there are also many
+monthlies issued in behalf of special branches of knowledge, art, and
+science, which we have not space to refer to.
+
+Descending in the order mentioned, we come to the weeklies, which, besides
+containing summaries of daily intelligence, also share the magazine field
+in brief descriptive articles, short stories, and occasional poems.
+
+A number of these are illustrated journals, and are of great value in
+giving us pictorial representations of the great events and scenes as they
+pass, with portraits of men who have become suddenly famous by some
+special act or appointment. Their value cannot be too highly appreciated;
+they supply to the mind, through the eye, what the best descriptions in
+letter-press could not give; and in them satire uses comic elements with
+wonderful effect. Among the illustrated weeklies, the _Illustrated London
+News_ has long held a high place; and within a short period _The Graphic_
+has exhibited splendid pictures of men and things of timely interest. Nor
+must we forget to mention _Punch_, which has been the grand jester of the
+realm since its origin. The best humorous and witty talent of England has
+found a vent in its pages, and sometimes its pathos has been productive of
+reform. Thackeray, Cuthbert Bede, Mark Lemon, Hood, have amused us in its
+pages, and the clever pencil of Leech has made a series of etching which
+will never grow tiresome. To it Thackeray contributed his _Snob Papers_,
+and Hood _The Song of the Shirt_.
+
+
+THE DAILIES.--But the great characteristic of the age is the daily
+newspaper, so common a blessing that we cease to marvel at it, and yet
+marvellous as it is common. It is the product of quick intelligence, of
+great energy, of concurrent and systematized labor, and, in order to
+fulfil its mission, it seems to subsidize all arts and invade all
+subjects--steam, mechanics, photography, phonography, and electricity. The
+news which it prints and scatters comes to it on the telegraph; long
+orations are phonographically reported; the very latest mechanical skill
+is used in its printing; and the world is laid at our feet as we sit at
+the breakfast-table and read its columns.
+
+I shall not go back to the origin of printing, to show the great progress
+that has been made in the art from that time to the present; nor shall I
+attempt to explain the present process, which one visit to a press-room
+would do far better than any description; but I simply refer to the fact
+that fifty years ago newspapers were still printed with the hand-press,
+giving 250 impressions per hour--no cylinder, no flying Hoe, (that was
+patented only in 1847.) Now, the ten-cylinder Hoe, steam driven, works off
+20,000 sheets in an hour, and more, as the stereotyper may multiply the
+forms. What an emblem of art-progress is this! Fifty years ago
+mail-coaches carried them away. Now, steamers and locomotives fly with
+them all over the world, and only enlarge and expand the story, the great
+facts of which have been already sent in outline by telegraph.
+
+Nor is it possible to overrate the value of a good daily paper: as the
+body is strengthened by daily food, so are we built up mentally and
+spiritually for the busy age in which we live by the world of intelligence
+contained in the daily journal. A great book and a good one is offered for
+the reading of many who have no time to read others, and a great culture
+in morals, religion, politics, is thus induced. Of course it would be
+impossible to mention all the English dailies. Among them _The London
+Times_ is pre-eminent, and stands highest in the opinion of the
+ministerial party, which fears and uses it.
+
+There was a time when the press was greatly trammelled in England, and
+license of expression was easily charged with constructive treason; but at
+present it is remarkably free, and the great, the government, and existing
+abuses, receive no soft treatment at its hands.
+
+_The London Times_ was started by John Walter, a printer, in 1788, there
+having been for three years before a paper called the _London Daily
+Universal Register_. In 1803 his son, John, went into partnership, when
+the circulation was but 1,000. Within ten years it was 5,000. In 1814,
+cleverly concealing the purpose from his workmen, he printed the first
+sheet ever printed by steam, on Koenig's press. The paper passed, at his
+death, into the hands of his son, the third John, who is a scholar,
+educated at Eton and Oxford, like his father a member of Parliament, and
+who has lately been raised to the peerage. The _Times_ is so influential
+that it may well be called a third estate in the realm: its writers are
+men of merit and distinction; its correspondence secures the best foreign
+intelligence; and its travelling agents, like Russell and others, are the
+true historians of a war. English journalism, it is manifest, is eminently
+historical. The files of English newspapers are the best history of the
+period, and will, by their facts and comments, hereafter confront specious
+and false historians. Another thing to be observed is the impersonality of
+the British press, not only in the fact that names are withheld, but that
+the articles betray no authorship; that, in short, the paper does not
+appear as the glorification of one man or set of men, but like an
+unprejudiced relator, censor, and judge.
+
+Of the principal London papers, the _Morning Post_ (Liberal, but not
+Radical,) was begun in 1772. The _Globe_ (at first Liberal, but within a
+short time Tory), in 1802. The _Standard_ (Conservative), in 1827. The
+_Daily News_ (high-class Liberal), in 1846. The _News_ announced itself as
+pledged to _Principles of Progress and Improvement_. _The Daily Telegraph_
+was started in 1855, and claims the largest circulation. It is also a
+_Liberal_ paper.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX OF AUTHORS
+
+
+
+Addison, Joseph, 258.
+Akenside, Mark, 351.
+Alcuin, 40.
+Aldhelm, Abbot, 40.
+Alfred the Great, 42.
+Alfric, surnamed Germanicus, 40.
+Alison, Sir Archibald, 447.
+Alured of Rievaux, 49.
+Arbuthnot, John, 252.
+Arnold, Matthew, 438.
+Arnold, Thomas, 448.
+Ascham, Roger, 103.
+Ashmole, Elias, 232.
+Aubrey, John, 232.
+Austen, Jane, 411.
+
+Bacon, Francis, 156.
+Bacon, Roger, 59.
+Bailey, Philip James, 437.
+Baillie, Joanna, 368.
+Barbauld, Anne Letitia, 359.
+Barbour, John, 89.
+Barclay, Robert, 228.
+Barham, Richard Harris, 437.
+Barklay, Alexander, 102.
+Barrow, Isaac, 230.
+Baxter, Richard, 226.
+Beattie, James, 356.
+Beaumont, Francis, 154.
+Beckford, William, 412.
+Bede the Venerable, 37.
+Benoit, 52.
+Berkeley, George, 278.
+Blair, Hugh, 369.
+Blind Harry, 89.
+Bolingbroke, Viscount, (Henry St. John,) 278.
+Boswell, James, 321.
+Browne, Sir Thomas, 225.
+Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 432.
+Browning, Robert, 434.
+Buchanan, George, 126.
+Buckle, Henry Thomas, 447.
+Bulwer, Edward George Earle Lytton, 450.
+Bunyan, John, 228.
+Burke, Edmund, 369.
+Burnet, Gilbert, 231.
+Burney, Frances, 368.
+Burns, Robert, 397.
+Burton, Robert, 125.
+Butler, Samuel, 198.
+Byron, Rt. Hon. George Gordon, 384
+
+Caedmon, 34.
+Cambrensis, Giraldus, 49.
+Camden, William, 126.
+Campbell, Thomas, 401.
+Carlyle, Thomas, 444.
+Cavendish, George, 102.
+Caxton, William, 92.
+Chapman, George, 127.
+Chatterton, Thomas, 340.
+Chaucer, Geoffrey, 60.
+Chillingworth, William, 222.
+Coleridge, Hartley, 427.
+Coleridge, Henry Nelson, 427.
+Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 424.
+Collier, John Payne, 153.
+Collins, William, 357.
+Colman, George, 366.
+Colman, George, (The Younger,) 366.
+Congreve, William, 236.
+Cornwall, Barry, 436.
+Colton, Charles, 205.
+Coverdale, Miles, 170.
+Cowley, Abraham, 195.
+Cowper, William, 353.
+Crabbe, George, 400.
+Cumberland, Richard, 363.
+Cunningham, Allan, 412.
+
+Daniel, Samuel, 127.
+Davenant, Sir William, 205.
+Davies, Sir John, 127.
+Defoe, Daniel, 282.
+Dekker, Thomas, 154.
+De Quincey, Thomas, 468.
+Dickens, Charles, 452.
+Dixon, William Hepworth, 449.
+Donne, John, 127.
+Drayton, Michael, 127.
+Dryden, John, 207.
+Dunbar, William, 90.
+Dunstan, (called Saint,) 41.
+
+Eadmer, 49.
+Edgeworth, Maria, 410.
+Erigena, John Scotus, 40.
+Etherege, Sir George, 238.
+Evelyn, John, 231.
+
+Falconer, William, 357.
+Farquhar, George, 238.
+Ferrier, Mary, 411.
+Fielding, Henry, 288.
+Fisher, John, 102.
+Florence of Worcester, 49.
+Foote, Samuel, 363.
+Ford, John, 154.
+Fox, George, 226.
+Froissart, Sire Jean, 58.
+Fronde, James Anthony, 448.
+Fuller, Thomas, 224.
+
+Gaimar, Geoffrey, 52.
+Garrick, David, 361.
+Gay, John, 252.
+Geoffrey, 52.
+Geoffrey of Monmouth, 48.
+Gibbon, Edward, 317
+Gillies, John, 441.
+Goldsmith, Oliver, 301.
+Gowen, John, 86.
+Gray, Thomas, 351.
+Greene, Robert, 136.
+Greville, Sir Fulke, 127.
+Grostete, Robert, 59.
+Grote, George, 440.
+
+Hakluyt, Richard, 126.
+Hall, Joseph, 221.
+Hallam, Henry, 448.
+Harvey, Gabriel, 110.
+Heber, Reginald, 436.
+Hemans, Mrs. Felicia Dorothea, 409.
+Henry of Huntingdon, 49.
+Hennyson, Robert, 90.
+Herbert, George, 203.
+Herrick, Robert, 204.
+Heywood, John, 131.
+Higden, Ralph, 50.
+Hobbes, Thomas, 125.
+Hogg, James, 412.
+Hollinshed, Raphael, 126.
+Hood, Thomas, 467.
+Hooker, Richard, 125.
+Hope, Thomas, 412.
+Hume, David, 311.
+Hunt, Leigh, 411.
+Hyde, Edward, Earl of Clarendon, 205.
+
+Ingelow, Jean, 437.
+Ingulphus, Abbot of Croyland, 49.
+Ireland, Samuel, 153.
+
+James I, (of Scotland,) 89.
+Johnson, Doctor Samuel, 324.
+Jonson, Ben, 153.
+Junius, 331.
+
+Keats, John, 407.
+Keble, John, 437.
+Knowles, James Sheridan, 436.
+Kyd, Thomas, 136.
+
+Lamb, Charles, 466.
+Landon, Letitia Elizabeth, 410.
+Langland, 56.
+Latimer, Hugh, 102.
+Layamon, 53.
+Lee, Nathaniel, 240.
+Leland, John, 102.
+Lingard, John, 446.
+Locke, John, 231.
+Lodge, Thomas, 135.
+Luc de la Barre, 52.
+Lydgate, John, 90.
+Lyly, John, 136.
+
+Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 441.
+Mackay, Charles, 437.
+Mackenzie, Henry, 307.
+Macpherson, Doctor James, 336.
+Mahon, Lord, 447.
+Mandevil, Sir John, 58.
+Manning, Robert, 59.
+Marlowe, Christopher, 134.
+Marston, John, 136.
+Massinger, 154.
+Matthew of Westminster, 49.
+Mestre, Thomas, 32.
+Milton, John, 174.
+Mitford, William, 444.
+Moore, Thomas, 390.
+More, Hannah, 367.
+More, Sir Thomas, 99.
+
+Napier. Sir William Francis Patrick, 447.
+Nash, Thomas, 136.
+Newton, Sir Isaac, 278.
+Norton, Mrs. Caroline Elizabeth, 410.
+
+Occleve, Thomas, 89.
+Ormulum, 54.
+Otway, Thomas, 239.
+
+Paley, William, 370.
+Paris, Matthew, 49.
+Parnell, Thomas, 252.
+Pecock, Reginald, 102.
+Peele, George, 136.
+Penn, William, 227.
+Pepys, Samuel, 232.
+Percy, Dr. Thomas, (Bishop,) 358.
+Philip de Than, 52.
+Pollok, Robert, 411.
+Pope, Alexander, 241.
+Prior, Matthew, 251.
+Purchas, Samuel, 126.
+
+Quarles, Francis, 203.
+
+Raleigh, Sir Walter, 126.
+Richard I., (Coeur de Lion,) 52.
+
+Richardson, Samuel, 285.
+Robert of Gloucester, 55.
+Robertson, William, 315.
+Roger de Hovedin, 49.
+Rogers, Samuel, 403.
+Roscoe, William, 413.
+Rowe, Nicholas, 240.
+
+Sackville, Thomas, 127.
+Scott, Sir Michael, 59.
+Scott, Walter, 371.
+Shakspeare, William, 137.
+Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 405.
+Shenstone, William, 357.
+Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 364.
+Sherlock, William, 230.
+Shirley, 154.
+Sidney, Sir Philip, 107.
+Skelton, John, 95.
+Smollett, Tobias George, 292.
+South, Robert, 230.
+Southern, Thomas, 240.
+Southey, Robert, 421.
+Spencer, Edmund, 104.
+Steele, Sir Richard, 264.
+Sterne, Lawrence, 296.
+Still, John, 132.
+Stillingfleet, Edward, 230.
+Stow, John, 126.
+Strickland, Agnes, 447.
+Suckling, Sir John, 204.
+Surrey, Earl of, 98.
+Swift, Jonathan, 268.
+Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 437.
+
+Tailor, Robert, 136.
+Taylor, Jeremy, 223.
+Temple, Sir William, 277.
+Tennyson, Alfred, 428.
+Thackeray, Anne E., 465.
+Thackeray, William Makepeace, 459.
+Thirlwall, Connop, 441.
+Thomas of Ercildoun, 59.
+Thomson, James, 347.
+Tickell, Thomas, 252.
+Tupper, Martin Farquhar, 437.
+Turner, Sharon, 448.
+Tusser, Thomas, 102.
+Tyndale, William, 169.
+Tytler, Patrick Frazer, 446.
+
+Udall, Nicholas, 132.
+
+Vanbrugh, Sir John, 237.
+Vaughan, Henry, 205.
+Vitalis, Ordericus, 49.
+
+Wace, Richard, 51.
+Waller, Edmund, 204.
+Walpole, Horace, 321.
+Walton, Izaak, 202.
+Warton, Joseph, 368.
+Warton, Thomas, 368.
+Watts, Isaac, 252.
+
+Webster, 154.
+White, Henry Kirke, 358.
+Wiclif, John, 77.
+William of Jumieges, 49.
+William of Malmsbury, 47.
+William of Poictiers, 49.
+Wither, George, 203.
+Wolcot, John, 367.
+Wordsworth, William, 415.
+Wyat, Sir Thomas, 97.
+Wycherley, William, 235.
+
+Young, Edward, 253.
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+
+[1] His jurisdiction extended from Norfolk around to Sussex.
+
+[2] This is the usually accepted division of tribes; but Dr. Latham denies
+that the Jutes, or inhabitants of Jutland, shared in the invasion. The
+difficult question does not affect the scope of our inquiry.
+
+[3] Gibbon's Decline and Fall, c. lv.
+
+[4] H. Martin, Histoire de France, i. 53.
+
+[5] Vindication of the Ancient British Poems.
+
+[6] Craik's English Literature, i. 37.
+
+[7] Sharon Turner, History of the Anglo-Saxons, book ix., c. i.
+
+[8] Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary.
+
+[9] Kemble ("Saxon in England") suggests the resemblance between the
+fictitious landing of Hengist and Horsa "in three keels," and the Gothic
+tradition of the migration of Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Gepidae to the
+mouth of the Vistula in the same manner. Dr. Latham (English Language)
+fixes the Germanic immigration into Britain at the middle of the fourth,
+instead of the middle of the fifth century.
+
+[10] Lectures on Modern History, lect, ii.
+
+[11] Sharon Turner.
+
+[12] Turner, ch. xii.
+
+[13] For the discussion of the time and circumstances of the introduction
+of French into law processes, see Craik, i. 117.
+
+[14] Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, i. 199. For an admirable
+summary of the bardic symbolisms and mythological types exhibited in the
+story of Arthur, see H. Martin, Hist. de France, liv. xx.
+
+[15] Craik says, (i. 198,) "Or, as he is also called, _Lawemon_--for the
+old character represented in this instance by our modern _y_ is really
+only a guttural, (and by no means either a _j_ or a _z_,) by which it is
+sometimes rendered." Marsh says, "Or, perhaps, _Lagamon_, for we do not
+know the sound of _y_ in this name."
+
+[16] Introduction to the Poets of Queen Elizabeth's Age.
+
+[17] So called from his having a regular district or _limit_ in which to
+beg.
+
+[18] Spelled also Wycliffe, Wicliff, and Wyklyf.
+
+[19] Am. ed., i. 94.
+
+[20] Wordsworth, Ecc. Son., xvii.
+
+[21] "The Joyous Science, as the profession of minstrelsy was termed, had
+its various ranks, like the degrees in the Church and in chivalry."--_Sir
+Walter Scott_, (_The Betrothed_.)
+
+[22] 1st, the real presence; 2d, celibacy; 3d, monastic vows; 4th, low
+mass; 5th, auricular confession; 6th, withholding the cup from the laity.
+
+[23] "The Earl of Surrey is said to have translated one of Virgil's books
+without rhyme, and, besides our tragedies, a few short poems had appeared
+in blank verse.... These petty performances cannot be supposed to have
+much influenced Milton; ... finding blank verse easier than rhyme, he was
+desirous of persuading himself that it is better."--_Lives of the
+Poets--Milton_.
+
+[24] From this dishonor Mr. Froude's researches among the statute books
+have not been able to lift him, for he gives system to horrors which were
+before believed to be eccentric; and, while he fails to justify the
+monarch, implicates a trembling parliament and a servile ministry, as if
+their sharing the crime made it less odious.
+
+[25] The reader's attention is called--or recalled--to the masterly
+etching of Sir Philip Sidney, in Motley's History of the United
+Netherlands. The low chant of the _cuisse rompue_ is especially pathetic.
+
+[26] This last claim of title was based upon the voyages of the Cabots,
+and the unsuccessful colonial efforts of Raleigh and Gilbert.
+
+[27] Froude, i. 65.
+
+[28] Introduction to fifth canto of Marmion.
+
+[29] Froude, i. 73.
+
+[30] Opening scene of The Merry Wives of Windsor.
+
+[31] Rev. A. Dyce attributes this play to Marlowe or Kyd.
+
+[32] The dates as determined by Malone are given: many of them differ from
+those of Drake and Chalmers.
+
+[33]
+
+    If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined
+    The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.
+
+_Pope, Essay on Man_.
+
+[34] Life of Addison.
+
+[35] Macaulay: Art. on Warren Hastings.
+
+[36] The handwriting of Junius professionally investigated by Mr. Charles
+P. Chabot. London, 1871.
+
+[37] H. C. Robinson, Diary II., 79.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of English Literature, Considered as an
+Interpreter of English History, by Henry Coppee
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